@ Sempie-
SketchUp has difficulty with tiny polygons (smaller than the native 1/32" setting) , especially in a follow me operation... this may be the reason for the tiny holes in the part. One workaround for that is to model at twice the actual scale and when you are done scale it back down. I've done this many times and it works well.
Also- Look into a ruby script called "FollowMe and keep", it it seems to keep the path extrusion more along the desired path with less or no twisting.

Sorry, for the briefness of this post, I'm on the way out.

Good luck.

OK, now we're talking.

Curved line settings down from (120s x 48s) to (30s x 15s), saving a huge amount of polygons..
SketchUp taking a couple of minutes instead of hours to create the object.
Exported as an object from SketchUp - size 6.5 MB, imported into Poser with several small holes in the geometry.

Not really usable like that.

Exported as a Collada DAE from SketchUp, imported into Blender, exported as an Obj file without any alterations.
New obj file size: 1.5 MB. (Even if I never deleted a single face from the geometry - must be some kind of magic)
Appears smooth in Poser, even with transparency and reflection settings.

PP2 filesize: 1.2 MB - very acceptable.

Finally I'm getting somewhere.

Thanks for that Blender-tip, lordvicore, this one really worked.

@ lordvicore

Thanks for your kind compliments.

For now I mostly downloaded the Ruby plug ins where I had the faintest idea (from the description) what they actually do.
As I'm still new at both modeling and SketchUp, I'm still finding my way around - fortunately, having worked with colleagues
that were professional modelers (Maya, ZBrush, etc) I had some faint idea about the terminology, and in a basic introduction
course in Maya at work, I covered some basic modeling principles myself.

I only found out days ago that the free version of SketchUp has no native Boolean tools, and that subdivision tools come
at the additional price of a commercial plug in.

I'll download the tools you have recommended - some of them, like the quadface tools, I already have, and already used.
I like Fredo6's RoundCorner tool, for instance, for quickly softening edges.

The one thing that I'm a bit frustrated with is one of my favorite native tools of SketchUp; the FollowMe tool.
It's both incredible intuitive and powerful, and I'm using it for creating my basic Tupperware bowl and box
shapes. When you leave the Circle and Curved Line tools at there default settings (at respectively 24s and 12s)
it all works like a dream, but the created objects will be too low res for Poser and Studio. Enhancing the number
of sides to 120s for circles and 30s for curved lines will produce objects that look decent in Poser and Studio,
but they make SketchUp choke.

I'm now working on a Tupperware box, that is actually rather curved. I constructed the bottom contour for the FollowMe
path on a flat rectangle, using curved lines at a setting of 120 sides; drew the vertical contour on a second rectangle with
the curved line tool set at a setting of 30s, erased the contours of the rectangles, and then activate the FollowMe tool to
create my nicely curved box out of the ground plane and the side contour. SketchUp does not give me my box, but shows
me an hourglass.

I can then make myself some coffee, drink it, go have a shower, go out for some groceries, prepare myself
a three coarse meal, eat it, do the dishes, and still find my laptop moaning doing the math. (OK, I'm working
on a 2006 laptop with a dual core at 1,6 Ghz and 2 GB RAM, which is not exactly the fastest computer currently
around, but still; I hardly think that the FollowMe tool will utilize more than a single processor core anyway.)
When finally the high poly mesh is finished, SketchUp will not like it at all, behave sluggish, and whatever
you like to do with the mesh from then on, you'd better do it outside of SketchUp.

Preparing the groundwork for my box: 30 minutes tops, if you do it precisely from a set of construction lines.
Waiting for SketchUp to create my box for me - hours, and hours, and hours. For something as simple as
a Tupperware box shape. (That's why it is taking me forever to complete my Tupperware set. Waiting for
hours to see your mesh, and then finding out that I overdid it with the curve shapes, improve on the
model, and have my computer crunch at the bloody thing for hours - again! That's what's making it a bit
tedious at the moment.

