I believe there was a White House model in the Sketchup archives but it has been quite a while since I last visited that site. Turbosquid may have one as well but who knows how pricey it might be.

9MBI's are the only Poser versions I've seen.

music2u4u said:

betsy662 said:

I see that, I think I may be able to justify it, so will be looking into that today.

That's what I said too...I figure, I would spend that on one or two cars alone. With this, I can do lots of cars. Many will be pretty nice. Even the bad ones I can fix in Sketchup. The Pontiac Safari loaded with only one tire on, the bumpers and tailgate were in the front seat, tthe windshield was in the floorboard, and it had all these flat planes all over it. I fixed it all up in about 30 minutes and exported it. Then the fun started. Well worth the $22.00 Betsy. If you need any help with it all, Cherokee and I will help you. You must get the TXDWorkshop and the RWAnalyzer, both freebies, also though to get the textures and unlock the meshes from game mode. Without them, you would miss out on a lot. They are simple, small standalones. Cherokee posted the links a few pages back. Oh...btw...the version 3 of ZModeler won't do this so you don't need it. I tried it, will not import .dff files.

:-)

That's why I don't export 3ds files, car parts are in the front seat. Then you have to go through the extra trouble to put them back where they should be. I use to export 3ds file until ZModeler was upgraded to include obj export. Oh, and the wheels, yeah, only one gets exported, not sure why that is.

betsy662 said:

I see that, I think I may be able to justify it, so will be looking into that today.

That's what I said too...I figure, I would spend that on one or two cars alone. With this, I can do lots of cars. Many will be pretty nice. Even the bad ones I can fix in Sketchup. The Pontiac Safari loaded with only one tire on, the bumpers and tailgate were in the front seat, tthe windshield was in the floorboard, and it had all these flat planes all over it. I fixed it all up in about 30 minutes and exported it. Then the fun started. Well worth the $22.00 Betsy. If you need any help with it all, Cherokee and I will help you. You must get the TXDWorkshop and the RWAnalyzer, both freebies, also though to get the textures and unlock the meshes from game mode. Without them, you would miss out on a lot. They are simple, small standalones. Cherokee posted the links a few pages back. Oh...btw...the version 3 of ZModeler won't do this so you don't need it. I tried it, will not import .dff files.

:-)

betsy662 said:

music2u4u said:

OK!!!...after playing around with the ZModeler2.2.6 for a few hours today, I figured out how to do this. I did mine a little bit differently than you did Cherokee. I used only the ZModeler, Poseray, sketchup and Daz Studio. It turned out to be the best $22.00 (for the ZModeler registration) I have spent yet. I will be able to do LOTS of cool cars.

So my first car was the Pontiac Safari Nomad you posted here earlier. I downloaded the car for free. I opened the .dff file in ZModeler. Oh, btw...I downloaded the DirectX update like you said and no more crashing...thanks for that. I know you said that the .3ds export feature wasn't very good, but I used it anyway and exported it all at once. I then imported the .3ds file into Sketchup. I then noticed that there were all these planes all over the car blocking it from being seen. I then discovered that these planes were in seperate groups, so I highlighted each group and hit delete. They disappeared a group at a time, all the way down to just the car itself. The bumpers were seperate groups, the doors each seperate, hood, and so forth. So I deleted all the car but each group at a time, exported that part again as a .3ds file, then hit undo to get the entire car back again. I repeated this until I had each group exported as a .3ds file.

Then I opened each .3ds file in Poseray, and converted each to an .obj file. I did all of them. Then I imported each .obj into Daz Studio 3, and parented each one to the body. I then scaled the entrie car down to size at once. Then I opened the surfaces tab and set all my colors and used some of my own textures. I then re-exported the scaled model, with all the parts moved into place, as .obj files again. Everything was lined up and sized right. The next thing I will do is import all the parts into Poser 7, and make a .pp2 file of the car, with doors, hood tailgate, and tires all movable. I will set the point of origin on the hinges and one dial will open and close them.

So that is how I did mine. The mesh is great and held up nicely through the conversion. It turned out as good as any cars I have spent $10 or $15 bucks on. I can now do lots of them!!! I just saved myself tons of money! Thanks Cherokee for bringing this to my attention.

