That's very cool stuff.

@wacov said:

Nice idea, mind if I steal it? 😉

Go ahead - by all means.

Here is my method from Vertex Tools:

<span class="syntaxdefault"><br /></span><span class="syntaxcomment">#&nbsp;Because&nbsp;the&nbsp;SU&nbsp;API&nbsp;doesn't&nbsp;let&nbsp;one&nbsp;set&nbsp;the&nbsp;Point&nbsp;size&nbsp;and&nbsp;style&nbsp;when&nbsp;drawing&nbsp;3D&nbsp;points<br />#&nbsp;the&nbsp;vertices&nbsp;are&nbsp;simulated&nbsp;by&nbsp;using&nbsp;GL_LINES&nbsp;instead.&nbsp;There&nbsp;is&nbsp;a&nbsp;slight&nbsp;overhead&nbsp;by&nbsp;<br />#&nbsp;generating&nbsp;the&nbsp;new&nbsp;points&nbsp;like&nbsp;this,&nbsp;but&nbsp;it's&nbsp;the&nbsp;only&nbsp;solution&nbsp;at&nbsp;the&nbsp;moment.<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">def&nbsp;draw_points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">color</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">view</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;return&nbsp;if&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">is_a</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(Array)&nbsp;&&&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.empty?<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">view</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">drawing_color&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">color<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;points&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;[</span><span class="syntaxdefault">points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">]&nbsp;if&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">is_a</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">Sketchup</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">;;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">Vertex</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">half_size&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;@</span><span class="syntaxdefault">settings</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">[;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">vertex_size</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">]&nbsp;/&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">2.0<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxcomment">#&nbsp;line_width&nbsp;appear&nbsp;to&nbsp;be&nbsp;limited&nbsp;to&nbsp;10px<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">view</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">line_width&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;@</span><span class="syntaxdefault">settings</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">[;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">vertex_size</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">]<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">hack_points&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;[]<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">v1&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">view</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">camera</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">xaxis<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;v2&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">v1</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">reverse<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">for&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">v&nbsp;in&nbsp;points<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;p&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">v</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">position<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;offset_length&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">=&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">view</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">pixels_to_model</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">half_size</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">p</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">hack_points&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword"><<&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">p</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">offset</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">v1</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">offset_length</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">hack_points&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxkeyword"><<&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">p</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">offset</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">v2</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">offset_length</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">end<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;view</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">draw</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">GL_LINES</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,&nbsp;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">hack_points</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">end<br /></span>

Another observation in regard to drawing in SketchUp, on (either ATI or nVidia - can't remember atm) if you draw 2d lines with odd number thickness they will appear fuzzy.
Say you draw a line from 50.0,50.0 to 100.0,50.0 in line width 3 it will not be a sharp and crisp line if the user has AA on. However, with even line width, like 2, it will look sharp.
To ensure crisp lines with off line width one has to offset the lines by .5 - so as in the previous example one would have to draw 50.5,50.5 to 100.5,50.5 .

Hiya

Me Like! Keep it up mate.

11zulu

The room seems cold and without life. Some things to work on:

The chairs are far too low poly
The overhead projector lacks detail
The table top material is out of scale (too big) and looks odd
The whole room has a orange cast to it.
Add a lightswitch by the door, plugs on the walls, etc. It is all about details.

Scott

Oh dear, I leave the SketchUp community for a while, come back, and find this... Why did I ever leave? 😄

Truly this is very impressive, I've never seen anything like this in SketchUp before, I'm also amazed at how well it runs, truly impressive.

Wacov
I took your model and replaced the parts inside with the ones in my model.

The only problem now is to make my Track "Obey the traffic laws" 😄
Well - I would like it to stay in the correct lane....

The problem is I do not understand what is going on.
It would be grate if you could explain what I should do

AI Red Track
P.S it takes about 15 seconds to start after I press run - Is it normal?
Thank you.
David.

