Getting a good Indigo render for your Sketchup models can be a bit tricky.

This tutorial aims to provide you with the information you need to maximize the render potential of your free Sketchup models. You'll learn how to get rid of mesh overlap issues, assign Indigo shaders to your materials, illuminate the lights of your model, and more!

http://www.reallusion.com/reallusiontv/youtubega.aspx?url=//www.youtube.com/embed/rIhs_iPjw3U

Still a WIP, because a ton of iterations is needed.
if you ask for the bedroom scene, is a Sketchup file converted to OBJ via Keyshot, and donated for free to the Sketchup Community I belong too.

ashe5k said:

mdbruffy said:

jnsessions said:

mdbruffy said:

Anyone know where I can find a good model of the 1701-E's bridge? I have the Observation Lounge and I built turbo lifts. But I need the bridge.

I know that Vanishing Point has one (Starship Bridge 5), and that Google's Sketchup Warehouse has at least a couple (but I don't think the sketchup ones are that good).

I got the one from Vanishing Point. But unlike some of the sets, there are no 'Trek specific textures for it.

I thought there had been but I got it confused with one of the other bridges. Most of the LCARS panels look ok at least, but there's the matter of getting the Sovereign class MSD on there and a few of the signage spots fixed.

I don't think I'd messed with that one yet other than to make sure it loaded in DAZ so I don't have any fixed textures I can share with you yet.

That's okay. I'm still working on my page lay-outs. I've got time yet. I'll take samples from screencaps and I have a few LCARS collections bookmarked. I'll get it set up.

mdbruffy said:

jnsessions said:

mdbruffy said:

Anyone know where I can find a good model of the 1701-E's bridge? I have the Observation Lounge and I built turbo lifts. But I need the bridge.

I know that Vanishing Point has one (Starship Bridge 5), and that Google's Sketchup Warehouse has at least a couple (but I don't think the sketchup ones are that good).

I got the one from Vanishing Point. But unlike some of the sets, there are no 'Trek specific textures for it.

I thought there had been but I got it confused with one of the other bridges. Most of the LCARS panels look ok at least, but there's the matter of getting the Sovereign class MSD on there and a few of the signage spots fixed.

I don't think I'd messed with that one yet other than to make sure it loaded in DAZ so I don't have any fixed textures I can share with you yet.

jnsessions said:

mdbruffy said:

Anyone know where I can find a good model of the 1701-E's bridge? I have the Observation Lounge and I built turbo lifts. But I need the bridge.

I know that Vanishing Point has one (Starship Bridge 5), and that Google's Sketchup Warehouse has at least a couple (but I don't think the sketchup ones are that good).

I got the one from Vanishing Point. But unlike some of the sets, there are no 'Trek specific textures for it.

jnsessions said:

mdbruffy said:

Anyone know where I can find a good model of the 1701-E's bridge? I have the Observation Lounge and I built turbo lifts. But I need the bridge.

I know that Vanishing Point has one (Starship Bridge 5), and that Google's Sketchup Warehouse has at least a couple (but I don't think the sketchup ones are that good).

I have one of the Sketch-up, but it has no doors and no chairs. The doors are not an issue- cloth plains will serve there. But I don't know if I have the skill or the programs to make the chairs. I'll check out Vanishing Point.

mdbruffy said:

Anyone know where I can find a good model of the 1701-E's bridge? I have the Observation Lounge and I built turbo lifts. But I need the bridge.

I know that Vanishing Point has one (Starship Bridge 5), and that Google's Sketchup Warehouse has at least a couple (but I don't think the sketchup ones are that good).

Thanks again mjc. I've got those hdri maps - used them in Twilight Renderer in Sketchup.

Just going to figure out how to plug them into UE2 and we'll see how I get on.

It might help if I show you what I'm trying to achieve. This was done in iRay using the brushed metal shader. No additional lights. The only tweak I made was to drop the reflection strength slightly in the surface editor as my model was showing faces during render. I stopped this render at 79% after 25 minutes. No way I can use iray for the hundreds of frames I'll need to produce.

On a separate note, any idea why triangular faces are showing on the bottom right of the model. I exported from sketchup as an .obj and I've checked the mesh of my original. I can't see why faces are showing up in one area and not all round the model.

Looking for a bit of advice. I'm trying to create convincing looking metal using 3Delight as the renderer. iRay gives fantastic results using it's built in shaders but it's too slow. I'll be producing 30 second animations and each frame takes ages using iRay.

The attached image is the closest I've come but it's still not quite iRay quality. It does however. render in seconds.

What I've done so far to achieve the image attached.

