Posts made by patrickbateman

Awesome, I would love to see your workflow, please post it!

How much is it I don't see anywhere to order sketch3d, just their other products?

Do their textures all have bump maps?

$700 a year for a subcription...

I mean it looks good but I can't justify spending that much on a subscription service.

While ~1000 plants sounds like a lot it's really not that much in practice if you are going for botanically accurate models which seems to be what you are marketing to. With CADplants I have 4000+ plant models and I still find myself having to create one out of every three plants we use and I am still faking a lot of plants with similar species from the collection. What is appealing about the dynascape collection is some of the 3D groundcovers and low plants/shrubs that don't work well as 2d images.

Look at CADplants- I paid $400 for 4000 plants and it's not a subcription service and I have them all downloaded as skp models and various high res image formats all saved that anyone can just grab and use. It looks like a good product but the format/price not so much for what it is. Just my opinion.

Just for clarification when I say realistic I don't need anything super crazy, just something that will render easily with podium v2 or something similar like shaderlight. Vue looks a little overkill for what I'm looking for and I'm trying to keep it simple. Basically I want to get a grass effect that looks better than just a texture applied to a surface that ends up looking like someone put down some green carpet like I'm getting now.

I've been using Podium V2... Hmm I don't know anything about vue I'll have to check it out but I really like the simplicity and speed of podium and their lighting/material library. Any ideas with Podium?

@earthmover said:

Some plugins to look into. (For starters)

Soap Skin & Bubble - Great for adding a mounded contour to bed shapes. http://www.tensile-structures.de/sb_software.html

UV Projection - For easily fixing grass and mulch textures on surfaces made using "From Contours" - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=34552

Selection Toys - All useful features. The select Quad face loops is great for selection of all sides on a wall or pillar cap. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=14975

Joint Push Pull - Useful in conjunction with select quad face loops to quickly add overhand to caps and step treads. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=6708

I also have worked out a great method for using the CadPlants library more effectively. It involves renaming the whole library to the common and botanical names instead of being numbered. I used a program called Advanced Renamer to do a batch renaming, utilizing the Excel file that comes with the plants to create a "list" and then using that list as the guidlines for batch renaming. I then use Project Sketch from RenderPlus to search and place the plant components. There is also a great little script that I asked to be developed which will take the CadPlants and have the face the camera all at once. It requires they all be on their own layer. - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=22084 If you need help with the renaming, let me know.

Another helpful thing would be a method I worked out for doing accurate soldier courses and pool coping. It involves multiple scripts. As soon as I have time, I'll put together a tutorial on this.

Regarding plants, you are on the right track. Making your own to supplement what you have is the best method for architects who are looking for accurate representation. I think you get a better result from 2D plants, unless you are animating, then 3D is the way to go. If you are only rendering still images, then I would use photoshop to composite in things like ground cover and grass. Birds eye view is tough with 2D plants. I typically do a plan view with plant symbols and then call out to a plant image or name. You could check out Sketch3D from Dynascape or FormFonts as well.

Hope that helps.

Awesome, I would love to compile a whole thread with tips like this. Can you give me more info on how to rename the whole CADplants library? Right now I have the whole lists printed out in a binder that I have to reference. Also, do you have issues with some of the plants coming in at absurd scales?

Another thing is with big groups of plants I would like to be able to randomly skew and scale them all. I found a plugin where you can automatically scale batches of components and set a scale interval but I really want something that will randomly skew and distort the images too, is there anything like that? I also do find it really annoying that they don't come in as face me components...

I'm looking to avoid compositing in plant matter in photoshop if possible, I've seen some great grass and really anything to bring it up a notch. Same with water, I would love to be able to get some more convincing ripples but the water looks much better than the groundcover.

How do you do your hedges?

One thing that is kind of annoying when creating topo from contours is that if the line segments aren't really divided up the topo won't conform to the contours and I have to go back and add more definition to the lines and split it up into smaller segments. Is there any plugin that will divide contours into small intervals automatically?

Are there any techniques to make convincing looking grass without using something crazy like the fuzz tool or post processing? Does anyone having any good grass textures with bump maps? Thanks

Very nice renderings. Where did you get those plants? I could really use some 3D ones to add to my collection. Also what is that rendered with?

I think I said it before, but where did you get those plants? They're awesome and really bring that render together.

Awesome, how did you do that grass?

Wow, where did you get those plants? I would love to find some nice 3d plants like that.

I consider myself a good sketchup modeler but nowhere near as advanced as some of the stuff on here. I just started a position where I do a lot of sketchup work for a landscape architecture firm (I was mainly hired because of my sketchup skills and experience). I am trying to get as advanced and efficient as possible and am looking for new techniques, must have plugins, extensions, and general things to make my life easier and models looking better. There are so many ruby plugins I don't know which ones I should install.

Right now I am using SU Podium extensively for rendering. I have been playing around with Land F/X and haven't really explored it yet but I have been using it for CAD cleanup before importing to sketchup and it works well. When working with topo I have had to go back and forth between CAD and sketchup a lot since editing topo in sketchup is difficult so I find myself importing topo, running sandbox tools, then going back to cad to fix things and doing it again a few times to get things right. I'm sure there's a better way.

I find myself spending a lot of time modeling the house or buildings on the site and getting detailed to make the landscape really look good against it. I could use some practice or tips to speed up modeling houses so I don't waste so much time on that aspect without them looking like blocks. I find clients really like seeing final renders where they can see how the landscape/hardscape really interacts with their house and look out from inside of it.

I got my office to purchase most of the CADplants library and it has been extremely valuable. Even with 4000+ plants I still find it doesn't have a good chunk of the plants we use and I am creating my own library to fill in the gaps which usually involves me finding an image, photoshopping it, and creating a component. My biggest challenge has been with hedge like shrubs and groundcovers. I try to only use accurate plant components so for groundcovers I find I copy the components many many times to create a realistic groundcover effect (see images below). It is kind of a pain copying everything out then dropping them onto topo and I'm sure there is a better way to do it. As for hedges the best way I have found is to create a tall skinny face-me component image and copy it out along the length of the hedge. The effect is decent and better than trying to apply a texture to geometry but I still wish there was a better way, and it looks alright for tall hedges but not some of the lower ones at certain angles. The 2D components are great except you can't show anything from plan view, I wish there was a way to easily substitute components with conceptual ones for plan view.

I'm the only one in the office who knows how to use skecthup so I am kind of learning on my own as I go and could really use some advice, tips, and tricks from landscape architects who have been using it in the profession for a while. I'm sure there is a ton I'm missing and would rather learn to do things right from the start.

Another big things is I wish there were better component and texture libraries out there, where do you find your components and textures? 3d warehouse is pretty limited, and I love the SU podium library but it is also tiny. I really need some good textures and I would really love some render ready textures with bump maps.To light houses I usually just create a big LEM on the ceiling and it works alright and is quick. For illuminating pools I have been making the bottom/sides LEMs as well.

So a few main things I would like to know-
-Tips for dealing with plants in general, especially using accurate images and techniques for groundcovers and hedges
-Tips for bringing models in sketchup back to cad
-Tips for quicker building modeling
-Must have plugins for landscape architects
-Where to find good textures/ rendering tips
-any resources for simple 3d plants to test out?
-General advice for a beginner landscape architect bringing sketchup into a firm and doing it right from the start

http://i.imgur.com/xLWuol.jpg
http://imgur.com/pVXcM
http://i.imgur.com/O69eJ.png