Not at once, but stack them up. I think. I've not used the feature. Maybe the tools have to implement the suspend and resume methods...

use a fake emitter on the surface of the light ball with a pointlight inside and render with Easy "low" or "Medium" (do test on prelim for practicing with rendering animations)

you can of course render it other ways, even make the sphere a light emitter (as I assume you've done here), but that will render much longer... try it with the progressive animation render settings.

making the sphere an SSS wax material with a pointlight inside could also be interesting. when rendering SSS materials with non-progressive render methods, use one with a "+", so Medium+ would be a good one in that case.

look up the SP animation threads on TWL's forum 😉

@wacov said:

I was wondering if it's not being in an event that did it... still, pretty wierd...

I could be wrong but I think it was trying to resplit its self every time you did something during the sim. Remember CPillips said it had a lot of bugs yet.

Thanks 😄

Another update! I've had to .zip this one, it's just a weeny bit above 4MB. Bigger map, with targets to shoot.

FPS Rig 1.5.zip

Recently I was thinking about simulating wings. It think it is possible to script (in SP3x) a "wing". It would be an object that would use its past and current position,rotation and speed to figure out angle of attack. Once you have that you could easily figure out lift and drag and use push() to make it act something like a real wing. Connect to a body with a thruster and you get a plane. Connect them with servos and you could make ailerons and rudder.

In theory. 😄

I'm getting 30-35 fps. 👍

I tried my hand at rendering it too. It's a nice little model 😄

Sure... and then it could automatically connect up! onTouch wouldn't work, but that was just a means to an end... all you'd really need is a point in space. What about using guide points, connected by edges? There are other things, like assigning costs to movement through specific nodes (Say, through water), that need each node to be an individually identifiable entity. Theoretically, they could be auto-named, only requiring the set up of the node web to work.

I'm not sure how I would do that right now. Right now all I can do is set the desired position of the nodes and then press space to create the face.

I'm a millimeter away from switching from SU to Modo. It isn't as easy to just pick up and use at first, but as I learn it, I'm starting to think that, inferencing engine aside, I can be ultimately faster in Modo (for what I actually do, not just extruding blocks) than I can even approach in SU. Modo 401 now imports SolidWorks. (Huge for my situation.) Modo can do a full-screen preview render using Global Illumination with environment in seconds, sometimes actually as fast or FASTER than SU can update the same scene with SU shadows and profile lines in the actual scenes I'm doing. Modo won't choke on mere thousands or tens of thousands of polygons. Modo 401 can be had for $895 at some resellers, compared to the $795 we paid for a network license of SU. Modo does instancing and 'replicating', which means it can get into the millions of polygons compared to thousands in SU. I'm not saying it is better than SU in every way for ArchViz, but for my needs, it IS far superior. On the other hand, a lot of people are doing ArchViz in Modo now. Of course, both apps use polygons and can use .obj, so using both together is a great option.

Ill look into it.

Thanks! 😄 That's basically the system I'll use once the pathfinding has run. I've found a way to use attributes with the Hash variable system I'm using at the moment... it could either be:

@@n.attr[1]

Or:

@@n[1].attr

The first one invloves assigning attributes to the main variable, and setting them as hashes; the second means assigning attributes to the Fixnum class, which is less dynamic, and, I think, a bit strange.

You know the key detection system I use? That'd work for this.

... Something else that may be included...

[flash=320,200:17g34xur]http://content.screencast.com/users/sketchupBTM/folders/Jing/media/40aec8da-d5f1-4f37-9730-b59356b28a68/jingswfplayer.swf[/flash:17g34xur]

Again with the broken flash, sorry,
http://www.screencast.com/t/iy4gqmsMbNW

So far I've been just messing around with ideas for my character (The robot may just be temporary; it's pretty basic and square),but here are some of it's "stats" if you will.

Picture 1.png
...I think I might improve the running speed, but it messes up the leg/ arm movement a bit too much 😕
I've also been thinking about adding "kick" to the list, but the codes seem complex enough as it is 👊