Ok guys and gals,

It is time that I get with the 20th century and get a renderer for sketchup. Here are my parameters:

1. If what we mostly do is Landscape Architecture, which is the best renderer to do this?
2. If I need a renderer to be real user friendly (ie, newbie to rendering like me) but is also powerful enough to do nice realistic renderings, which is the best renderer to do this?
3. If I need a renderer that is used for both Mac and PC, which is the best renderer to do this? (It would be sweet to have the same renderer license be used on both platforms, but I know that is a pipe dream. It would be nice if the company offered a discount for buying a seat for each platform).

I know this is a subject to personal opinions, but I want to see what works for you. It's budget time and I'm just trying to get in what I think will help the company move forward.

Thanks in advance!

Rick

awesome! The bridge pic reminds me of the 2012 movie.

Rick

If these are people with CAD background, I would also throw in a blurb about how layers in SU are NOT the same as layers in CAD. I'm still stumbling with this one after months of SU use. Hard to break old habits.

Rick

@unknownuser said:

http://www.jolicloud.com/

Found this the other day but haven't tried it out...but Santa's bringing me a netbook so i'll try it then

does anyone have this installed?

I got my wife a netbook. She hated it until I trashed Windows and put Mac OS on it!

Rick

Nice gift Chris,

Being that I'm basically in the same boat as you, you gave some great ideas too.

Merry Christmas!

Rick

@olishea said:

and wtf man
@unknownuser said:

"Oh, it not personal, but I absolutely abhor gabion baskets in any way, shape or form."
this isn't even constructive... personal taste means nothing in this game. what would you suggest?.....a big brick wall? gabions were chosen for visual lightness and the fact that plants can grow from them further softening their appearance. gabion material is reclaimed too so its a great choice IMO

Sorry, but it is from personal (mis) use here in the states. The wires in gabions have a tendency to break and then you have these nice pointy wires that can cause problems. Yours might be completely different gabions that what I am used to here in the states. We use them at stream edges. I am a proponent for natural scapes ( take a look at http://www.wildlandhydrology.com/). So if you are asking for an alternative within those parameters, a vertical green wall might work well.

Again, this was not meant as a personal attack - honest.

Rick

@olishea said:

wow they are not even drive ways. footpaths. parking is at the rear

. I couldn't fudge the terrain any more to accomodate wheelchair users so unlucky! but thanks for useful comments.

Actually, you could get a ramp up there - you would just lose some green. It could start on the corner, have a flat landing zone at the far end, and then go on the other side of the trees up to it destination.

The problem with it, ADA stuff is so darned ugly with all the railing that has to go up too!

Rick

@johnsenior1973 said:

@d12dozr said:

Looking good Oli...but do the cars have to jump the curb to get up the driveway? ...looking forward to the rest...

I hope you don't drive a car if you can't tell the difference between a driveway and a pedestrian path.

That pedestrian path is NOT ADA compliant! The slope is what, 8:1? I can see the wheelchairs ripping down the hill and getting nailed by oncoming traffic!

Oh, it not personal, but I absolutely abhor gabion baskets in any way, shape or form.

Rick

@unknownuser said:

Thank you all very much for your support. I appreciate it very much. One of the things about this is my son is right now in Russia and Kazakhstan serving a mission for our Church and he doesn't know yet. We will be talking to him on Christmas Eve and will have to break the news to him. that is going to be tough. Thanks to all of you again to help me through this.

D

hmmmm RULDS2?

p.s. My condolences.

Either I'll be banned from these sites for my 'critical critiques...'

My observations:

1. The carpet under the coffee table looks too fake. The materials showing on the side of the carpet match those showing on the top. This shouldn't be the case.
2. You show 3 copies of the same magazine twice. Is this on purpose since it is a hotel?
3. The pillows on the couch are too pointy. They need to smoothed out a bit.
4. There is something about the plant in the corner that really draws my eye. I'm not sure that its because the background is blurred or that it looks too 'real' compared with the rest of the model., but it just grabs my attention first.

I honestly do like the rendering and I feel like I'm a hypocrite since I have yet to render a thing, but as I said in another post. Its part of my daily job (QA of sorts).

Rick

What is REALLY cool is the director talking about how they made Avatar. I saw a quick video clip and 'behind the scenes' making of Avatar while I was watching Autodesk University Virtual. To quote him "Avatar would not be possible without Autodesk software" They used Autodesk Motionbuilder and the actors had all kinds of sensors all over they body and a green screen behind. They could not even see the finished product. The director had what looked like a small video monitor that showed him what the scene was going to look like (rendered and all).

