Thanks Coen for the new home!

It kind of feels good to be one of the leading pack of the exodus, though I wish it wasn't necessary.

I will miss the back door to tech support, through the forums, but I think that was going to be greatly minimized by the new forum location anyway.

Good luck, Coen, in trying to get the original forum history transfered; that would be unbelievable awesome.

Cheers, Chuck

If you happen to have a Mac, shift/alt/4 all at the same time gives you a crosshairs that allows you to draw a window and get a png. This works particularly well with dual monitors.

Hahahaha!

I like the way you think Ross!

Well, to add a bit of irony to the whole thing, I have had very little respect for Fallingwater and, quite frankly, Frank Lloyd Wright in general. I never understood how everyone got into a lather about a house that was falling apart before they even finished building it, leaks water like a sieve, and took 9 million dollars worth of remodeling to bolt the house to the rock to keep it from falling off the hill. And this is considered one of the greatest house designs in America. Kind of tells you something about us, just interested in the surface fluff with much less value placed on quality and longevity.

Craig, I am glad to hear that things are in the works! I am not to the point of giving up (the Sketchup interface really is flat out awesome and makes the other modeling programs seem like stone age tools) but I do more architectural visualization work than design and most of my projects are developing flyovers for 50+ acre, 100+ unit projects for "big" developers. But still "cheap" There are just times when I feel that I have wrung all the quality of export I can out of Sketchup and find it still lacking somewhat. Too much flickering; too much moire; clipping can sometimes make the interior animations a real trick to get right since camera locations have to be just right to avoid it; and dxf exports that drop more lines than they bring in.

I could not agree more about not enough time being spent on design excellence. But, since I am already hovering on the edge of hijacking this thread, I am going to leave that be for now.

There are plenty of softwares that will accept 3ds, fbx, or obj formats, all of which Sketchup Pro will export. As far as taking skippies, that list is much smaller, and perhaps empty in the Mac world.

Tom, I, too, am running a "small" business. I have actually been a custom builder and furniture maker for the last 17 years and architectural visualization is a pretty recent reinvention of myself. When I first learned about Sketchup it was the closest thing to religion I had encountered in a long time. I mean, I was a total believer. But, I have a nasty habit of pushing envelopes and taking things to their limits. And my initial euphoria is waning because I have run up against limitations that are not being addressed. There are no quick and easy (one of the things that Sketchup completely kicks a#$ at) solutions for quality presentations. At the least, it takes a few softwares working together and lots of practice. My main workflow usually starts with Sketchup, then Quicktime Pro, Photoshop, Cheetah3D, autopanoPro for my cycloramas, Cubic converter to make my virtual tours, etc. etc.

But, and this is a big but, almost every software I work with, other than Sketchup, has really improved drastically in the last 2 years. Compare, for example, the difference between the most recent Photoshop (CS3) update and Sketchup's. Photoshop worked flawlessly from the get go, added features that were not only really useful, but WORKED right out of the box, and there has been not one update since it released because they had it right when they released it. Compare that to Sketchup's release, which was fraught with peril right from the get go (remember the license fiasco, thank god for Craig for helping us all out during that crazy couple of weeks) and was a less than amazing update. Just like you, Tom, I still use ver 5 for almost everything and I use an Intel Mac which means that big models suck to navigate through.

How crazy is that! We were given a free copy of SU6, which everyone had been waiting for, for what seemed like ages, and a lot of us have tried it and gone back to 5. Yikes! And Layout has been a terrible disappointment; there has been talk about "grizzly" for almost three years and Layout is still it's original beta from 9 months ago!?! And needs so many work arounds as to be almost useless. Yikes again. And I need Layout; I would love to use Layout, but it is not the best piece of software.

Spence, I hear you!! I was so excited that morning when I logged into the Sketchup forums and saw that 6 had just released. It was like Christmas for adults. And it has been nothing but downhill since that moment. Everything since has been one letdown after another.

