Posts made by Paul Russam

Paul Russam

I did another Twilight Render last night.

SU Scene:

After 14h25m at 1200x850:

After a bit of Post Processing:

And for reference, a photo of the real thing:

Here's a link to the Picasa album with the full size images:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Paul.Russam/IOTD20090930?feat=directlink

Paul Russam

Thanks for all the nice comments, they truly make a difference.

@unknownuser said:

I'm wondering how big this model is. 80 - 90 MB?

The model is about 50-60mb at the moment, it was smaller but I went through it recently and 'upped' the detail on some of the parts that were bugging me, the round tops to the column bases, the roses at the end of the beading around the arches etc.
I've probably overdone the textures on the new floors as they make the altar walls look a bit blurry in comparison. I'm tempted to remake the textures as higher res but that's just the sadomasochist in me talking

Paul Russam

Bob,
I had thought of it but as I'm 'just' the 3D guy and 'not' an architect my opinion doesn't carry much weight around here when it comes to design ideas.
But...... I do plan on putting my ideas on the table.

Replace the existing full depth floor with glass and lighting it from below but then I thought about how you would clean the covered area or replace the lights.
Have the risers of the steps in glass block with lights behind and either marble or timber as the goings/level areas, again maintenance would be a problem.
Marble risers with a new mosaic design for the goings/level areas, could be too fussy.

We'll see, its early days for this one but time's a ticking as a design will have to be resolved soon.

Paul Russam

I'd forgotten that I'd been having a go with Twilight Render using the church as a tester before the revised design reared its head.

Here's some images I knocked out using Twilight, since I'd abandoned rendering when I abandoned 3D Studio Max in 2004 I had to relearn some things but I've go to say TW is good and fantastically easy to use. My only problem in getting better out of my models is me at the moment.

I was trying to get a highly reflective marble with this one and accidentally ended up with a polished steel floor, not what I intended but that's why their called test renders.

Paul Russam

Here's the first bash at a revised altar area. Apart from some cursory glances no one here's really seen it yet so your the first! I doubt this concept will survive much scrutiny so expect a second version soon.

This is a massively cut-down version of the model with only the bare essentials to enable us to come up with a new altar area.

The floor between the altar and pews is still the old design hence the large gaps, The altar area is no more than a massing model, hence the sharp edged steps.

Paul Russam

Here's an update on the church.
Work on site started recently with the builders doing a bit of remodelling with a couple of mini excavators, here's a shot taken before they got going:

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and here's one taken on Friday.....

A bit of a difference don't you think?, here's a couple more from Friday:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Whilst the builders were busy gutting the place they made a bit of a discovery. We always knew that under the raised area of the altar there was a tiled floor, we assumed that it was in poor condition, it having being covered up, but were we in for a surprise.

Before:

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And after the raised area was removed this is what we found!!

We're about to start working up some concepts that retain the floor whilst still raising the altar/lectern/priest's up about 450mm. I personally think we should suspend the lot on trapeze wires from the ceiling but I think the Monsignor may baulk at the idea of flying over his parishioners!

Here's a link to the Picasa album containing the above images along with a few more for good measure.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Paul.Russam/IOTD20090928?feat=directlink

Paul Russam

Bruce,
Thanks for that, I'm going to do a couple more setups/test over the next few nights, I'll post um as I do um.

Paul Russam

A bit of a counter point.....

Prior to SketchUp I used 3DStudio Max, Infact I'd used 3D Studio since it came on 5 1.44Mb floppy's and was made by the Yost group! SketchUp was and still is a blast of fresh air.

I love SU BECAUSE it cant/doesn't render, No 14hour waits to see if the image is OK, No umpteen controls for each material to tweek, No crashes 99% through a 10hour render, No.... you get the picture.

The more you try to get a material 'right' the more it becomes 'just not quite right' and the more you tweek and the more you render....AND IT'S STILL ONLY FOR 1 IMAGE!

With SU I can plonk a good brick texture onto a wall and guess what?......It instantly becomes 'A brick wall'. I don't have to worry about the texture of the brick, the depth of the coursing, the colour of the mortar etc. etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good rendered image and recently I've shelled out some of MY OWN money for Twilight just to get my ''eye back in' but trust me, it'll be a cold day in hell before I go back to the likes of 3D Studio.

Paul Russam

I don't have SU open at the mo but the materials are something like this:

Windows: Architectural Glass - No shadows
Columns: Generic - Glossy
Wood: Generic - Soft? gloss
Chandelier: Metal-Copper
Ligtbulbs: 100watt
Glass Lamp shades:Frosted Glass
Floor: Generic - Soft? gloss

Paul Russam

This is one I did a while ago. It has 40+ hotspots and was a complete pig to setup.

