@unknownuser said:

Very nice work Tom. I would as well like to get up closer amoung the rocks. I don't know if you are into rendering but this would certainly be a great model to play with. Cheers to you!!

Hi Modelhead,

I first went to Stonehenge in the mid-1970s. In those days you could walk all over the site and touch the stones. Now we're kept away from the stones to preserve them.

No, I haven't gotten into rendering. But could somebody else do it with the SU model?

Tom

@pichuneke said:

It's an incredible work.

Do you have plans for the original Stonehenge?

The first picture is a plan as its today that appears in several books. This one is from English Heritage Book of Stonehenge, Julian Richards, B.T. Batsford Ltd,1991. On the web I've oonly managed to find very small plans that aren't much use. Also, I haven't yet found any elevations. If anyone knows where they are, I like to know. There must be some academic sites with this kind of info.

I've also attached a plan that I downloaded showing the original layout. There are quite a few models of Stonehenge in 3DW that show a rconstructed view.

Thanks and regards,
Tom

Gaieus,

I chose the part that is inside the ditch because that is what is usually shown in photos and is the most spectacular. Also, it's what people see when they visit the site (my wife and I went there last week to get some aditional photos). When you aspproach the site from the east on the road, your first view of the monument is what is in the model. Also, as I said above, it's pretty big already.

On the subject of geometry vs. texture, I tried 3 ways to do these stones: first, very acurate geometry (high poly) with standard gray stone texture on all of them, second, very simple geometry and rely on the texture images for realism and third, a compromise between the two. The last one is what you saw in the shots above.

Tom

Here're some bigger versions of the 3 shots.

I used Picasa to shrink all the texture photos before use. The textures average about 8-10KB,but there are a lot of them.

Tom

To all forum folk who helped me with this project,

After all the good advice re SubSmooth, I've got a first cut at the Stonehenge monument as it is today. I'm at the tweaking/fiddeling stage now and any ideas, advice, critiques whould be welcome. As this model is aimed at GE, I'm particularly concirned about the size of the file: 3.7MB.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Amo,

Is this what you're trying to do?

First I made the panel with a transparent window in it. Then make it a group. Then I made a second face and pasted a texture onto it and made this a group as well. Now you can edit the second face with any image you want without changing the original panel.
Tom

GlassPanel1.skp

dimerang,

I don't understand the problem. Could you attach a copy of your model so far or a screen shot that shows the issue.

Tom

Hi Irv,

I agree! From a technical poin-of-view is very helpful to have access to the expertise of the people who are doing SU professionally. However, a lot of the people modeling specifcally for GE are hobbyists, like me. Some of our concerns are specific to the SU/GE relationship with its own problems and solutions.

It would be great to have a place to share our ideas and support each other. It might also help focus Google's attention on what we're trying to do. There's some really good work being done, but I have the feeling that it gets lost in the sheer volume of stuff being loaded into 3DW.

Tom

Cheers, Coen.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has computer problems.

Thanks for your effort,
Tom

James,

OK, I did some with 1 iteration. That results in a much lower poly count.

Thanks again,
Tom

Thanks, James
Tom

Hi,

I've only been playing with Sub-Smooth for a couple of days. I'm using it to model for GE, so I want as low a face/edge count as possible. I can make up for some of the detail of smoothing with the photo textures applied later. I have a couple of questions:

1. Is there a way to restrict the strength of the Subsmooth action in the first place, i.e., less smoothing and fewer faces in the resulting component?
2. If that doesn't work, is there a way to simplify the component after it's done with the Subsmooth operation?

Thanks,
Tom

Thanks, Remus. That was very clear.

Tom

Cheers, Remus

Hi Remus,

I don' think it's that sophisticated. Solo (pete) sometimes talks about projecting textures from three sides (I think) at once, thus avoiding the streaky sides you get from rendering a 3d object from one side only.

Tom

Hi all,

I'm interested in the references to 3 dimentional rendering. Is there a tut or discussion somplace that explains this trick?

My work-around is time consuming: I build the object, smooth it then make the top, front, back and two sides into groups and render them one-at-a-time. Afterwards I explode the whole thing and then make it into a new group or component. This avoids the "funny, streaked side business" but it's a lot of work.
Tom

PS with my new Subdivide & Smooth, the stones are coming along nicely.

OK, I've now got the Subdevide-Smooth tools. It will take me a little while to learn the moves, but this is real progress.

Once I get closer to a final model for Stonehenge, I'll start a new thread to let you know how it's going. Thanks to you all for your help.

Solo, Isn't it the middle of the night in Dallas?

Tom

James,

I followed that thread and got some good ideas. The problem I have is that I'm not trying to make any good looking rocks but specific ones so I have to madel the 3d shape AND the real texture on the correct sides.

I guess I needn't be coy: I'm doing a model of Stonehenge as it is today. Most of the models in 3DW are idealized ones of what it looked like 5000 years ago when all the stones were similar. In the interim, they've weathered and eroded individually.

Tom

Solo,

Here's an example of one of the stones. Obviously I have to have views of all sides of these to see the model. I've tried to do it with the sandbox tools and with Push/Pull-Scale tools. Maybe it needs more practice. Thanks for your help.

Others,

I'll followup on these leads and let you know.

Agaion, thanks a lot,
Tom

Hi,

I remember Gaius mentioning someplace that most of the cars in 3DW were done in some other modeling programs and imported into SU for uploading to 3DW. For a project I'm working on, I need to model a bunch of irregular objects that have rounded edges (rocks). I've been trying everything I can think of in SU to model these objects; so far just frustration!

Does anybody know of a simple 3D Modeling program (preferably free or cheap) that exports to SU that I could use to build these objects?

Thanks for help,
Tom