The ONLY bright spot has been this forum!! Can you imagine how low we would be without it? Where would we be if Coen hadn't stepped and pulled off a miracle? I am just saying................

I did notice that Eterea is a one man show. That is impressive, no doubt. My hat is definitely off to him. Like I said in my earlier post, his animations are so good they are depressing. It just feels to me like the "bar" is continually being set higher and higher and Sketchup hasn't really improved in years. In fact, somethings have gotten worse.

I definitely think the glory days have passed us by. I'm just starting to wonder if I need to move on to softwares that are both producing high end output and are showing a track record for wanting to improve and evolve.

I think Cheetah3D, a modeling/rendering software that is mac only is a perfect example of a software developer who is heading in the right direction. He has something like 6 updates since the flawed Sketchup 6 came out, and when I say updates, I am talking about significant additions and improvements to major portions of the software. The silence out of Boulder is deafening. If it wasn't for Craig, think how silent it would be...............

And Layout is still beta?!?! I mean, I find all of this very disturbing and definitely not encouraging for the future.

@unknownuser said:

@solo said:

DANG!!!

That's awesome, thanks for sharing.

The interior is amazing, wow!!

What app was used for that???

Number 3 on the FAQ lists the software.
http://www.etereaestudios.com/docs_html/general_index_htm/faq.htm

I never heard of it beofre... E.I.A.S.
http://eitechnologygroup.com/products/electric_image_animation_system

And no mention of Sketchup, as if we are already falling of the map, so to speak.

I guess what bums me out is that I am a compulsive perfectionist and I have an inner angst when I see that awesome things other people are doing and I know that I am not in a market that will allow me to even approach this level of animation.

I am a one man operation, and I wouldn't have it any other way, so this sort of product is really beyond my reach and that is a drag. I want to be able to produce top of the line and technology has basically made it impossible for me, as a solo guy, to do that.

Oh well, I guess it's back to spending all day filling in the lines that Sketchup's dxf exports (which is very poor IMHO) left out.

I have this funny, yucky, feeling that Sketchup is rapidly not keeping up with the Joneses. What was awesome and impressive 4-5 years ago begins to pale against things that are happing now. And, unfortunately, I really think that being in Google's hands (who, let's face it, are only interested in populating Google Earth with low poly rudimentary 3D structures) will end up being the kiss of death for Sketchup going in the direction that professionals who are as interested, if not more so, in output (be it animation, still images, blueprints, etc.) than ease of modeling will need to compete in an increasingly knowledgable and demanding market

The time I save modeling in Sketchup, (whose interface and ease and speed of modeling is most excellent and satisfactory, of course) begins to look not so impressive when you start spending tons of time cleaning up dxf exports, post processing animations to achieve a professional product, not to mention having to use ver 5 1/2 the time due to export issues with ver 6.

Perhaps I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, but I have a increasingly disturbing feeling that two years from now, I won't be able to use Sketchup anymore because the work arounds and poor export product will just not be satisfactory for the sophisticated market in which we will be working.

Well, that is so good it is depressing.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that native sketchup animations just don't cut it when clients are beginning to be aware of this level of sophistication.

I am putting together a large series of animation for a proposal and to say that it looks wooden and computery compared to this is a huge understatement. Between jagged lines flickering across the screen as a model rotates, and moire patterns swirling around on the roof and siding textures, and less than predictable exports (at times) I am suddenly feeling quite amateurish.

I have no idea what amount of time went into fallingwater, but I am sure it was a huge amount. Between modeling, texturing, setting all the lights for rendering, the actual time exporting out a rendered animation (had to have been weeks of rendering, probably in many passes) and post production (itself a huge and varied task) we are talking a level of product that has to be very expensive.