I probably need to find a way to keep my modeling in low res when working natively in SketchUp, and then
boost it up and smoothen it all out in another software.

You are right about the intuitive nature of SketchUp, that's what sold it to me. That's why I gave up on anything
else that I tried before SketchUp, starting with Imagine for the Amiga, way back in the early 90s.
Any time a computer magazine would give away an older version of a 3D software on the cover disk I would
buy it. Truespace, Cinema4D, whatever. They never hooked me on.

And then I saw some SketchUp YouTube vids and thought - hey, that great, I can do that!

I'm originally a draughtsman, worked as a traditional cartoon animator, took me ages to learn how to animate
in Maya as well; my mind is still set to analogue and intuition, not to digital and complex menus with incompre-
hensible toolsets. That's what I mostly like about SketchUp; its what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach at
modeling. The only real bummer is that it is not really designed for high poly work.

My hope is for a way to create my models in a low resolution in SketchUp, then import it into another package;
have it double, triple or quadruple the amount of polygons there and smoothing the mesh up without doing
any other funky stuff, and then import it over to Poser/Daz.

I even had a test using Maya for this, using the smooth command. Works great on something as simple
as a bowl shape, and as Maya does not choke on high poly objects it will perform these sorts of operations
in seconds, if not instantly. But if you have a more complex mesh with both curved surfaces and straight faced
parts, there's a problem, because the tool makes everything curvy. Maya involves bothering other people anyway,
as I do not own the program myself.

I tried a similar approach in Hexagon, but the smoothing process there just completely messed up the
mesh, creating weird surfaces.

I still need to try out Blender, Wings3D and MeshLab, that have been recommended to me for using alongside
SketchUp.

As far as your tips go - much appreciated, there was a load of things I did not know yet. I can still use
all the help I can get.

@ Sempie
Yes, I would recommend purchasing Artisan. My only complaint is there does not seem to be much documentation to go along with it, aside from some YouTube video tuts... I'm not too crazy about them since sometimes it is hard to see what exactly is being clicked on... but for $40 I can hardly complain. The videos will get you pointed in the right direction though and the rest is trial and error. I already used Artisan to make some seats for a hovercar I made and a couple of other things too, but I really should work with it more.

Check out this list of plugins: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=28782

I recommend picking up practically everything by Fredo6, especially TruPaint, Joint Push-Pull, Tools on surface and Curviloft.
Also:
thomthom- Quadface tools, shell,TT Lib (newest version),UV toolkit and Material replacer.
TIG- All the "extrude by" tools, Pipe along path and OBJ exporter 2.6...(works great on models where smoothing is not so important and models that you wish to preserve the textures original name in when exported... thus DarkSteel stays DarkSteel in Poser's or DAZ's Material room as opposed to ID228 or some other odd designation).

Whaat- SketchUV (not free-$15)

tak2hata- Make Fur.

There are tons more, but those are some of the "Must haves".

Blender is incredibly versatile and very powerful... but not very intuitive. I have made some stuff using it, but for what it was worth, once I learned how to do it, I could still make the same thing in SketchUp in 1/4 the time. But everyone is different... For me the intuitive nature of SketchUp's modeling methods is not just the greatest thing, but the method of view/camera movement is extremely easy and intuitive as well... being able to easily move around what you are working on makes modeling so much quicker easier... which is one thing that I find a bummer in Blender... too keyboard intensive.

Using both Tools On Surface and Joint Push-Pull ( by Fredo6 ), you could draw a shape on the curved surface and then push-pull it out or in... it takes a little practice to get precision, but its not hard.

Two other tips if you are not already aware.