I used the CubicPanOut plug-in to produce the 6 views per hotspot then moved the 40x6 images over to my Mac and then CubicConverter and CubicConnector to make the finished movie.

This is a link to the Quicktime movie on my dropbox account, its 280Mb so don't try and play it from here, you'll have to download it first.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/373226/StPeters/1287-QTVR-V2.mov

Paul Russam

I must say I'm genuinely impressed.
I spent 15 minutes last night before I went home tweaking some materials, picked '09 Internal' for the render setting and went home....

Bear in mind that is is a 60Mb sketchup model that has failed (for me) to render whenever I've tried before.

This is the origin SU scene:

This is what I got after 14 hours

This is what I got after changing the exposure under camera settings.

More passes and better lighting would help, but damn! not bat for a 15 minute setup.

Paul Russam

Thanks Thom, that look interesting, Thanks also for the link to 1001 plugins.

Paul Russam

How about instead of trying to cut the 'tunnel' in the wall like a normal pushpull would do, the script builds the required faces instead.

Dialog prompts for defaults:
..Reveal depth
..Outer cill width
..Outer cill height
..Outer cill depth
..etc

1.Select 2 points of rectangle on outer skin of wall
2.Delete new face
3.Find inner skin of wall
--(the thickness of the wall)
4.Draw identical rectangle on inner skin
5.Delete new face
6.Build 4 faces of outer reveal from outer skin to specified depth
7.Get and apply outer skin material to new faces
8.Build 4 faces of inner reveal
--(variable depth to match unknown wall thickness)
9.Get and apply inner skin material to new faces

Obviously I've missed out all the steps for the cill etc but as a method would this work? The only thing I see a problem with is step 3, finding the inner skin.

Paul Russam

Hello All,
I've a small request for a script to punch holes in walls.
I've attached a multi scene model to show the current steps I go through to get what I want, Its a tedious process that's the same each time except for opening size, position, wall thickness, cill size etc.

I've written 1 script before but I've forgotten just about everything and would have to start learning all over again which sadly, I don't have the time or energy for.

Does anybody want to have a go?

Thanks for looking, Paul

Window Opening Script request.skp

Paul Russam

http://twitter.com/Rollothecat
I've not posted much but I do luvvv to stalk the celebs

Paul Russam

I watched the 3 new Red Dwarf episodes over the weekend and following them was a 'Making of' episode. To my surprise and delight Sketchup featured in a number of shots as they used it for set design and camera shot planning. They don't mention it by name but you'll know it instantly.

Somebody uploaded the 'making of' to YouTube in 3 parts (Naughty!!), here are the links.

WARNING if you've not seen the new episodes and want to, then don't watch this lot as they're full of spoilers (as you'd expect)

Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3

Paul Russam

On UK TV we have a dearth of this kind of programme, the purpose of which is to find 1 person who can be exploited for 10mins whilst showing us 7 weeks of excruciating embarrassment.
For this reason I go out of my way to avoid them.

But this......

Wow, amazing!
I'll freely admit that I started watching the clip with my 'excruciating embarrassment' mode turned up to full power but wow was I put in my place.

I still won't watch the programme but I'll keep an eye on the highlights on Youtube to see how she does.

Thanks for the heads up and link.

Paul Russam

They bought a company called RealVIZ and simply re-branded all their products.

Paul Russam

Mike,
I was just about to post about the Macheist bundle but you beat me to it!

If you follow them on twitter and post a single message informing your followers about the bundle then they'll add Delicious Library 2 and a game called Multiwina for free!

I haven't installed all the apps, just the ones I want (or think I want). So far I've found Little Snapper to be very good, World of Goo is fun, and I'm looking forward to having a good go with Kinemac.

Dam good value for $39, thats only £26.43 in real money

Paul Russam

This is how I do grass.
Its only works with middle distance stuff, its too small for larges scale sites and looks poor close up.
What I'm looking for is getting some sort of edge to the grass area, I don't need blades in the middle of a grass area, only around the edges to mask/improve the interface between the grass and pavement/walls/fences etc.

Remember its a model, its only necessary to create the 'appearance' of grass not grass itself

Copy the grass surface.
Make a group out of the copy.
Delete the surface.
Extrude the edges 100-150mm.
Apply a material with the attached png as a texture to both the front and back faces of the Extruded edges.
Scale the texture so the height is 1-2mm bigger than the extruded height.
Hide all the edges in the group, leaving only the faces.
Set the group to receive but not cast shadows.

I'll then play around with the colour of both the grass surface and grass blade edges to get them as close as possible, change horizontal scale of the texture etc.

Where this method falls down is when the grass surface is not flat and the texture starts to repeat vertically.

I've attached the PNG, a very very quick sample model and image.

Grass Example.jpg

Grass Example.skp