I was supporting your statement about OBJ. OBJ is my preferred format too. I've imported 3DS before and it often contains too much geometry and takes longer to import compared to the cleaner OBJ version. 3DS often has errors too, as you clearly illustrated above.

very cool, thanks for the share!

I don't know what you wish to use them for, nor the exact method of modeling used by Form Fonts, but you could try using the Artisan plugin to sculpt some low rez models for Sketch Up, or if you need really good quality posable models you could use Poser or DAZ3D... DAZ's models are fairly affordable and DAZ Studio 4.6 is still free, so if you don't want to spend a lot on the program its not bad. You can export the models you make in SketchUp into OBJ format using Pros native OBJ export or TIG's Free Object Exporter... once in OBJ format you can import them to Poser or DAZ studio. One thing to note, DAZ base figures are nude, so you need to buy clothes for them (or not)... which is basically how they make up the cost of the free program... Poser on the other hand does come with a whole lot of free content as well as several clothed figures. If you go for Poser, try finding an older version like Poser 8 or 9 on Amazon, you will save a lot. Edited to add... sorry I just notice you said "for SU"... Well, Poser models are pretty detailed and make huge SU files in general... I sometimes pose and export DAZ people into SU using an older version of DAZ which had a Level Of Detail option for certain figures... I drop the LOD pretty low, since I need the figure only for scale reference... I don't know if LOD export is possible in Poser, or how it now works in DAZ Studio (I think you now need a $$ plugin called "Decimator"). I hope this was of some use.

nice use of proxies Good cheer to all! Andy

@rv1974 said: @valerostudio said: Anyone else seeing that Ctrl copying with the move tool and array copying is slow as a dog and sometimes gets 'stuck' and then you end up with 2 copies over each other? This is SketchUp 13.0.4812 I am using. +1. kinda bug. Very irritating. Are you using V-Ray? I disabled VR and it does seem to speed things up in regards to array copies,

I forgot to mention I have a dual core. If I add anything refractive it slows down render time....but I'm not using vray anyway, so my render time comment is wholly irrelevant.

I found this article which has some good tips. http://www.workshop.mintviz.com/tutorials/vray-animation-optimisation/

nice tut. thx for sharing the link. the picture in this tutorial = 5% sketchup, 5% vray, 90% photoshop

@valerostudio said: V-Ray for SketchUp Freelancer Special Pricing http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/freelancer_promo.html (not sure if this is appropriate ) If you go down the list of resellers you'll find CGriver is offering V-Ray for freelancers for $50 less than the promo price. At $649 it's one of the less expensive options available for rendering.

There are two plugins which export 6 cube faces: CubicPanoOut PanoScene which you can transform to a spherical image (equirectangular) afterwards (e.g. with hugin) ...

he has been beta testing through the entire development process, so I would assume it's a 2.0 render.

I dragged it directly into sketch-up, as one should with dynamic components. can't see a problem....what's broken?

We had a thread on this some time back - it wasn't conclusive but it helped me: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=41696

I use it. I does a good job within reason. UV preservation is always hard to control. Did you try Blender's Decimation?

@solo said: @jpalm32 said: XnView show SKP & HDR also and is free. I used to have that before Mystic, I found it slow to show large HDRI thumbs It is really slow at that, very true. Solo: XNView has a MP version that is super fast with HDR, but for some reason SKP files aren't showing in 64 Version. But HDR very fast. Has anyone tried Mootools 3D Brouser ($29) or Poly cruncher?

Aerilius beat me to it, but here's my similar answer, anyway not easily without completely overwriting all of it's definitions and methods which would be risky unless you wrote it in the first place. the alternative is use RC to find and rename the plugin so it doesn't work for the next startup, and then do a restart. there may even be a plugin for that... john