Deleting is not Deleted... when you are modeling, remember to often use "Purge Unused" (Window > Model info > Statistics > "Purge unused" button.)... this will remove any unused component and group data from parts you may have have deleted. This becomes more important when you use image based textures and groups and components (for example if you make a universal part like a door, window or column which you end up importing into other SU models, that part is considered a component... if you delete it from that model, SU still holds on to some of the data (probably for instancing)... doing this a few times can unnecessarily bloat a file. I once made an ornate railing that was 57 MB, when I remembered to "Purge unused" it became 6 MB... (thats an extreme example).

Don't be afraid to break the model down into smaller sections and reassemble it in poser... as long as you make sure you model at world center (the dotted green line is the direction the camera faces in Poser,by the way) and all of the subsections you make are aligned to their proper coordinates, everything should show up and line up just fine in Poser (or DS). Breaking up the model into sub sections can help overcome issues found with models with heavier geometry.

Lastly... you are making great looking stuff! You have very good model making skills.

Good luck.

BTW- Sorry if I repeated anything you already know... I just like sharing whatever knowledge I've picked up, and whatever I've found that might save others time and effort searching for.

@ Richard Haseltine

My defintitive model will have five buttons plus the eject as well - I just was a bit lazy for my test render, and thought that for just a sneak peak four standard Poser cubes would do the trick as well, as I have not modeled any of the buttons yet.. The volume slider is also still missing. I need to re-size the hole for the buttons for a better fit - unfortunately, I have no info about the dimensions of this thing, and have to go by best guessing. As I never know how the model behaves after importing it in Poser-Studio, I go back and forth between the programs a lot, to see what modeling methods work, and what methods do not translate well when imported into other software. SketchUp itself is not picky about the quality of the mesh at all, and almost anything will look smooth from inside of SketchUp - one of the biggest drawbacks of the program when modeling for Poser.(Together with the lack of decent boolean and subdivision modeling tools.)

And, yes, tape recorders as storage devices - I still remember my first attempts at Basic on a Tandy TRS80, somewhere around 1983. Loved the sounds that went with it. They even broadcast basic programs over the radio in these days. Weirdest broadcasts ever... :-)

@ lordvicore

Thanks for the tips.

I registered at SketchUcation a week or so ago, and already downloaded a few dozen Ruby scripts - I really love the way they enhance SketchUp, and the community seems very friendly as well - sorta reminds me of the Poser community in general.

I'm a bit short on dough at the moment, but I'm contemplating buying this Artisan package in the future; having some subdivision tools to work with should be nice. Do you have any experience with it?

I'll have to look into Blender - downloaded it, but haven't installed it yet. Judging from the Big Buck Bunny short they produced with it a couple of years ago it should be a very versatile program.

Between my Tupperware-tests I decided to do something less curvy on the side, and using some reference material I found on the net I'm now recreating a piece of equipment that I used to own; a mid 1970s Philips portable cassette recorder. I'll be switching between the Tupperware and this recorder for the next couple of days - whenever I get a bit frustrated with one of them i'll switch to the next.

Given the fact that up until now, I never showed any modeling talent whatsoever, and that I spent less than a day at the recorder thus far, and that I'm still just learning SketchUp by doing, it is amazing how quickly you can achieve nice models with it.

At the bottom of this post a render pretty much the way the model is, at this moment, in P7 Firefly, and some simple glossy material settings, and with the transparent plastic and buttons still placeholders done with the basic primitives from Poser. No textures are used apart from a Lakerem reflection map; it's all geometry, even the loudspeaker raster. I'm planning to include some modeled Din-sockets and see how far I can get into detail. The only thing I gave up on for now is accuracy in the roundness - the original model was slightly curved, but that would have given me so much issues to solve that I decided to keep my version basically rectangular in shape. (The freebie SUCoolean Boolean Ruby plug in that I have will not have me cut holes into curved shapes created with the FollowMe tool - are the boolean tools in the commercial version of SketchUp any better, or is there another solution?)

I'm planning on sharing this one as well once it's finished, maybe with a fake trade name to avoid copyright issues.

