@al hart said:
@toxicvoxel said:
Am I understanding this right : With nXt you can actually shower in the fountain while it is rendering??
.Yes. But I was careful not to save the image until I was done.
OH. - and I thought that was what ambient occlusion was meant for...
@al hart said:
I let it "cook" for about 15 minutes while I took a shower.
Am I understanding this right : With nXt you can actually shower in the fountain while it is rendering?? 
.
Rendered using MyHand 1.5 using the Aguablender plug-in with Brazil caffeine enhancer and baking .
Nice job, but I want to make some recommendations:
If you turn the image into grey-scale and squint, you can see that it lacks a little bit in mid-tones. If you create a little contrast in the range of values it would possibly make the image a little stronger.
(-not perfect but you get the idea)
One other thing you could consider trying is to change the deeper values in your image to blues (cool shadows) or browns (warm shadows). Colours in traditional media are normally mixed to avoid greys and blacks and this may move your image one step closer to a true watercolour style.
Finally let the 'wash' gradient run through to the edge of the image. At the moment it looks like a soft shadow in the foreground (cast by the building) which conflicts with the direction of shadows on the columns.
Soon you could be talking to your mother for free, directly from within your Sketchup model...
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/11/09/report-indicates-google-bought-gizmo5
.
I found this really nice tutorial showing image build-up in Photoshop which some might find interesting.
The site itself is quite a good resource too:
http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/drawing/how-to-create-a-side-view-concept-car/
@ecuadorian said:
Why not do something similar to what Microsoft has? You just install the thing and activate it online. No need to send a request to a human being who might be sleeping or on vacation. And no need to give explanations if you switch to a new PC or change your CPU or network card; it just activates again.
You may not realise that what you are talking about is a patented technology system for which both Microsoft & Autodesk had to pay dearly in this court case:
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/settlements/05399/tech_patent.html[-Piracy free link 
]
It's not a simple matter of replicating the licensing system. Licensing it from z4 would add a huge cost overhead to the software which would have to be passed on to the purchaser. Then you would be complaining that the software is too expensive.
.
OK, I get it, I understand, mi comprendo , - I am sorry, I apologise and I will never do it again.
Happy?
Hey man relax, I'm happy that the link is deleted. I'm not propagating piracy - I'm advocating against it.
Gaieus,
I note you decided to delete the part in your post about 'forum policy'.
I was about to say that it was good to know there was one.
I think most members would understand the link in context with the rest of my post.
@unknownuser said:
Some weeks ago I was ready to move over to Skindigo but it is my strong believe that their license policy reflects a character present in Glare Technologies. It takes a certain attitude to hassle your paying users in their disadvantage to make sure you do not loose a penny on the bad guys. Many companies have a decent license policy that does not conflict with the majority of their users. Glare has a good example by SU itself.
I think this post reflects more about your attitude than that of the developer involved.
Have a look at this link and you maybe you will understand that developers need to protect themselves against the 'attitude' of users.
@unknownuser said:
Just imagine yourself before a deadline switching after a crash to a back system and having to wait till Glare decides to provide you a new license. Or you'd like to finish some hours work in the weekend and have to drive back half an hour to the office to get it done. At Glare they assume we are all students since its Sketchup...or that we do not read the license policy before we buy.
No responsible business would operate without having backup computers and extra licenses when working against critical deadlines. If they are working overtime they are making money. Pay the cash for a second license and stop complaining.
In fact it is a teddy-bear that was designed by a committee...
Sorry double listing...
Somebody once said : 'The wonderful thing about standards are that there are so many to choose from!' 
It may be worth considering how such a scheme for Sketchup fits into the work done by buildinSMART (now in charge of the IFC spec):
http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org/
http://www.wbdg.org/resources/cobie.php
If you rely on definition names any inconsistent use of your naming scheme will break your application logic and you may end up with an incomplete/inaccurate report. (Same problem as getting an entire organisation to use the company layer standards.)
It may be a better strategy to use hidden attribute tags.
Tomot,
Grasshopper uses the Rhino graphics engine and wouldn't run separately. Unless you wish to execute the grasshopper script, let Rhino do the processing and then return the geometry to Sketchup. - Which would be a little silly as there will be easier ways to achieve it.
By the way, calling .NET/COM code from SU Ruby has been available since the first release through ole32.
Talking the other way is a different matter. That is why I have asked for a ruby script to be executable through the Sketchup COM API. Initially HQ agreed it was a good idea but for whatever reason the didn't implement it (since last I checked).
Maybe Oscar will be so kind as to let us know how he achieves the bridge.
Didlier,
I think you did a good job on SU2POV but I think the hype of the plethora of new (free/cheap) rendering engines appearing on the market would make this project a waste of your talents. I have a small archive of projects that I recoded at some stage or another and wish I had spent the effort on something more innovative than improving the codebase on some of these.
Oscar this is very interesting.
Can you explain what is going behind the scenes in terms of how you are communicating with SU?
Jim,
I think it would be imperative to support polyface meshes as minimal functionality for this plugin as so many formats export faces using this structure.
This would also potentially provide a logical optional construct to map against sketchup groups, which maps to blocks in the current importer/exporter.
Your efforts are appreciated.