and they did away with the rating and comments for each model (also IMO very good)

Yes the GPU is the "Graphics Processing Unit". I'm not sure if it is really uasable for you for production rendering because v-ray RT still doesn't support all features (like displacement) and is limited by the GPU RAM. But this is a general thing. Concerning distributed rendering only on the render nodes i'm not sure if it is possible to select only the nodes or if the "manager" is always involved. But in this case you could maybe decrease the threads for v-ray on your workstation. If you don't need v-ray RT over network now you could buy a small card now and add a faster card later (the next generation of nvidia cards next year will support unified memory addressing to enable the GPU to access the system RAM!) One thing to keep in mind is that buying a render node will not speed up your daily modeling and testing workflow - unless you always have your node running also for short tests. One other point to improve your laptop performance could be to replace the HDD by a SSD. (this wouldn't cut your render times, but could be a general speedup)

Scaling it does seem to work now. Interesting. I swear it didn't work the other day.

@shannakae said: Also, i did not know about the Tab button for options.. is that true for all of Fredo's plugins? Yes another good example is with FredoScale

Soap Skin Bubble is hosted on the author's website but there isn't a version of it that will work on 2013 yet. At least there wasn't the other day. The author claims to be working on an update but who knows when it will come. You can create complex surfaces with TIG's Extrusion tools and Fredo's Curviloft, though. Also Artisan and Vertex Tools.

the 1.6 beta is over, the 2.0 version has been released. Does resetting the light cache get rid of the watermark in the 2.0 demo? The 1.6 beta should be expired and always have a watermark at this point, is it still possible to get rid of the watermark by resetting your light cache now?

Yep, I clearly misunderstood, here. I thought I saw google earth instead of google image. So, never mind...

Try making textures, that should result in rectangular textures on each surface vs. skewed textures that other programs may not play well with.

@shannakae said: Hi all, I am an Interior Design consultants in Dubai, stager and realtor. One of the services I provide is a 2d floorplan of houses to help market them for sale or for quick interior design presentations. I have been using programs like floorplanner online for this but have found that it is pretty time consuming and not very customizable (specifically kitchen layouts). Since I already use Sketchup for 3d models and rendering my interior design projects, I have started to create my 2d floorplans in sketchup. There are some great advantages to doing this. First,it is very easy to create materials like wood flooring, carpet, etc... Second, creating kitchens is much easier as I am not limited to the library of cabinets etc... that many of the floorplaner type software have... Third, if i deiced that I want to make it into a 3d space it is fairly simple... My question is if anyone out there is doing something similar and does anyone know where i might be able to get my hands on a library of 2d furniture, accessories etc...? Also, anyone have a good tut or advise of how I can create doors and window easily ie, drop them into the 2d walls (having to draw each line then offset with the ruler then erasing is quite cumbersome, especially when i need to widen the window or move the door location... see attached floorplan for example) Thanks for any feedback and help! Maybe I need to create a library? but would rather not have to start from scratch... In the attached floorplan I used 3d furniture pieces, but it can get to be a bit of a pain working between 3d and 2d and I would really like to be able to work with 2d pieces when working in a 2d space... Layout is perfect for you. You should spend some time creating your own content that can be used repeatably.

@unknownuser said: @shannakae said: Would you mind telling me what the plugin library is so I can decide if I need to install it, (or maybe I already have it??) LibFredo6 is mainly Ruby code shared by all my plugins. It also drives the start up of the plugin. So you'll need it and you may already have it installed. Always check if you have the latest version. Beside Fredo, Thomthom uses this approach for some of his plugins, too. So watch when you install something and it does not work: it is very likely that you overlooked something and need TT_Lib too.

@unknownuser said: Maybe at the end you will need something like that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXS6_WdXZ3s Yes and I have been wanting to explore Sketch UV (I have it installed but have not really used it yet) Have not heard of roadkill yet...When I am done modeling I will see about using this tut to help me learn those two plugins. Thanks!

Kid's room great! Living needs some pop! Color? I'm just a beginner, so just my opnion. Nice work!

@valerostudio said: If you do a search in these forums, you will see the the Arrowway maps question has been discussed. Especially pertaining to the reflection / glossiness maps. Those freebies though are insanely low res and I wouldn't expect amazing results from them. I think you can buy some of the maps individually. The pay ones are very hi res and work well with VRay. You may have to downsize them though because they may be too large for SketchUp to handle. I think some of them get as large as like 12,000 pixels wide or something insane like that. One more note. If you search for Jason Maranto, he is a Sketchucation user that has made SKM libraries of all of the Arroway free files. The libraries he made link direct to Maxwell, but you can still use the SKM libraries without Maxwell and the hi-res versions. Thanks! One thing i have been missing withe my version of vray was the materials that are supposed to ship with it... I did not realize that and have been trying to create or find materials elsewhere or create them from scratch, which has been time consuming. I realized that they had sent me an link to download the library when i first signed up but when I had clicked on it I got a forbidden error 404 so i did not download it at that time then I forgot all about it. I have sent a request to Vray for assistance downloading the vray library. I am assuming it is a pretty good place to start with some nice materials as well and all i have to do in import them!

@bunnyack said: ...and I didn't even know you can import a material outside of vray. I guess we've both learned something Here is a pretty good site with free vray materials and models. http://www.flyingarchitecture.com/materials-leather/

@unknownuser said: First line : @unknownuser said: SketchUp Pro is 3D modeling software for professionals. Price is so low that for a professional it will be pay off as soon as the first project! And you can sleep as a baby without any problem of legality! That doesn't say that professionals can't use the free version, though. The price is low and will easily be recovered by anyone who is using SketchUp professionally.

Excellent! I'm glad you got it sorted out and thanks for letting the rest of us know.

hi, other good option could be maxwell render standalone plugin for sketchup, there's a free version with certain limitations and for US $95.00 you can get the licensed version of the plugin... it renders within skethup so no geometry importing-exporting needed and it's so simple and easy to use best V

a final release will be rolling out in a couple of weeks. The beta testing period has ended.