I'm glad to see someone else using SketchUp to model.
Pretty much most of my models are made in SketchUp. My personal trick is to use SU8 to export in DAE to Blender 2.57 and then export the mesh out as an OBJ... There seems to be some electro-polymorphic magic that occurs that way, but meshes seem much smoother than just exporting straight out... could be me though, but seems that works best.
Also whenever possible, try modeling using quads instead of tris or ngons and export untriangulated... you get better smoothing that way.
There are some pretty decent tutorials on YouTube for creating automobile meshes... I don't have the links with me, but you can probably find them by googling "making cars in sketchup" or something like that... Also check out SketchUcation's website for loads of great SketchUp plugins and information.

SketchUcation: http://sketchucation.com

A super awesome collection of free plugins and ruby scripts For SU: http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugins_list_az.php

Kerkythea a great free render engine that has a plugin for SU: http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/

The KT2SU plugin: http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=42&func=select&id=7

If you get KT and the plugin for SU, remember to pick up the lighting setup too... you can set up your lights in SU before sending the model to be rendered in KT... always save a separate version of the model when adding lights sets for KT, so you don't export out the light objects and cause problems in other programs later on.

Just a quick update: I went through a lot of tutorials and forums, and found out that SketchUp is not to good in creating
curved surfaces for other applications. As a quick and intuitive modeler, it's a dream, especially when you add some
of the many free plugins, but SketchUp has a trick to make low poly meshes seem smooth internally, and is not really
designed for making high poly objects for other applications. It can be done, but there are some difficulties. The
reason why I want to stick with SketchUp is, because it is really very intuitive to use. In the past I tried some other
applications for modeling, even Maya, at work, but so far SkechUp is the only application for me that is fun to use.

Both the Firefly renderer and 3Delight are sort of picky where curved objects are concerned, especially when you use
a combination of transparancy, refraction and reflection in the material settings - if the mesh is low poly, the faces will
show in the render, and the object will look like a poor 3D model.

I'm still looking for a compromise between quality and polygon count - I did do some smooth bowls, but they have a
humungous amount of polygons, and make SketchUp choke during the modeling process. However, I'm getting closer
to some presets that will produce rather smooth objects without breaking the polygon count.

I'm also experimenting with working in SketchUp with a relatively low polygon count internally, then import the mesh into
another modeling application that is better in dealing with high polygon meshes, and do some smoothing there.

It's mostly trial and error, and looking what looks right in Poser and Studio. At the moment, for me it is not even so
much about the bowl, as for working out a good work flow between SketchUp and Studio/Poser; if I get the basics
right, the modeling process should go quicker in the future. The main problem seems to be in creating curved
objects; anything with straight lines is quick and easy to create, and will work fine in Poser and Studio.

At the moment, I'm mostly interested in creating simple objects that I looked for all over the web, but was unable
to find - mostly period and vintage props. Or some architecture from Ancient Babylon. What I will model, will depend
a lot on my general mood, the time available, available documentation, and mostly my modeling skills, that at the
moment are still very, very basic.

First there is the learning curve, anything else is in the future.

As Tupperware seems to be a great way in covering the basics, I've decided to try a few more containers -
the rectangular ones for instance are not straight, but slightly curved, and I will need to find out the best way
of modeling these shapes within SketchUp. Anyway, I'm having fun, and probably, by the end of the week,
I'll have a small collection of Tupperware items ready for sharing.

As for the bowl - it'll be there somewhere this week; just give me a couple of days more for getting my work
method right.

andrewbrian said:

There is a delta flyer set on google sketch up

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=12321a104f3dbee29cf081cccede9d39&prevstart=0

I don't suppose anyone who knows what their doing would be willing to convert it for DAZStudio/Poser?:-)

There is a delta flyer set on google sketch up

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=12321a104f3dbee29cf081cccede9d39&prevstart=0

Lord Ganthor said:

My God! It's my childhood in 3D! I think my mother had every conceivable piece of Tupperware that came out from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Any chance you're going to do the Tupperware "sippy" cup? That's one piece that will be forever linked to my childhood.