Here is my first conversion...I used DZFire's shaders on it. Turned out awesome!

:-)

So it only costs $22.00? The last I saw, it was way more than that!

betsy,

They dropped the price.

music2u4u said:

OK!!!...after playing around with the ZModeler2.2.6 for a few hours today, I figured out how to do this. I did mine a little bit differently than you did Cherokee. I used only the ZModeler, Poseray, sketchup and Daz Studio. It turned out to be the best $22.00 (for the ZModeler registration) I have spent yet. I will be able to do LOTS of cool cars.

So my first car was the Pontiac Safari Nomad you posted here earlier. I downloaded the car for free. I opened the .dff file in ZModeler. Oh, btw...I downloaded the DirectX update like you said and no more crashing...thanks for that. I know you said that the .3ds export feature wasn't very good, but I used it anyway and exported it all at once. I then imported the .3ds file into Sketchup. I then noticed that there were all these planes all over the car blocking it from being seen. I then discovered that these planes were in seperate groups, so I highlighted each group and hit delete. They disappeared a group at a time, all the way down to just the car itself. The bumpers were seperate groups, the doors each seperate, hood, and so forth. So I deleted all the car but each group at a time, exported that part again as a .3ds file, then hit undo to get the entire car back again. I repeated this until I had each group exported as a .3ds file.

Then I opened each .3ds file in Poseray, and converted each to an .obj file. I did all of them. Then I imported each .obj into Daz Studio 3, and parented each one to the body. I then scaled the entrie car down to size at once. Then I opened the surfaces tab and set all my colors and used some of my own textures. I then re-exported the scaled model, with all the parts moved into place, as .obj files again. Everything was lined up and sized right. The next thing I will do is import all the parts into Poser 7, and make a .pp2 file of the car, with doors, hood tailgate, and tires all movable. I will set the point of origin on the hinges and one dial will open and close them.

So that is how I did mine. The mesh is great and held up nicely through the conversion. It turned out as good as any cars I have spent $10 or $15 bucks on. I can now do lots of them!!! I just saved myself tons of money! Thanks Cherokee for bringing this to my attention.

Here is my first conversion...I used DZFire's shaders on it. Turned out awesome!

:-)

So it only costs $22.00? The last I saw, it was way more than that!

music2u4u said:

OK!!!...after playing around with the ZModeler2.2.6 for a few hours today, I figured out how to do this. I did mine a little bit differently than you did Cherokee. I used only the ZModeler, Poseray, sketchup and Daz Studio. It turned out to be the best $22.00 (for the ZModeler registration) I have spent yet. I will be able to do LOTS of cool cars.

So my first car was the Pontiac Safari Nomad you posted here earlier. I downloaded the car for free. I opened the .dff file in ZModeler. Oh, btw...I downloaded the DirectX update like you said and no more crashing...thanks for that. I know you said that the .3ds export feature wasn't very good, but I used it anyway and exported it all at once. I then imported the .3ds file into Sketchup. I then noticed that there were all these planes all over the car blocking it from being seen. I then discovered that these planes were in seperate groups, so I highlighted each group and hit delete. They disappeared a group at a time, all the way down to just the car itself. The bumpers were seperate groups, the doors each seperate, hood, and so forth. So I deleted all the car but each group at a time, exported that part again as a .3ds file, then hit undo to get the entire car back again. I repeated this until I had each group exported as a .3ds file.

Then I opened each .3ds file in Poseray, and converted each to an .obj file. I did all of them. Then I imported each .obj into Daz Studio 3, and parented each one to the body. I then scaled the entrie car down to size at once. Then I opened the surfaces tab and set all my colors and used some of my own textures. I then re-exported the scaled model, with all the parts moved into place, as .obj files again. Everything was lined up and sized right. The next thing I will do is import all the parts into Poser 7, and make a .pp2 file of the car, with doors, hood tailgate, and tires all movable. I will set the point of origin on the hinges and one dial will open and close them.

So that is how I did mine. The mesh is great and held up nicely through the conversion. It turned out as good as any cars I have spent $10 or $15 bucks on. I can now do lots of them!!! I just saved myself tons of money! Thanks Cherokee for bringing this to my attention.

Here is my first conversion...I used DZFire's shaders on it. Turned out awesome!