It is quite a great feat that others will be clamoring to embrace. I have yet to see the movie, but I will sometime soon.

Rick

Happy Yalda to you!

Rick

Nice Render! Here are my observations:

1. The palm trees are all the same - same leaf configuration, etc. It should be different because as we know, no two trees are alike!
2. The material that the house is sitting on - is that rock? If so, I have yet to see trees growing out of rock (just trying to keep it real).
3. The forefront palm tree and the grouped ones on the left-hand side, it appears to me that they are sitting on the deck. They need to be planted.
4. The water looks great! So much that it makes me kind of seasick when looking at your rendering (I get seasick real easy).

Rick

Perhaps its because of my background and it has absolutely nothing to do with the beautiful renderings, but this design is not user friendly at all. Those pavers that close with the grass is going to be a nightmare when it comes to maintaining it. Grass does grow and there will be a time when that will need to be mowed or otherwise. I'm all for style when it falls within the parameters of sustainable, ease of maintenance, etc.

Just my .02

Rick

@rabbit said:

http://www.autodesk.com/sketchbookmobile.

This is fantastic! and costs only three dollars! - even if you dont have an iphone, just watch the video!

Yep, its one of my favorite apps on my iTouch. FYI, Google Sketchup Cookbook e-book is also available as a download. Lets see $50 for the book or $4.99 for the e-book. That was a no-brainer.

I wish other books would follow suite - its the 'green' way.

Rick

@elderla said:

Model 1 is the barest model I am currently using, 2 .png images, one with one tiny edge so you can make it a component, and 2 faces that are the shadows casters. [attachment=2:1aapme0d]<!-- ia2 -->model 1, elm.skp<!-- ia2 -->[/attachment:1aapme0d] So I understand you to say that it would be leaner to put the pngs on the faces, (the tree itself and the plan symbol), as a material. Do I have that right? But doesn't that throw the weight of the model to the processor, for rendering, as opposed to the video card, for the .pngs?(which I have always understood can do the job better....) Currently the shadow casters are painted with a very clever material, devised by Tom of Tomsdesk, that has only 6 pixels, and that appears transparent yet casts shadows.
Donna

Pardon me for jumping in but I have a question on these trees and shadows in general. Please see my attached picture. The shadow doesn't project correctly unless I'm doing something different.

Rick

@elderla said:

I have an assignment, as a landscape architect, to model an entire watershed, mostly wooded, many square miles.
I have made some tree models which contain 1.ultra low resolution .png, with face me 2. (2)shadow.pngs vertical and horizontal from some old free models of Tom's and 3. a low resolution plan symbol. I made another model, of a single urban neighborhood, with 2360 instances of the trees, it seems to move around fine, when the shadows are turned off, of course. But will I run into problems with 1000 times more? The attached files are entirety and closeup of the urban neighborhood.
thanks for your help, all.
Donna

Donna,

I don't have an answer to your question other than depending on your computer speed will be how fast it regenerates. I have played with various styles (wireframes) to see the difference. The face-me trees are already fast for me but I don't have 10's of thousands of trees in my models. What would be really cool if you could have a component (dynamic or otherwise) that just shows a big grouping of trees which are face-me. It would be good for showing at-a-distance trees.

I do have questions on your model - I would like to contact you off-line so as not to take up bandwidth, or if people really want to see, we can start a new thread. Either way, please let me know (c3d_rickgraham@comcast.net).

Thanks!

Rick

@foxar said:

Here's he first final image! (other were somewhat pre-final)

Cheers!

Nice, but let me crit a little.

1. I agree with other posters about the brown grass, rug. I'd hate to see what kind of vacuum needed for that!
2. The wall that the bed is on - it appears like it doesn't go all the way up (there is a gap between that room and the adjacent room), or is it an optical illusion?
3. Having an HVAC background, I see no HVAC - I guess the window open is the HVAC? Just kidding on this one.

What renderer and how long did it take to produce the render?

Rick

@frederik said:

@foxar said:

Thank you Frederik, glad to hear this, btw is there any new news for TW on Mac?

Unfortunately no news other than we're still working on it and hopefully will be able to have something ready in February...

If you need beta testers for it....

Rick

@gaieus said:

Ha! This is cool tip, Martin!
Would this work the same way on a Mac?

I can confirm that it does. I agree - nice tip.

Rick