I was a bit uncertain about what a Sippy cup looks like, did a quick google search, and had the pictures hit me like a brick - seems that I had one, too, in my earliest childhood, and it suddenly all came back to me. (Thanks!)

Seems easy enough to model in SketchUp, so I'm putting it on my To Do list.

As soon as I figure out which SketchUp modeling settings give me smooth edged curved surfaces without exploding the polygon count, creating simple objects should be a breeze. May be that I'll do an entire line of Tupperware items, if I can find some reference.

Jaderail said:

I think they are more interested in how to model the items smooth to start with. You could load your model into Hexagon after the conversion and smooth it in Hex and Subdivide it if need be. It should handle the job better than SketchUp.
That's all I can think of.

You are right; I'd like to use SketchUp as a modeling program to create simple props for Poser/Studio that will work
without any extra tweaking. I did not download this Tupperware box from the Trimble Warehouse as there are no
tupperware boxes to be found - I modeled it myself, (oh, well, big deal, it's quite basic) and as of yet, the only residing
place of this mesh is my own private hard disk. Before distributing it as a freebie, I'd like to improve on the model.

As Hexagon is free I have it somewhere on my hard disk, but I have never really used the program. Will need to check
how to use it for smoothing out my meshes. My main goal would still be to keep the meshes as light as possible while
still looking good, without the need of a lot of fiddling within Poser or Studio before rendering.

What I originally liked about the earlier installments of Poser was the ease of use - even if I'm happy that there's now
a lot more options to tweak around with shaders, smoothing, lighting etc, I still like to be able to use stuff 'out of the box'
with ready to use models, preset light sets, shader presets, etc.

Being a professional 3D character animator I've seen professional modelers, riggers, texturers, shaders and set lighters
at work in Maya, and even if the end result is usually spectacular, the amount of tweaking to get things right is a bit too
much for a hobbyist program like Studio. Sometimes it's just great to simply push a button and getting a decent render
without the need to fiddle around for several days.

And that's the sort of Freebies I'd like to create - the sort that works straightaway.

Thanks - looks very usable. Bookmarked it, and will browse around to see what I can use.
As SketchUp usually tiles its custom textures, the tileable textures will be especially inter-
esting to me.

I think they are more interested in how to model the items smooth to start with. You could load your model into Hexagon after the conversion and smooth it in Hex and Subdivide it if need be. It should handle the job better than SketchUp.
That's all I can think of.

I'm not quite sure to understand but I guess you imported a model from sketchup to DS and want to know how to smooth it when rendering?

Try this :

Go to scene tab and select your bowl then click on the scene tab option then Edit->convert to subD
Go to the parameter tab then on your Bowl if it's not already selected then go to Mesh resolution. There you can adjust the subdivision of the mesh. The more subdivided, the more smoothed it will look but don't go too far too. The limit by default is 2 but you can edit the limit

I don't know for poser but there should be some options for subdivision too like any other 3D program

As I'd like to use SketchUp for creating some simple models, that I'd like to distribute as freebies,
I have a question about textures. I have no talent whatsoever to create my own textures; is there
a source for freely distributable generic textures that I can add to my props without infringing
any copyrights? I'm talking basic tileable wood, pavement, grass, metals etc.

I've come across the free version of SketchUp and a free obj converter, and as SketchUp thus far
is the only modeling software I came across that is intuitive enough for me to enjoy, I am thinking
about using it to create some basic (freebie) props for Poser and Studio.

Therefore I will be asking some basic, maybe rather stupid, newbie questions about the process
of modeling in SketchUp for use in Poser/Studio.

Question 1 would be about smooth curves.

My first attempt at a model is a basic Tupperware bowl.