:-)

music,
Glad you got it all figure out now and the process is work for you. Also glad the DirectX problem got fixed with that link I sent. I figured that was what was making ZModeler crash.

You conversion of the Pontiac looks good and hope you have fun doing many more.

OK!!!...after playing around with the ZModeler2.2.6 for a few hours today, I figured out how to do this. I did mine a little bit differently than you did Cherokee. I used only the ZModeler, Poseray, sketchup and Daz Studio. It turned out to be the best $22.00 (for the ZModeler registration) I have spent yet. I will be able to do LOTS of cool cars.

So my first car was the Pontiac Safari Nomad you posted here earlier. I downloaded the car for free. I opened the .dff file in ZModeler. Oh, btw...I downloaded the DirectX update like you said and no more crashing...thanks for that. I know you said that the .3ds export feature wasn't very good, but I used it anyway and exported it all at once. I then imported the .3ds file into Sketchup. I then noticed that there were all these planes all over the car blocking it from being seen. I then discovered that these planes were in seperate groups, so I highlighted each group and hit delete. They disappeared a group at a time, all the way down to just the car itself. The bumpers were seperate groups, the doors each seperate, hood, and so forth. So I deleted all the car but each group at a time, exported that part again as a .3ds file, then hit undo to get the entire car back again. I repeated this until I had each group exported as a .3ds file.

Then I opened each .3ds file in Poseray, and converted each to an .obj file. I did all of them. Then I imported each .obj into Daz Studio 3, and parented each one to the body. I then scaled the entrie car down to size at once. Then I opened the surfaces tab and set all my colors and used some of my own textures. I then re-exported the scaled model, with all the parts moved into place, as .obj files again. Everything was lined up and sized right. The next thing I will do is import all the parts into Poser 7, and make a .pp2 file of the car, with doors, hood tailgate, and tires all movable. I will set the point of origin on the hinges and one dial will open and close them.

So that is how I did mine. The mesh is great and held up nicely through the conversion. It turned out as good as any cars I have spent $10 or $15 bucks on. I can now do lots of them!!! I just saved myself tons of money! Thanks Cherokee for bringing this to my attention.

Here is my first conversion...I used DZFire's shaders on it. Turned out awesome!

:-)

jerriecan said:

The plugin works, but the resulting obj files are large, and the texturing isn't pretty. But it sometimes works pretty well. There is a free plugin available for the free version of Sketchup.

Never, ever, have I had a Sketchup item that a) did not require clean up in a dedicated modeler and b) did not require retexturing...if for no other reason than the included ones were not all that great to begin with. If you remember to keep the obj, mtl and all the texture files in the same directory, then it should load 'textured'...

One of the big items that both makes the file size huge and the model look like something the cat dragged in, are duplicated/unwelded vertices...that is one of the most important things to do in the clean up process. I've seen file size drop by 3/4 by just getting rid of the duplicate vertices. Most imports are also going to need some smoothing and probably normals reoriented, which are things that should be done in a dedicate modeler. Also, one of the big problems, if planning on doing anything other than using it as a static model, is the grouping being totally bizarre. I've seen Sketchup vehicle models with the driver's door, the passenger side fender and the trunk lid all in the same group (with each having a different material zone, on top of that). Reducing and rearranging the groups, reducing the mat zones and such to something resembling sane, will also reduce file size.

So no, it's not a 'convert and use' process...but it can result in some decent models afterwards.

Bryce 7 pro can open up Sketchup files if I am not mistaken...Then you can use Bryce to export out as SomeName.obj or click the option to send to DS...

The plugin works, but the resulting obj files are large, and the texturing isn't pretty. But it sometimes works pretty well. There is a free plugin available for the free version of Sketchup.

Yes, export as obj file then Import into DS. You will need the Full Sketchup or a plugin for the Export as obj.

Has anyone been able to put a Sketchup model into Daz?

music2u4u said:

This is about the nicest 55 I could find. Not even sure where I got it. The Daz 55 is good except for the front grill, that sux. Makes it look like a taxi converted into a 55. If you could take this front end off, and put it on the Daz 55, it would be a nice one.

The black one, I made in sketchup. I used a premade body, and some parts to assemble this drag car. I made the tires and front axle myself.

