Hello all, thanks for the comments. Personally I need all the help I can get to produce a decent image, I'm OK at the building side of things but when it comes to anything artistic I'm usually stumped.

Scott,
Holy S*** Scott, I'm episodic so only get them periodically, I don't think I could cope with chronic CH's, 14 months @ 7-8/day...boy you must be going through the pure oxygen faster than a rain forest can make it!

EDIT:
I wrote the stuff below before I re-read Scots post and realised that what he's suffering is measurably worse than I go through, I was going to take it out because I wrote it assuming Scott was new to the world of CH's and some of it would have been/is patronising.
I've decided to leave it here in case there is anyone else out there who suffers or more importantly doesn't know that the excruciating pain they get all of a sudden at 3am every day is actually treatable.
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I've suffered from cluster headaches for about 8 years, the first batch were about 6-10 events and as I didn't know they were CH's. I just used regular pain med's putting them down to stress - FAIL!
When I got the 2nd batch (15-20 events) about a year later I was straight down the doctors and was very very lucky to have a doctor who had studied neurology and knew them straight away. They are often mis-diagnosed for years in some people leading a number of them to commit suicide. CH's are also known as suicide headaches by the way!!
The doctor prescribed me Imigran tablets(Sumatriptan) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatriptan. These are MAGIC tablets, never have I taken any med's that and have an effect so quickly; about 1/2-3/4 hour from taking one to pain free.
Since then I've had them about every 18 months with (worryingly) the last 2 clusters lasting about 2 months with on average 2 attacks a day.
For this most recent cluster (40-50 events)I got Imigran Injections, they're like the disposable ones diabetics use that do all the nasty work for you, all you have to do is put it against your thigh and press the button....Ouch! WOW what a difference; 10 mins from pain to COMPLETELY pain free.
The only problem with Sumatriptan is that any more than 2 tablets/injections in 24 hours and you run the risk of stopping your heart. I weighed this up on a couple of occasions and chose the chance of death over the CH pain and took once or twice upto 4 in 24 hours!!

Here's some links:
Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache
Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headache (UK based):
http://www.ouchuk.org
US Cluster headache site:
http://www.clusterheadaches.com

Hello all,
I haven't posted here for a while due to a 2 month batch of cluster headaches that are only now going away, so I thought I'd come back with a little gift for everybody.

I stumbled across this: http://jakegarn.com/the-rule-of-thirds/ and thought it might be useful to have a simple style with the Fibonacci spiral as an overlay for image composition.
The style itself is just the basic default one without visible axis and a transparent overlay.

In the attached zip file (FibonacciSTYLES.zip) there is a folder with 8 styles; 4 portrait and 4 landscape with the spiral rotated/flipped in each 4.

Copy the folder to your styles folder (usually C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Styles) and you should find it in the dropdown list on the Styles Pallet/Window

I've also attached the original 8 PNG's that I used in case you want them.

The way I see them being used is that you'd switch to one of the Fibonacci styles, compose the view, switch back to your preferred style and then save the scene.

Enjoy...

FibonacciSTYLES.zip

FibonacciPNG.zip

Brilliant, thanks for this.

Rewrote the disabled ramp sheet.

Disabled Ramp Calculations.xls

These are 2 Excel spreadsheets I've knocked up for calculating stairs and disabled ramps.
They use UK regulations and are in metric but the default values are on the sheets so they can be changed per your local regs.

The Staircalc.xls uses a couple of small macros so you'll have to click 'Enable macros' whenever you open it.

I've tried to make them self explanatory but if you can find a way to improve them feel free to let me know.

Disabled Ramp Calculations.xls

StairCalc.xls

Church update:

The builders have been busy, makes you wonder if they're being paid by the shovel full:

They've dug down about 1.2m as they found that there were NO foundations and had to put some in!!

I've been busy on the model but nothing to show at the moment:
New Floor design/patten
New Pew layout/spacing
New altar area
Organ removed revealing 3 new windows

He's sweating like a rapist:
Looks like he's going to be found out

Dropping the kids of at the pool:
Going for a number 2

Taataa a bit:
Brumie (Birmingham) for see you later

Do you think I came up the Belfast lough in a bubble?:
Just how gullible do you think I am?

@unknownuser said:

AHA - you did have a section cut.

Oops
Its one I 'used' when I was working on the floor, I'd forgotten it was in the model as it was switched off, sorry.

Al,
That was quick!

There appears to be a couple 'funnies' in the pano:
Shadows are being cast for objects that are not visible - see the trancept wall 90deg to the right of the altar area, you can see the shadow of the 3 windows in the wall but there're above the section cut.
Some of the textures/materials are missing - The column's, the column bases and the center isle (side isles are ok).

Other than that......Impressive.

