Hi,

After reading your post I remembered for some time I wanted to model and render a real ornate backgammon board with pearl and brass/gold wire inlays. (I am too lazy to do that and I eventually purchased one as in the image.)

Now how would one model and obtain a super realistic render of something like this within a reasonable time and effort?

Regards

Ogan Ocali

Nice work Kenan. If you want to increase photo-realism you might want to try fading out the colors smoothly (to a bluish tone you get at the horizon) as objects gets farther away from the camera. This would imitate atmospheric effects impacting the balcony view mostly.

congrats
Ogan

Hi,
The best way to get familiar with the tools is to download trial versions and play with them.

Quad based and Tgi3d upsample tools are quite different. You will initially get pleasant and unpleasant surprises in all the increase resolution tools. In my opinion the real art and challenge is to create models with minimum number of polygons.

To get an idea which path tgi3d took you can watch the video at
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=31565

Hi,
Yes we are looking in to this. We will have a new version released with this issue fixed within a few days (mon. 25th is our target).

Regards
Ogan Ocali

Hi,

I think chanz is asking essentially an internal question to sketchup. And the answer is yes. In sketchup component instances store a reference to the contents of the component (rather than the contents themselves) along with a transformation ( translation, rotation, scaling (+ shearing )) that is specific to the instance. chanz is also asking about exporting instance info. Instance info can be exported depending on where you are exporting your model to and how. For example kerkythe can optionally export Sk model instance based (therefore potentially much more efficiently).

Thanks,
also today I noticed that the extruder mount was loose, after tightening it I observed a significant improvement in fidelity.

the one on the left is after tightening the mount.

Hi,

A few days ago I purchased a cheap 3d printer from a neighbor company (in our research park). As I understand it could be built for a couple of hundred dollars if you had the time and access to another 3D printer, but these guys build it test it and accessorize it for a couple hundred surcharge. The first few days I had the printer was not very productive but eventually I figured out the quirks (extruder, bed temperatures, print speed supports, wall thickness and more issues). Now I am a little excited, its like a new door opens....

The material is carbon fiber powder abs composite. It is supposed to be stiffer and stronger than plain abs (which is yet to be seen).

regards

Ogan Ocali

For some time now. Existing users can update free of charge.
Just download and run the installer. It will find and upgrade for all existing versions of Sketchup.

Good luck

Ogan Ocali

Thanks to TIG and JQL.

From the ruby console I changed the value of Sketchup.break_edges and performed a few run time tests on big meshes. I could not oberve any time difference between true and false values of Sketchup.break_edges variable. Apparently there is a much more costly operation that is performed at the end user move completion. I wish the testers at trimble had a few large mesh cases to push the developers for a performance improvement...

Sorry to bring this up again but:

Firstly I am asking this feature as a user and not a plugin developer.

I agree that the " intersection and inference systems " of Sketchup is a great benefit to the novice user but there are occasions where they hurt rather than help the more advanced (potentially paying) user.

As for the coinciding edges after move the user would either have to select the relevant region and perform an intersect operation or make some kind of repair, or even leave it as it is.

I do not see how people can work with large meshes in Sketchup without this feature I am asking.

It should be relatively easy to implement and it should alleviate the performance issue that comes up frequently.

Admittedly there is the danger that a novice user could fuddle with this option and start complaining about behavior, but that is surmountable.

regards,
Ogan Ocali

Well, I don't think I was able explain my request. I want to be able to avoid Sketchup doing its auto intersect operation ( as an option ). This request is related to the performance issue of Sketchup.

Hi, long time no write,

As of now auto intersect check is (apparently) performed after each edit operation that can potentially create a topological connection (i.e. checks for vertices coinciding, with edges and vertices, edges with vertices, edges and faces etc, after each location change operation).

During 3D location change operations (move, resize, rotate, explode) I would like to be able to avoid Sketchup doing its automatic intersect operation. The check for vertices and edges and faces interacting with other similar objects is a computationally expensive operation, and it takes too much time for large mesh(es). Funny thing is Sketchup can not perform this operation properly anyway (it sometimes misses connections (one might argue it is impossible to do this perfectly)) and even create unintended connections (during a rotate when two meshes overlaps sometimes two vertices get too close and you get unintended connections).

Auto intersect "on" option would keep the current behavior of Sketchup, If the user is does not want/need new topological connections during a location change operation, this option would be turned "off" giving a faster and cleaner operation.

This issue came up during Tgi3D 64 bits port (which is now awailable), we were discussing what would give skethup a boost.... (we were expecting more from 64 bit Sketchup)

Thanks,

Ogan Ocali

I would bet that there are hidden/smooth lines inside your so-called plane.

Can you post the mesh or part of the mesh you want to be smoothed?

Ogan

Hi,

All work was done in SketchUp. Steps: Import photo, trace the outlines onto a plane, trace a skeleton, displace the central parts of the skeleton, weave meshes inside the blocks. I depended largely on Tgi3D's curve capabilities.

I am also attaching the sketchup file with the 3D warehouse licesing terms (i.e free). It can be easily slapped on a plane.
enjoy

Ogan

dragoncarving.skp

Thanks

Hi everybody

I have been lurking for quite sometime. I feel the next is worth posting.

Here is a dragon doodle

and in SketchUp as a metal carving on a lighter or something straight from vray.

same object with the material replaced with gypsum

By the way a question: Is there a way to teach the spellchecker the word SketchUp so it will not mark it?

Ogan Ocali

I just saw the haunted elevator video in solo's post http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=179&t=6064&start=4380#p442131. Really funny.

By the way, the guy with the blue shirt was Turkish. He said:

• What are you doing here?
• What's up with this?

He was talking with a slight accent. He is probably a turkish expat. It seems you revert to the native language under stress.

Recently a friend (student architect, graphic artist) showed me this technique to make the edges of a fur cut out furry. Basically you use the smear tool at the edges along the hair's general direction. Using this technique I prepared a texture image which can be used for a carpet in SU and renderers to share. The original alpaka fur is from wikimedia commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File;Alpaka_fur_carpet.jpg , it has a copyright donated to public, basically it is completely free you can do anything with it , so is my edited texture, you can find the copyright details following the link.

To get the best effect in vray, I paint both sides of the carpet rectangle with the texture, and for vray i check use-color-texture-as-transparency option on. I also place the carpet rectangle about an inch to half inch above the ground. A higher resolution version is also available but it seems unnecessary.
enjoy
Ogan

the image to be used as texture (its alpha channel is important)

line view of a scene

sketchup screen capture

vray rendering of the same scene

vray + gimp. Almost original materials except for small adjustments. The model could use some stuff on the shelves in my opinion.