Retrofuture airship - homage to Jules Verne and Karel Zeman

File is attached bellow (zipped)

Retrofutro_airship.zip

@thomthom said:

Is there a plugin to copy a component along a path given a fixed spacing keeping the component oriented uniformly?
I'm tried to use Copy Along Path on a curve using Fredo's Bezier tool, but all the instances orient themselves differently.

Just turn on and off "always face camera" option. Components copied along any curve will align and then you can easily adjust their rotation.

@cadmunkey said:

Thanks for your reply TIG,the materials are importing correctly. I think its my render program that has the issue. It is not rendering the png clipmaps that are on sides facing the wrong way.

I have Twilight. What is your render engine?

@cadmunkey said:

Hmm mine always imports into sketchup without textures. Workflow is:
Make tree in treed
export to OBJ format
import using TIGS script.

Doing anything wrong? Unless treed is not exporting the textures?

edit seems that you have to export the obj to same location as the texture maps. But half the leaves import as solid faces and half are pngs. Weird.

Yes - 1 face textured/1 face solid but render is ok ..

Hi, when I try to copy/paste a component + its ghost component generated in a file "1" into another file, it seems, that the relation between them is broken ...

It would be very handy to preserve the relation between original component and ghost during transportation between files.
For example wireframe ghost of a highpoly tree takes a while to generate and it isn't practical to do it every time you insert the tree into new model ..

Very nice toolset Fredo

@pibuz said:

Thanks.
Let's wait for an answer.

OK I probably found possible way around ...

1. Make your highpoly tree in treed and export it via obj format.
2. Import the obj file using this TIGs script - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=20584
3. Be patient

Et voilá

zipped highpoly tree

fast Twilight render + Photosketcher ... and Bugatti
(car model is downloaded from 3dwarehouse - modeled by Marian87)

@pibuz said:

There must be some kind of hidden option or something
Let's find it out: the first one who does, gives the other a call.

I have reported it here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24511&start=15#p261450

Well, we will see, what Googles are baking in their secret labs for SU 8

Anyway, your plugin works like a charm TIG. Thanks a lot.

Hi, I am trying to import collada file exported from Meshlab ( http://meshlab.sourceforge.net )

Geometry is imported perfectly but textures are lost... see attached file + error message

I tried to view the dae file in BScontact and it looks perfectly including textures.

related topic:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=29722&p=261322#p261322

zipped - stromek.dae + texture folder

@pibuz said:

That is exactly what i was about to report. But it doesn't seem to be a software bug, but a 3ds format limitation. I usually export 3dsMax models to sketchy and I remember that sometimes I couldn't, due to geometry weight (number of polys).
This single drawback is something making your workflow faulty: you cannot export ALL the trees you make.
If one wants just a simple tree, then your workflow is good.

I can export ALL the trees I make using collada format. There is only one small problem now, SU imports plain geometry without textures..

Don't know whether it's Meshlab, Sketchup or somewhere between them issue ...

%(#FF0040)[Well BS Contact trial shows tree exported from Meshlab via collada format perfectly. Conclusion is - SU should do better ]

@dale said:

Is this your work Starling75?

Noooo It's work of czech artist/sculptor Čestmír Suška http://www.suska.cz

And sorry, admin, this topic should be probably in discussion or corner bar section ...

@pibuz said:

Hi Starling!
Your workflow is much easier than mine! happy to hear this! And the result is less heavy too.
I guess I'm going to change mine with yours
I'm downloading meshlab now: importing as obj and exporting as 3ds, you say.
Gonna give it a go, definitely!
Thank you so much for such an important information!

I hope many SU users will start doing good trees and share them in the warehouse.

Thanks.
Actually I tried it yesterday after reading your post and it was my first attempt to "make" tree ..
Treed obj exporter created obj + mtl files but didn't add the texture files. I had to copy them manually from treed texture folder...

Meshlab is still beta, there could be some issues too.
The 3ds exporter seems to be limited up to cca 65000 vertices ...)

Leave message how it works for you.

@rob d said:

Low poly and it renders great without any editing in Kerkythea

How long did it take to do?

[attachment=0:2533a4jr]<!-- ia0 -->Tree render Kerkythea by RobD.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2533a4jr]

You can create highpoly tree as well

tree design time - depends on you

export/import/export/import time cca 5min

@tig said:

Filled section-planes built in to SUp would be great but like with SectionCutFace it is impossible to get the island detection perfect if you model intersecting volumes... sometimes it will guess wrong and make solid void and vice versa!
I looked at adding an observer to a sectionplane and then updating the SectionCutFace as you change the sectionplane but it was very slow AND buggy!

You were creating and deleting real filled geometry on fly?
I was thinking about virtual coloured editable mask on the section plane.

I am not a programmer and my ruby knowledge is approaching zero, so I don't know, whether it's "doable"
My idea is:
*a) Observer gets data about section plane(SP) position and sectioned geometry

b) Island detection algorithm (IDA) analyze this data onfly and compute filled and void areas

c) IDA solution is displayed via some kind of graphical preselection mode - it is projected onto SP like filled contours

e) This preselection filled mode could be interactive - you could pick with cursor on areas filled "wrong" and invert IDA solution at these areas (filled/void). It would keep this inverted solutions in memory when moving SP until change of section cut topology

f) Actual modified/unmodified IDA solution stored in memory would be used for real section cut generation if needed.*

Dynamic interpretation of the model - not dynamic remodelling

I know, that actually section plane don't slice the model physically ... and it is not necessary.

It would be interesting to add "island detection mode" to existing section plane tool so we could see virtually filled faces during section plane movements.

Complementar improvement would be the ability to pick onto section plane and ON/OFF virtual fill of picked enclosed area.

Correct look of the sectioned portion of the model could be adjusted this way and after obtaining satisfactory result we could run SectionCutFace command to get correctly filled real section slice.

Really cool stuff. I guess, this will be far more easier to do in Sketchup than it was in real world ...

Redirecting to https://www.rajce.idnes.cz/bubec/album/cestmir-suska-rezave-kvety-rusty-flowers

(bubec.rajce.idnes.cz)

@cadmunkey said:

Yes thats the 1 post I did read, but its from 2007 I think and I dont have a dual monitor setup OR an old graphics card. Its a standard Nvidia 280GT. Ive made a post on the tree[d] forum about it, hopefully it will get some response. Thanks for trying to help anyway.

Try to fiddle with your graphics card driver configuration - DirectX 3D hardware acceleration etc ...

@cadmunkey said:

I tried that frecle tree program but I get an error message "unable to create 3d scene" when it starts and immediately crashes out. Any ideas why? Looked on their forum and noone else seems to have suffered the error.

http://www.frecle.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=433
Not directly about treed but try look at it ..