Looks like I'm from the lucky few countries where the DG image quality is actually superior to Google maps.

The SketchUp icon size has changed because now they are made from vectors and scaled appropriately for use on high resolution displays.

Hello!

I'm having a problem on one of my machines to run SketchUp make properly.

The moment I open SketchUp everything seems to be all OK, but once it finished loading, the icons get messed up. Everything runs OK on Sketchup 8.

Windows XP SP3
Radeon X1550 video card with latest drivers

Yeah. That's Maxwell studio. The render time was about 7h.
I'll fix some of the problems and render out a bigger version a bit later.

Thanks for the comments!

I used the plant to fill out the void on the left side of the image and to bring some foreground element to add some depth to the image, but I couldn't really make it work that well as planned. A stool would be a good idea then.

I don't know about adding more color. To me it seems that there is almost too much already, or just still not balanced enough.

A classic kitchen that I made quite some time ago, rendered in a new light

Thanks!

@aerilius said:

But to cover a whole city (with any sort of models) is a lot of effort.

"We choose to go to the moon, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
-JFK

This is the area of the old city that was enclosed by the walls.
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=210746234861547042392.0004c909f5589fe5032e3&msa=0&ll=56.947818,24.113123&spn=0.009304,0.033023

I imagine that with the advances in 3d printing there wouldn't be much of a problem to build a physical model of the city afterwards.
Once I start building the first models, I'll definitely start a WIP thread to keep you guys informed of the progress.

Hello!

For some time I have been wanting to start a hobby- 3d reconstruction of my home town - Riga. It's a more than 800 years old city with quite of interesting history. This most probably is an endeavor for a life time and at this point I have started to identify the museums, archives and some historians that would be of great help. And, as I know, the historical record is about enough to build a reasonably detailed hypothetical representation of the 15th- 17th century city.

So, seeing that there are quite a few historical building modelers here, I'd like to ask for some stories about your work. How much has your work contributed to others and to what use has it been put? What do you think is the potential of such a project? Also, it would be great find some already finished projects and sites for references of medieval architecture and lifestyle in Europe.

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf

Just saw a post on CGtalk that basically describes what this means:

"1. You are allowed to transfer a software that you have legally bought, or a limited license to use a software that you have legally bought, to somebody else in exchange for money, just as you can resell a car, bicycle, fridge, TV, dinner table or other physical product that you have legally bought.

2. The fact that the software's manufacturer tells you "you cannot transfer this limited license to use our software to another party" in the EULA or elsewhere has no weight whatsoever. The software manufacturer MUST, per court order, allow you to transfer the software license to somebody else.

3. Whether the software came on a physical medium when you bought it (e.g. a DVD), or whether it was downloaded electronically from the manufacturer's website makes no difference whatsoever to your legally guaranteed right to sell the software or usage license on to someone else. (i.e. purely electronic/downloaded copies of a software can be sold to someone else just like a hardcopy that came on an install DVD or similar)

4. When you transfer your "software" or "software license" to somebody else in exchange for money (e.g. a copy on DVD or say a USB stick), you must stop using your original copy of the software, as you have now sold it to someone else. In other words, you cannot sell your software/license to someone else, and legally continue using it. The only copy that is legal to use is the one bought by the person you sold your copy to.

This is very good news for all software users.

The court has basically declared the most restrictive/annoying part of software EULAs ("you cannot sell your license to someone else") to be completely null and void."

I wonder what will be the response in the rest of the world.

Saw a video montage a few days ago, that also included two companies that use Cry Engine3 for arch viz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsVnVHxA664

Those were Crystal CG http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bAZ3KniPC4
and ENODO, witch looked very impressive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T0FMaRsfdg

Made just some last minor changes.

I'm really still just experimenting with different styles and trying to define my own. I think in the next work I'll be going for realism though, to see how far can I push my abilities with Sketchup and Maxwell.

The wall material was made by blending two different renders together, so it wouldn't actually be possible to share the texture as it doesn't exist. But you can go to Maxwell library resources and look for some of the nice plaster materials they have. Those are the ones I used.

Thanks for the help!

This is kind of a blend between the old and the new version. I like the black glass panels because they are not as distracting as the white ones, and I think the image composition improved greatly because of them. Added some small details too.
I'll leave the scene to render for at least 12 more hours before giving the finishing touches. I'll probably have to fix the ceiling reflection then.

I'm mostly interested in how to add light fixtures to it. I could make a hole in them or maybe add some back lighting to the panels to get a diffused look. That could turn out great.

It's funny how fast I already found my bathroom image when browsing images in google. I guess google has a very tight look here on Sketchucation.

Sounds interesting. Do you know of any manufacturers that make these? I would love to see some references to see how that was constructed.

True, but this is not a real project, so I'm not thinking too practically about this, I was talking more in terms of image composition

Yeah, I'd agree. I,ll try to find something better.
Does anyone else have a feeling that there is something really missing in the upper left corner?

Here is an update.

Thanks.
I made all the scene in Sketchup, except the branches and towels that I found on the 3dwh. I set up the materials with the Maxwell for SU plugin and rendered it in the Maxwell render suit. I know little to nothing how to work in in yet, so I had to do a lot of things in Photoshop- adding the background, CC, curves and so on. I'd say the result is pretty close to what I wanted and the over exposed exterior was intentional. I just think the ceiling turned out very boring, the walls could use a bit of a texture and I forgot to change the towel to a more interesting one.

Hey!
I'm making a bathroom interior shot, and I would like to get some critique on it.

That's why I was afraid I would not win. A clean interior with some interesting MXM materials and high poly objects would have probably been the best bet, because it could better market the product. But I don't think the whole competition was just made to get some good pics, but rather that was a very good marketing stunt for Maxwell. Consider the huge amount of people that helped the participants by voting trough twitter and facebook and visited the Maxwell site to view the gallery. NL really got people interested in joining the competition and got the attention of most of the active Sketchup community this way.

Props to NL for the good job