In SketchUp itself almost anything looks smooth; once exported, things look quite differently.
For this bowl, I needed to go to an extreme high resolution to make the surface appear smooth.

In SketchUp, that meant setting both the curve tool and the circle tool that I use as the base for
rotating the contour to several hunderds of sides, resulting in humungus amounts of polygons
and SketchUp almost choking on me, making it calculate for almost two hours to complete
the mesh.

The first render shows two meshes; the pink one on the left with the ridiculous amount of polygons,
and to the right a lower resolution model that looks chunky despite the smoothing switched
on. (3Delight at its highest resolution, Ueberenvironment 2)

The picture beneath it shows the meshes in wireframe mode.

The third picture shows a Poser 4 render with the lowrez model actually looking rather smooth.
(rendered using the DAZ True Global lighting preset) This is basically the look I had in mind
when modeling the prop - but no such luck using Poser 7 Firefly or DS4 3Delight.

Should I learn to live with these high polygon counts, or is there a way around this?
Is this just between SketchUp and Poser/Studio, or is this a generic problem?

I'm going to play around with it a bit more, and then probably upload both a HiRez model for close range renders, and
the lower resolution prop I already made.

Then, there is my list of obscure props I always wanted to have, and nobody would, as yet, model, as my modeling skills
will (hopefully) develop. For several years, I've been enviously looking at the efforts of The Ness, DarthJ, Jan19 and Skip-
per25, to name just a few, and given a modeling program that is intuitive to use, it is actually fun creating new stuff - just
need to find the time.

Simple stuff like this should make me come to grips with the basic problems between SketchUp and Poser/DAZ Studio,
and finding workarounds. As soon as I have the hang of it, I will have developed a work flow, and things should be going
more smoothly. At this point in time, this is mostly about my learning curve, with some additional freebie props as extra
benefits.

I'm still experimenting. The problem is not so much in the modeling itself, but in exporting it into a different format and have it
still look good.

SketchUp seems to have some internal smoothing tricks up it sleeve and makes even low-poly surfaces look smooth.
Once you export this seemingly smooth object into another format, things look quite differently, and faces show up in
the render.

The Poser 4 render engine is quite forgiving on my mesh, and makes it seem smooth.

Both Firefly and 3Delight seem to be more demanding, ironically even with the smoothing option activated.

A further problem with this particular mesh is, that there's no photographic texture on top of it; a plain surface is more
likely to show its imperfections, especially when it is slightly glossy.

My original mesh looks too edgy to be usable, so I'm now experimenting on a high res mesh that makes SketchUp
choke, but will look better in 3Delight. It is based on a circle with no less then 600 sides in SketchUp as the base for
the rotation, and the polygon count is probably ridiculous - as far as size is concerned, the high res bowl is almost
9 MB. OK, modern hardware can take it, but it is still sort of ridiculous. It may be a SketchUp thing; as I am a complete
newbie as far as modeling is concerned I would not know. If any of the other modelers could shine a light on this,
please do - do Poser and DAZ Studio really need such a lot of polygons to make smooth curved surfaces, or is there
a workaround? (Probably I should better take this question to Nuts & Bolts.)

I need to make a more accurate high res model for the bowl next; in SketchUp you do that by sketching the outer
contour and then rotating it around the axis. My poor old laptop needed almost two hours to do the math at my
previous test at a high resolution, so it might take me a while to come up with the definitive mesh.

A simple 3Delight - Ueberenvironment 2 render to show the problem - the pink version is a 'quick' and dirty ridiculously
high res mesh, as opposed to my original mesh in green, looking quite chunky.

has foot and hand collision with terrain which is a feature I would love in Daz
you need 3dx5pro for rigged figure and model import and just exporting some mesh (Reallusion store bought stuff is locked to iClone)
does Google sketchup and warehouse models nicely.
rigged models and bvh needs pipeline for export plus licenses for Reallusion developer market place stuff.