My concern is that clients see this sort of animation, as well as Pixar/Disney stuff and that is the level that they come to comprehend as "good" with no thought about the hundreds and thousands of hours required to produce it. So, they see a non-rendered animation with minimal effects and they are less than impressed, though the price is still not cheap as we are still talking about modeling, texturing, setting scenes, exporting, post, etc.

I suppose I am having a bit of a crisis of confidence because I just can't compete with this level of sophistication and knowing that it is possible makes me even more less than thrilled with what I am producing.

sigh................

Still no official word, FWIW.

Anssi, you make an excellent point. My jpegs were batch processed out of Photoshop on a Mac. I looked through the Photoshop preferences to force a PC compatible version and found nothing that allowed me to change the jpeg version (Mac or PC).

Any idea how to change the batch save settings?

Thanks.

I completely agree. Upgrading the animation aspect of SU is badly needed and would be highly appreciated by at least me.

Thanks, Paul, for the great advice.

I am just about to start populating this quadrant with "stuff"; I have been looking forward to this for weeks. I think trees will make a huge difference, too.

My glass is opaque, since all of the buildings are just shells, but I will experiment with a bluer glass and see what it looks like.

I am torn with the pavement. Right now, I am just using a solid color because I find that the asphalt textures really flicker badly when animating. I agree that I need to do something to make the roads look more realistic.

Thanks again for taking the time to jot down your suggestions.

Like the leaning tower of Kitzigen, Germany.

The story there is they ran out of water for the mortar as they were building the coned roof, used beer instead, and now it leans quite a few degrees.

@unknownuser said:

I like the world you have created there and in particular the ground work to tie it all together. I agree that the big buildings should be more subtle. The only other thing is the bridge. If you could place a material that flows along the arch of the bridge then it would be more distinguishable.

Nice job...post them more often please....cheers!!

A material that follows the arch (throws up a little) that sounds like fun

I appreciate your attention to detail... (adds arch detail to list.....)

Ha, that's funny. I was just thinking I was going to ask the principal if can lop a floor off all of the taller brownstones. There are other buildings with different heights, but I know what you mean by loom.

I have the light turned down right now for modeling, but good point.

My secret hope is I can manage to get the go a head to render, either out of Cheetah or Vue, probably Vue, because I would like to go nuts over the foliage.

We'll see how the budget holds. The overall project is 160 acres with a maybe for 80 more. I am really enjoying the magnitude of this badboy.

I think what the layman doesn't see is that there is a need for not only modeling ability, but also the essential black art of optimization while maintaining as an efficient editability as possible. Not to mention vast range of design decisions. It definitely can feel daunting at times.

Here is the most recent BOP (big 'ol project), way way WIP.

Paul, you can see why I asked about your road workflow. I was hoping to god that you had some magical, non- brute force way to do it.
Suggestions and critique always desired and appreciated!

18 meg file, so far, and rising quickly...

You guys do know that, per the Google Earth legals, that you can't use their images for ANYTHING professional, right.

We had a long conversation about this is the old forums. Basically, Google Earth's legals say that it is for your own personal use. Period. No giving printouts to anyone; no showing your client his property in Google Earth, no nothing. And that is also the case for the Pro version, as crazy as that sounds.

To use an image in a professional environment, you must snail mail (!) a written request on a per image basis and ask for permission. No guarantee that you will be approved.

This goes for print and computer data.

There is all kinds of talk about this on the Google Earth site; it is actually quite crazy. I have basically stopped using Google Earth because what's the point if I can see it, but I can't use it professionally.

Call me crazy, but be careful!

Thanks Paul! Great ideas in that tutorial; I really appreciate it!

Hi Paul, great work!

I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on how you do your roads. Are all of the street markings modeled, textured, and lines hidden? Did you use some sort of a ruby for laying down all the dashed lines?

I am very impressed with the level of detail; it is just beautiful.

I never get tired of looking at your church! That is an absolutely astounding piece of work.

It's nice to know I haven't reached the end of Sketchup's capabilities and that I have a lot to learn.