:-)

The DAZ 55? You mean the "Family Car 1950? I have to admit, its too cartoonish, while some like it, I'm sure, I never did like it, its fine for the cartoon scene alright, but I'm not into cartoonish stuff, except maybe for a joke or something, whatever happened to Dudley? He had some really nice stuff going there for awhile, and even did the 37 Chevy and 48 Chevy Woodie, from what I understand, he did a bunch of other cars that aren't a part of the PC, all very nicely done.

The Luxury Car 1950, while somewhat better than the Family Car, is still way too far off for viability, however, because it has a more accurate look to it, gives it some credibility, of course, most of us on this forum like our cars to be far more accurate than what we have been getting from the Platinum Club offerings more recently.

I know, I have really cool cars I can't remember where I got them either, that is a nice mesh from the looks of it, but there is nothing, nada, zip on the 3D Warehouse, or anywhere else where a decent 55 Chevy can be had at a reasonable cost, until recently, that was also true of the 59 Impala, then Schurby basically saved the day, I guess the best we can hope for, since I have absolutely no talent in making much of anything in Sketchup, let alone Blender or Hex, (also don't have time to devote to learning how to use those programs effectively!), is that Schurby, or Nationale7 or someone else with some real talent would come along and make those cars.

I guess in the great big world of 3D, cars really aren't that much of a priority, kind of like modeling hobbies, though I've been a model railroader since childhood, and we have a large quantity of stuff available, as all hobbies go, model railroading has a smaller following than any other hobby, so in our hobby, cars actually take a back seat to the fantasy stuff, the elven stuff, and things like Petipet's cool starships!

This is about the nicest 55 I could find. Not even sure where I got it. The Daz 55 is good except for the front grill, that sux. Makes it look like a taxi converted into a 55. If you could take this front end off, and put it on the Daz 55, it would be a nice one.

The black one, I made in sketchup. I used a premade body, and some parts to assemble this drag car. I made the tires and front axle myself.

:-)

Yeah, well....found a bunch in the Sketchup warehouse...but none them looked all that great.

Found another that may be this type, on a British site...but the link is dead.

Well golly gee! Great little mag wheel and tire there, kind of looks like the American Mag Wheel I had been using, but that one began coming out messed up more recently, this one is great, the really nice thing is in Blender, its all one piece, so if I need to reposition it, I don't have to try to select all the pieces of a group, I just right click anywhere on the wheel or tire and and I can move the entire thing, which of course, tells me that after you made it in sketchup, you must have done the smoothing in Poseray!

betsy662 said:

music2u4u said:

Slow day at work...this is what I did, made a new tire with treads and an old style American magnesium Mag.

:-)

Nice looking may there, are you going to release it? The mags I was using were converted sketch up models, and I can't get them to come outright!

nah...I can send you a link to it though...I did this in sketchup too.

:-)

check your pm box!

music2u4u said:

Very nice indeed! Love the bored kid sitting on the floor while his dad dreams...lol.
Her dad, as it happens, though it's tough to tell at this distance. Yes, Alison is likely also doing some dreaming... of sparkly vampires, or shirtless werewolves, or whatever it is the kids are into nowadays.

Thanks for sharing this with us. Your pooter must be a monster of memory!!!!
:-)

In addition to the 11 cars (one of which is just a static prop, completely unrigged), the garage model (for the record, 3-D-C's Tuning Garage, available at Rendo) and decorations (the gas pump and Coke machine are converted SketchUp models; the various bits of wall decor are plane prims with textures and transmaps as needed), there are 3 V4's, an M4 and 4 Genesii, all clothed. By the time I had the scene fully populated, my viewport was at a crawl in wireframe mode.

Render took around 7.5 hours.

Thanks for the comments!

I've been playin with an old favorite, the 57 Chevy Bel-Air hardtop, this old freebie has seen some changes on my computer for sure, from the old stock lwo file converted to a obj, to becoming a race car, complete with roll cage, racing wheels, and someday I'll figure out how to do the graphics I want on it, however, I wanted a street version, one with really decent wheels, instead of having to make all sorts of changes to the old Sketchup wheels, though those are pretty decent wheels to be sure, I wanted something that most guys who had classic Chevy's back in the day would go for, Crager Mags!