Al,
Check your PM's

Been a bit ill over the past week but spent my time mucking about with animations.

I've knocked this up as a proof of concept, It ends rather abruptly and whilst the music suits, the lyrics don't so if it goes any further I'll have to find something else.

[flash=640,360:181chcdr]http://www.youtube.com/v/_HlhveesvwM&ap=%2526fmt%3D22[/flash:181chcdr]
Click on the link to see it in full 720 HD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HlhveesvwM

Heres a link to the track, Its called Lost Property by The Divine Comedy
[flash=400,400:181chcdr]http://www.youtube.com/v/RnlLhq1kW10&ap=%2526fmt%3D22[/flash:181chcdr]

Here's another one from Neil Hannon of The Divine Commedy........FECK!
[flash=400,300:181chcdr]http://www.youtube.com/v/jzYzVMcgWhg&ap=%2526fmt%3D22[/flash:181chcdr]

Did a quick anim last night using Smustard's flightpath plugin. Youtube seems to have over compressed the video resulting in the textures looking poor.

[flash=854,504:2ep0jqg0]http://www.youtube.com/v/hfVBeNC4Das&ap=%2526fmt%3D22[/flash:2ep0jqg0]

@pixero said:

Have you tried this button?

Damn you Jan, I spat my coffee all over my keyboard when I saw that image!

I'm sorely tempted to try and edit the TW rubys so that it actually say that!

@dale said:

But, how would you handle it if you were asked to do a public market or nightclub, where people really complete the scene?

Ummmm, Ok you got me, I'd probably end up with about 90% of the images being straight SU with the remaining 10% rendered.
I imagine that there would be 1 or 2 renders in the initial pitch, straight SU during design and development and 1 or 2 again prior sign off.
As for people I personally hate photo cutout cars and people in a rendered scene, unless the building and all its fittings look as real as the people look they stand out like a sore thumb, the image Miguel linked is how I'd do people in a rendered image.

@drewpoeppel said:

I'm an architect. I find that with my attempts at Photo realistic renders the clients, and sometime myself, get too hung up on the entourage and don't focus on the building, which is almost always the most important. My skills at render programs sucks, so that doesn't help. With going a more artistic or straight sketchup route I'm better able to focus the client and myself on whats important.

I went away from rendering a long time ago for just this reason, I'm not an architect so its my job to produce the materials my boss needs to communicate his design. My/our models are used to show the design of the building, the layout of the spaces etc.

This is a typical (though unfinished) model that I knock out, the building is a refurb, thus the awkward layout:

Clarity is the key point with these models, its easy to see the circulation, offices etc. The colours are so deliberately wrong that nobody ever asks 'Are the offices going to be bright blue?' they only say 'so that's where the offices are going'.
If I was to render this, I'd have to fill all the rooms with appropriate furniture, colour all the walls white or a range of off white colours, light each space and most importantly wait hours for each image to render. When the rendered images are shown to the client for discussion; instead of talking about the layout the conversation invariably turns to 'are you planning on green carpet in there?' or 'what kind of light fitting is that?'. The render distracts instead of informs.

Now don't get me wrong, I love a good rendered image and if you've seen my recent church renders you might wonder what the hell I'm going on about, to be honest they're just tests, there was and is no requirement for them on the project, I only did them to see 'if I still could' and I've now proved to myself that 'I still can' so unless a need comes up I won't be rendering my work unless I have some spare time and a suitable building.

Gregory,
Its in Lurgan, on North St.

Here's a link for Bing Maps, I'd have used Google but they have very little of NI covered.
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=t2b13hgg51z0&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=18295866&encType=1

Nicely done, looks like a scene from Myst.

Thanks all for the fantastic comments, they mean a lot.

After having worked on this damn project for so long I can't see it as anything else other than a collection of minor annoyances that need fixing, making better etc. So its always nice when fresh sets of eyes see it and write such nice comments.

The phrase 'Familiarity Breeds Contempt' rings a bell

Just so you know I do work on other projects, lots of them in fact, but non really worth posting here.

OK then, after 14h05m here's what we got:

Gamma 1.0 Exposure 0.7

Gamma 1.0 Exposure 0.6

Gamma 1.0 Exposure 0.5

Gamma 1.0 Exposure 0.4

The last one is by far the best settings.
Well done to all involved with Twilight, and of course Sketchup, For this to render without crashing is a true achievement.

As usual Full res images in Picasa Album:http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Paul.Russam/IOTD20091001?feat=directlink

A couple of Twilight updates:

After 2h22m

After 3h

Managed to get a subtle bump on the tiles

This one is cooking overnight, but this is what I got after 50m

As usual the full res ones are on my Picasa album:http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Paul.Russam/IOTD20090930?feat=directlink