Bing...[four hours later]....Go!
Sorry Susan

Susan,
In short, the answer to:
'Is there a place or some value to doing NPR renderings tha mimic the "Tempera" or Air Brush style rather than the Watercolour style?'
Is.. Yes!
Its seems really hard to pin down 'styles' these days, which I think is good. A couple of years ago it was damn hard to put an individual stamp on SU output....now the options are endless and the 'watercolour' look seems to be playing second fiddle to PR renderers with idiot friendly exporters in SU.
I know, these days, I export almost automatically to Kerkythea.

I do miss, though, the relative ease and speed of a Dennis or Marshall make-over. I am finding the private [residential] clients that I usually work for are fairly unimpressed with 'arty' work but I get plenty of oooohs with more PR stuff.
The downside with PR renderers is the setup and cooking time. So if there was a simple way to output this tempera style with a somewhat PR look I would certainly be interested.
What do you have in mind?
Stu

Yeah Reg,
After a month or two's use I've become very fond of FastStone.
A slightly unusual GUI ....reminds me a bit of Bryce but it is all quite intuitive.
[And welcome to the forum! ]
Stu

I found this at http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/

Looks like a nice, free little app. for image viewing and basic to intermediate editing.
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Andrew,
I was going to get one of these
http://www.canon.com.au/products/printe ... x4000.aspx
untill i figured that I only need A4s for concepts and still get final A3 images digitally printed for a couple of $.
I ended up getting a Canon A4 printer/copier/scanner for less than $200
Stu

Thanks Dylan.

Tina, the 'pot' is actually a huge old metal cauldron that's onsite.

Stu

Thanks Gaieus,

You never know I might need it one day

So it seems 'scutum' is the correct spelling....you had me worried there for a minute

MP,JJ

can be used as a module or stretched to fit.

Stu

StoneRandomSquares.skp

Nahh...bugger watercolours....I think I will stick with my current obsession.

SU2KT...all 3D components

@unknownuser said:

Is it possible to create a good seamless texture from this style of timber board?

Dylan the short answer is no. Those noticable twists in the boards are going to be repeated ad infinitum with a very messy result unless you are texturing no more than a square metre or so.

Jon,

You have looked at http://archiforge.com/
and http://vyonyx.com/index.php/category/down/cutout-trees ?
And http://www.got3d.com/ has a generous selection of samples.

Stu

Andrew, good to hear from!

Firstly, it great stuff you are putting out!
And I'm glad to hear the Oz plants are still on the way.....can't wait to see the King's Park Special.
There is a real need for local native plants but I do understand we have a pretty small market down here.

[And its about time, BTW, that I flashed the plastic! ]

Stu

Thanks Fred....looks very cool

And rumour has it that the Birdsnest is...well...gulp..sinking.

Lets hope it stays above ground until at least 8/8/08

@solo said:

Stu,

Yup, he also made the ones for Ozbreed and is commissioned to make more in the near future.

Sorry Pete, I thought I was actually telling you that

[there is a link on Andrew's site to the OzBreed site.]

As I understand it, Andrew is a New Zealander and the plants on his site [Cordylines, Phormium etc.] are native to his country.

He has been promising for a long time now to come out with with a collection of Australian native plants, so lets hope he doesnt shelve that in a rush to try to compete with ImageCels, Ambient Light, Got3D, etc etc.

Scott,

Ambient Light puts out good stuff but I would think Envirographics cut-outs are superior. And I would imaging that a lot of time, blood sweat and tears has been lost in their production.

As great as they are, I'm not sure the quality would be noticed in most renders unless they are in the foreground. You might have noticed that a lot of suppliers are offering high res. branches as foreground framing of renders, which is sort of admitting that a lot of images dont work that well close up..but then they dont need to.

Stu

Pete,

Yes, top stuff!

And there is more!....and it's free!

Page not found - Ozbreed Plants

Ozbreed Plants (www.ozbreed.com.au)

Stu

Thanks Jim.

Roger the water is a straight SU material. I had tried using TG_ but it wasn't coming out as I wanted. Instead I got the reflections in Kerky and then overlaid that image with the SU export [with the water deleted to expose the tiles and pool sides]. I used a warping brush in PhotoImpact to disturb the water a bit and used a 'gradual luminance' filter, again in PhotoImpact to add interest to the light.

Stu

A quick Kerkythea render with a straight SU Jpeg. export overlay to bring out the linework in the paving and the tile texture in the pool.

Susan I think it's time to have a friendly chat with your neighbours and explain to them that every action [peeking at you on the deck] has a reaction [not necessarily equal and opposite]
And I'm sure there will be nothing in your local regulations about having a couple of six pounders on you rear deck.