@majid said in Blender, or, Blender for artists?:

Considering the learning curve, I do not feel there is a big difference between Max and Blender

Of course is 100% subjective.
Both are fairly complex pieces of software with a steep learning curve.
If one is starting from scratch, they are probably equivalent complexity-wise.
But if you are accustomed to 3dsMax logic like I am, then Blender looks quite odd.
Aside from the 3d cursor thing, the whole object/collections Vs standard layers/nested layers/object/nested objects looks pretty much confusing for me, I feel more comfortable switching between other pieces of software where you find a more consistent scene hierarchy management.
But, again, it's probably mostly due to the the way I'm accustomed to work than the software itself.

@majid said in Blender, or, Blender for artists?:

it seems that all these tools will be abandoned or replaced |changed by developing AI-based tools in 4-5 years

I usually refrain from this kind of predictions, I think nobody really knows what will happen.
I doubt that they will be completely replaced, there will certainly be some kind of increasingly widespread integration of AI tools, but... we'll see

@Rich-O-Brien said in Reference images:

I use PureRef

This.
I use it all the times, not only for moodboards and reference images, but also for any kind of generic references..
I collect all kind of images, technical sheets and screenshot (for memorandum and different versions of model structures, nodegraph variations, render setup, topology layout and UV packing on the go).
Sometimes I also use it to collect notes, color samples or links to videos and webpages relate to projects.
One of my most used "not-strictly-3d-related" tools (alongside other useful utilities such as XmouseButtonControl and BulkRenameUtility).

@Rich-O-Brien said in [Plugin] ExtrudeTools - Full Set:

I occasionally dig it our for certain tasks

I use "extrude edges by rails" all the times. I believe it's the first plugin I ever used and I originally discovered the whole Sketchucation community because of that. Still using it after maybe 15 years. Love it. (Should be a native tool)

Another free one you could look into is the "radial bend" feature from Fredoscale. The plugin also includes other really useful features such as tapering, stretching, twisting and so on..

@rv1974 I'll check.. I don't know the Curic true isolate plugin..

Nice model and render!

@Rich-O-Brien said in Blender, or, Blender for artists?:

SketchUp conventions are actually off piste in comparison to other modelling tools

As a 3dsMax user, I have to say that even Blender conventions are.. just to name one, that wole "3d cursor" logic is driving me crazy so bad that each time I try to give Blender a shot, I just end up closing it and do something else

@Rich-O-Brien said:

Thats really nice. Would love to play Tony Hawk's around that

You actually can, because Marseille/Prado is included in the game.
here is the model from early version of the game which some guy uploaded to warehouse.
At first glance I thought that he did a sloppy job at replicating the game model, but I checked on Youtube and they actually used this remarkably bad version in the first edition of the game.. .

They did a way better job in the newer version of the game, but it's still unrealistic. The whole model is still a bit out of scale in order to make the flat bottom way more stretched than it actually is in real world.

I can tell that with no doubt, because I'm a former BMX rider and a skatepark builder (I actually designed both the concrete skateparks in my city alongside multiple other wooden ramps and dirt jumping trails) and I rode myself the Prado bowl multiple times.
It's a legendary skatepark, so about 20 years ago we used to travel all the way up from south Italy to Marseille to ride that beauty.

Absolutely killer skatepark.. it would not ride that fast in real world if the flat bottom was overstretched like the one in game.. it would loose all the lines and rhythm that made that park so fun to ride.
I don't know why they did the 3d model that bad.. I guess it has to do with game logic and "playability".

@Rich-O-Brien said:

Really appreciate the UDIM workflow. I thinks it something we need to have a think about implementing in WrapR

What you would like to implement? Is actually already working quite well and it's pretty straightforward once you grasp the base logic.
They should consider to implement that UDIM logic in Sketchup itself, so that one can import a single material with multiple UDIMs, while according to the current logic you need to export with a single material and import back multiple different materials like I showed here.
Considering how long they took to implement (half baked) PBR support, I guess they'll include UDIM tiles in Sketchup 2038 or something..

Maybe you could make the tiles edge more obvious in the WrapR UV grid/background?
But again.. you can consider each 4 by 4 color square (in the default WrapR texture) as a reference for the tile. Or simply use a UV checker texture with a really eye catching border like I showed here.
Using that texture, whenever I see magenta showing up on the mesh, I can quickly visually tell that something is wrong in the UV layout and Substance will reject the model because of some nasty UV island overlapping across UDIM spaces, so.. not a big deal.

@HornOxx thank you a lot

Bowl du Prado.

The infamous Marseille Skatepark.

I''ll do some minor tweaks and a bit of housekeeping (organizing layers, purging, renaming, setting scenes and styles and whatnot)
Then I'll share this model (including the lowpoly cage, the pbr maps and a 3d printable version) for you guys to take a closer look at this workflow.
I will probably do a separate post with the download link and a bunch of screenshots to explain the main steps of this workflow.

@Rich-O-Brien Pretty straight forward..
I'd expected a more noticeable distortion.. so I was fancying about about geospheres or some other funny way to over-complicate life

@Rich-O-Brien you used spherical UVs?

Excellent. How did you do the faceted one in second image?
I wold be curious to se a wireframe of it.

@Dave-R I would recommend to crop such kind of "self repeating" texture into a single tile, so that it weights about 50 times less for the same quality.
Unless you need to add some variation on top of that, of course.

Had been a while since the last time i did a model just for fun. So I picked a super fun one and started working on it in my spare time.

@Rich-O-Brien I sometimes disagreed with his opinions, but indeed he was a great person. He'll be missed for sure.

@lovellmarc not sure about the SketchUp/Rhino version, but in Vray for 3dsMax there's an useful option in the proxy settings window called "extract mesh" (or something like that), which does exactly what you are asking for. Did you check if there's a similar option in the SU version?

@roximate maybe just move it to the bin and download a new one from scratch?

@alexpacio2013 what are those balck dummyes around the tires and helmet?
Maybe some Vray for Sketchup decals?

@tuna1957 thank you ️