Since I'm using the demo just for a few days now, I don't have much experience with Artlantis, but I made some quick renders of 3D People I found in the Warehouse (2d Stuff doesn't work well Artlantis from what I could see).

The girl is the most interesting I think (yeah, right, that's always the case), it's a freebie from IClone. There are a few of them in the Warehouse.

I think it's important the have all the materials he might want to customize in Artlantis in different colors or materials.

Hope that helps a bit.

![He's called "Human", looks like one, too.](/uploads/imported_attachments/u8SR_Human4.jpg "He's called "Human", looks like one, too.")

Very nice model, but hey... we all know what's really going on in such isolatied cabins, so stay away from it!

This year there is no way around for me buying a render software, so I'm still looking for the right one. Of the software I could find so far only Artlantis does what I need, i.e. non photorealistic rendering combined with an easy workflow (sketchup -> render software).

Does anyone of you know of another renderer that could do the job? 500-600€ just for the Artlantis Renderer (~900€ for Artlantis Studio) is quite some money for me at the moment, so I really want to buy the right piece of software.

Some features that are important to me:

• Edge strokes (something like sketchy edges in sketchup. Very important for me)
• Exposure (resulting in those glare effects)
• Clouds and/or good and easy integration of background pictures
• Fog (good for "washing out" some details)
• Camera focus (giving those blurry effects away from the focus point)
• Multi-texturing
• Oh, and of course hassle free integration of sketchup models

I hope you can help me with my decision.
Thanks in advance

A very early test render with Artlantis, that shows quite good the direction I want to go:

Thanks for the basic instructions MrWip. No way around Photoshop it seems.

@mrwip said:

... By the way it's interesting to precise that the second picture is done on the basis of a screenshot of the Artlantis preview. It's not a real render... so it took about 10 sec of calculation (before the post process in photoshop of course)...

Yeah, that's a way I've been thinking about yesterday, after waiting for some renders that didn't turn out the way I wanted. Good to see this "cheating" in action

@mrwip said:

... The only issue is the quality of the AA and the limited size of the preview (800x800).

BTW, you can increase the preview size in the preferences (up to 1280 for me, don't know if it depends on the screen resolution)

I like the model a lot, good work. As for the renders you all did... I think I will never ever send one of my models to you all for rendering, I fear it will make me run away weeping.
Just too much skill here

@edson said:

i am attaching an excerpt from aidan chopra's sketchup for dummies book, on the subject of printing to scale. i hope it helps.

Exactly what I've been looking for for my maps. Muchas gracias!!!

wow! Great model, =Physicsguy=, great textures and rendering and your postrendering is awesome, MrWip.
How did you do the motion blur? Can you achieve it with Artlantis or do I have to boost my near to non-existing skills in Photoshop?

Roger, Gaieus, as an inspiration, have a look at this site:
http://www.castlemagic.com/color.html
On the top you'll find more than a dozen links to some really nice Castle plans.

Some crazy guys from Idaho, who actually build you a castle... if you have some 100ks to spare
How the market for castles might be faring in this times of crisis... ???

Thank you for your positiv feedback. You're really feeding my motivation
Gaieus, Daniel, you're right, the heavy fog and glare are over the top sometimes. It's there to cover up some ugly transitions and to find the right style. I'm still playing around a lot with every single sliders I can grab.

@daniel said:

... I think a lighted window in the night render would help it.

Right you are. Didn't know anything about lights in Artlantis back then. Now I know and since I forgot to close the shutters, someone has to be awake. Here we go:

Just great! I love models that simply like convincing without rendering.
This is so ...complete, everything is there. That's where I want to get with my own models. Well, long way to go.

Nice! Reminds me of those foldup paper models.
I like that tavern texture. Can you tell me where you found it?

After months of silently enjoying so many of your great works here, I'll come out of my cave with my first renders.

I don't have the skill to nor do I want to make photorealistic renders, I'm rather trying to find a more "comic" like style. That's why I've been playing around with the Artlantis demo for the past 3 days. Workflow with Sketchup and the ease of use are really astonishing and I think the results are going in the right direction.

But Artlantis isn't really on the cheap side and from what I could see the customer support is, well, subpar, so I'm still looking for other renderers capable of similar render styles. Any ideas?

Oh, the work is for some upcoming map supplements for good old pen & paper role playing games.

C&C is very welcome

Very nice and easy tutorial. Thank you very much. I'm tackling with some maps right now, where I can make good use of it (Maps for some RPG Supplements).

Thank you for the quick reply. MatrixProximity looks great, seems to be doing what I need.
I'll play around with it later.

Hi all,

What i need is a way to random fill a defined area/face/selection of faces with a specified number of instances of one or more components, preferably without touching each other.
An example: I want to add an audiance of lets say 500 people (2d or 3d components) in front of a stage. What would make this really great for me would be to be able to define the gap between the instances or, even better, a range for the gap (i.e minimum and maximum gap between instances).
I hope it's clear what i want to describe. Sorry for my awkward english, one more german sketchup user here
Maybe there already is a solution for this, but i couldn't find one.

I really hope you can help me. Thanks in advance and thanks for all the hours of trial and error you all saved me so far!

Heiko

wow. Those interior renders are absolutely amazing.
Impressive how realistic the whole composition looks (with one exception beeing those stones in the above view... if one really wants to find something to criticize ).

Oh my god! This looks awesome. But $500 is quite hefty. Know what they want for it here in Germany? €593,81 Dont know which currentcy converter they are using.

Seems I'll stick with my normal Space Pilot. It's such a great gadget, I never want to work SU without it. If their drivers and community support wouldn't be that, well, suboptimal, i'd really really recommend it from the heart.

@thomthom said:

Some Duh! moments I've had:
Realising the Taper tool could be used to scale a model.
...

Thanks Thom for my Duh! moment of today.
Didnt know this till now, could have used it a so often, will be so much happier from now on

@xrok1 said:

it does work for groups or components but strangely enough you have to have at least 2 selected; can be 1 face and 1 group or 2 groups/components; to envode the select>all on layer option ????

Perfect! Selecting 2 things did the trick. Thank you so much

Thank you xrok1 and Gaieus. Nested groups on different layers have been very useful up to this point for controlling visibility. Seem like the usefullness is at its end now.

Like you said, it seems I have to get the nested content out of the "master group". That brings back the question of how to select everything on a specific layer. Is there an easy way to do this? As far as I can see "select all on layer" works only for lines/faces, not for groups/components.