Imported my Sketchup model
Converted surface to UberSurface and switched on both specular 1 and 2 - both white 100%
Main light is UberEnvironment2 with KHPark. IDL with directional
Added 4 extra distant lights all between 60 and 100% and set to specular only.

Any ideas what I can do to improve? I've tried various additional lights but all they do is wash out the strong contrasts I need for metal.

Thank you Daz for caring over my car thread. This is version IV. That's a lot of cars and bikes folks.

Thanks for the shaders Tom...question...will these work for Daz 4.6 and/or Daz 3.0?

Here is a drag strip I converted from Sketchup. The lights I made myself.

On all of the pro stuff, it still supports the different file formats, many more than they used to, I can't say whether or not they have changed things again, but my copies of both Sketchup 2014 and 2015 both export obj files, I do have both because I have two computers.

It comes with the ability to convert the files in the free version, so I don't know why you would need to pay Trimble to be able to convert skp files to obj files, unless your still using Sketchup 8, Sketchup 2014 and 2015 come already so equipped!

betsy662 said:

I hate Autocorrect, such a pain, yes, the newer versions of Sketchup will convert skp files to obj files, it also helps to have Blender handy to resize the model so it actually will be viewable in DS.

or you can use Bryce .

I hate Autocorrect, such a pain, yes, the newer versions of Sketchup will convert skp files to obj files, it also helps to have Blender handy to resize the model so it actually will be viewable in DS.

The newer version of Sketchup does convert files to object format.

...surprised there is nothing at Rendo. They have full racetrack. Only one I could find was on Turbosquid for 69$ and I believe it is in MAX format so it can't even be converted for use in Daz.

Supposedly there is also one over at the Sketchup warehouse but since they changed the files all to the new Sketchup format and got rid of pretty much all the Collada and .obj files, again there is no way to convert to Daz. I knew when Google sold it off it would not be good.

Mustakettu85 said:

mjc1016 said:

And this was a case where the GeoEditor didn't help. It just flips their current direction. I had to use Blender and repeated 'recalculate' runs to get them all in same direction, and even after that I had one door that was backwards from everything else. that's from Turbosquid...which even makes it more surprising that it was such messed up normals.

I never encountered anything that bad in Poser/DS content. Random flipped normals in a few spots, in freebies mostly, that's that. Wasn't Poser very sensitive to wrong normals very early on?

Yeah, I think it was.

This was a Turbosquid model that was originally a Max or LWO one that was run through TS's autoconverter, by the guy that uploaded it. My guess is it was just a bad conversion. It really did look like it was 'half' there...like one fender was perfect, but the one on the other side was translucent, black or some of both. To get GeoEditor to work I probably would have had to do a poly by poly flip...and at almost 400K I was NOT about to do that. But it's all fixed now and in DS native...

I like it because it has a pretty nice interior...no engine, though, so if I wanted I could make it so the doors open. I have a lot of other cars to convert/set up...I just hope there aren't many more that are that troublesome (I know that most of the Sketchup ones will be troublesome).

Thank you all.
Fenric, I didn't say that I want the plug-in for free! Luxus for Carrara doesn't come free. Thea plug-in for MAX, SU, Rhino cost the money too. You have to pay for VRay plug-in as well. The only exceptions are plug-ins for Blender. It is clear to me that my respect for your time and effort should be justified with some cash for you. That's it.

I always convert spline messy meshes into vertex ones for cleaning and re-topology. So there is no problem with that to me. I don't use morphs in my still-live and arch-viz projects but I see there are many that use it. From my experience there is no a perfect plug-in. It seems to be there a limit at some point. For instance in Thea plug-in for Skecthup there is a feature that converts all scene to Thea format for final work in Thea Studio if one cannot meet the goal in Sketchup using the plug-in only. There are no perfect solutions in this world so we have to accept same kind of compromise with our expectations. For me that is not a problem. The ability to sculpt further in 3D-Coat my shape from Carrara and get it back UVed and painted with PBR materials back to Carrara assembly room ready to render would be a great step forward in my Carrara work-flow. Unfortunately I'm not sure it could be done to such extend. Maybe some surface editing only like Mari or SubstanceDesigner but go for all!

Philemo, there is a special section in 3D-Coat forum addressed to the peoples interested in making plug-ins:
http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5596
I think you should start there. All request concerning cooperation you should address at [email protected]

Cbird, thank you for supporting the idea!

Marek

I too had problems using my space navigator with DAZ, even though it worked great with Sketchup. The real solution for me was to set the "Dominant" feature in the 3dconnexion softtware (advanced settings | navigation | dominant should be checked). Once the dominant feature was activated my space navigator behaved much better as it seems to limit inputs to a single action rather than multiple actions at once. Hopefully this will help others too!