Architecture - Lets talk content

Author

Lets talk content

Satch_N_Mo

2005-10-25, 8:21 pm

I have to agree with J.P. that if we are going to talk on content lets
talk.

I am a artist that works a dayjob in CAD. I am neither experienced with
3D other than I have always wanted to implement it. I had the idea to
use cad to build a city with skyscrapers, the whole lot. Then use the
perspective views to get a snapshot of a building for storyboards,
comic panels, etc. Now I am excited (from the galleries) of the
potential of Sketchup. I am comissioned right now to do conceptual art
for an "edutainment" game on the computer. The game board will consist
of a path like "Monopoly" and as the user goes around the game he will
see the fronts of 3d buildings. Well, I am there to draw them
"conceptually" (I sure am using "" alot) and go through the approval
process before they are modelled in 3d. Typically I'll draw the
building front/sides/top in cad and open in Adobe Illustrator to apply
gradients and fills of color. It is tedious and if I could have done
the buildings in 3d easily first and exported them to the 3d artist we
could have saved $$$. I am looking to invest in this product but have
some concerns about the finished look of some of the gallery shots on
their website. Are these images (of hotels/mansions/etc) rendered all
in Sketchup? Or is there an add-on that the artists have used or
exported to better (and more expensive) software for their renders?

Edgar

2005-10-25, 8:21 pm

Satch_N_Mo wrote:
> I have to agree with J.P. that if we are going to talk on content lets
> talk.
>
> I am a artist that works a dayjob in CAD. I am neither experienced with
> 3D other than I have always wanted to implement it. I had the idea to
> use cad to build a city with skyscrapers, the whole lot. Then use the
> perspective views to get a snapshot of a building for storyboards,
> comic panels, etc. Now I am excited (from the galleries) of the
> potential of Sketchup. I am comissioned right now to do conceptual art
> for an "edutainment" game on the computer. The game board will consist
> of a path like "Monopoly" and as the user goes around the game he will
> see the fronts of 3d buildings. Well, I am there to draw them
> "conceptually" (I sure am using "" alot) and go through the approval
> process before they are modelled in 3d. Typically I'll draw the
> building front/sides/top in cad and open in Adobe Illustrator to apply
> gradients and fills of color. It is tedious and if I could have done
> the buildings in 3d easily first and exported them to the 3d artist we
> could have saved $$$. I am looking to invest in this product but have
> some concerns about the finished look of some of the gallery shots on
> their website. Are these images (of hotels/mansions/etc) rendered all
> in Sketchup? Or is there an add-on that the artists have used or
> exported to better (and more expensive) software for their renders?
>

Sketchup is just a modeler (a great one at that). Most of the
photo-realistic stuff shown on their forums and galleries are done after
the model was exported. Sketchup can export to a multitude of programs,
so if you have something you use already, it is probably supported.
Sketchup can do a sort of sketchy render, and that is exactly what you
see on the website itself as graphics, but the galleries can be a
multitude of programs that actually did the rendering, anything from 3D
Studio max for photo realistic renders, to Photoshop for a more artistic
and custom look. If you read the gallery posts carefully they are
usually good about telling you what program they used to render.

This is a nice rendering here:

http://www.sketchup.com/forum/downl.../Bathroom31.png

it was exported as .obj, and then rendered in Kerkythea

this one here was done with an exported 2d image and Photoshop:

http://www.sketchup.com/forum/downl...9/web_ready.jpg

but plain old sketchup will give you stuff like this:

http://www.sketchup.com/forum/downl...3/EagleBnk3.jpg

not bad, but a little plain.

Hope this helps.

--
Edgar

Satch_N_Mo

2005-10-25, 9:21 pm

I agree. It is plain, but if your model is detailed it will look great
just using sketchup. Most client's eyes will pop at that level of
detail.

Great, Thank you for your response.

-Satch_N_Mo "Hey Mo!!!!!"

Kris Krieger

2005-10-25, 9:21 pm

"Satch_N_Mo" <mattm@gembuildings.com> wrote in
news:1130280018.573370.280380@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> I have to agree with J.P. that if we are going to talk on content lets
> talk.
>
[ ... ] I am looking to invest in this product but have
> some concerns about the finished look of some of the gallery shots on
> their website. Are these images (of hotels/mansions/etc) rendered all
> in Sketchup? Or is there an add-on that the artists have used or
> exported to better (and more expensive) software for their renders?

CAD-based programs typically don't seem to have the same lighting/rendering
quality that 3D modeling/rendering software has. I say "seems", only
because my comment is based upon what I've seen - more specifically, I
hadn't tried the Sketchup demo because the price is more than I can afford,
esp. since I already have a 3D modeling/rendering program.

Check the archives, because there was a rather in-depth thread here a few
months ago re: CAD and 3D-modeling software.

I admittedly haven't used many different 3D modeling programs. With mine,
I can draw a floorplan in another program and import it as a DXF file, then
select the face(s) of the DXF object, separate them, and sweep them to
create shells.

I would think that any good 3D program will allow you to do this. And do
good renders as well, once you learn about lighting (often called the most
difficult things about doing 3D...) Main thing is what type of interface
you want. Lightwave is heavily/entirely menu-based, from what I could
tell, and I hated it, but a lot of people like it - just depends upon how
you prefer to work; I think (but am not sure so check) that 3DSM is also
menu-based. Some people still ridicule trueSpace as a "toy" but that's
because they're ignorant about what one can actually do with it, and
because the icon-based GUI confuses them. I personally love the program,
and the company ( www.caligari.com ) also continues to sell less-expensive
older versions that still do very decent renders, which allows people with
smaller budgets to at least get started. I don't recall what formats
Sketch-Up outputs, but trueSpace imports and exports a variety of file-
types. Many 3D-types use both CAD and 3D-modeling/rendering software
because it suits how they work.

Again, check the archives, because a lot of folks here offered some good
info.

HTH

Edgar

2005-10-25, 9:21 pm

Satch_N_Mo wrote:
> I agree. It is plain, but if your model is detailed it will look great
> just using sketchup. Most client's eyes will pop at that level of
> detail.
>
> Great, Thank you for your response.
>
> -Satch_N_Mo "Hey Mo!!!!!"
>

Yeah your right. I've seen some really good rendering purely from
sketchup, with the right amount of detail. The best sketchup renders
I've seen have been large city planning or tract type models.

--
Edgar

RicodJour

2005-10-26, 10:21 am

Satch_N_Mo wrote:
> I have to agree with J.P. that if we are going to talk on content lets
> talk.
>
> I am a artist that works a dayjob in CAD. I am neither experienced with
> 3D other than I have always wanted to implement it. I had the idea to
> use cad to build a city with skyscrapers, the whole lot. Then use the
> perspective views to get a snapshot of a building for storyboards,
> comic panels, etc. Now I am excited (from the galleries) of the
> potential of Sketchup. I am comissioned right now to do conceptual art
> for an "edutainment" game on the computer. The game board will consist
> of a path like "Monopoly" and as the user goes around the game he will
> see the fronts of 3d buildings. Well, I am there to draw them
> "conceptually" (I sure am using "" alot) and go through the approval
> process before they are modelled in 3d. Typically I'll draw the
> building front/sides/top in cad and open in Adobe Illustrator to apply
> gradients and fills of color. It is tedious and if I could have done
> the buildings in 3d easily first and exported them to the 3d artist we
> could have saved $$$. I am looking to invest in this product but have
> some concerns about the finished look of some of the gallery shots on
> their website. Are these images (of hotels/mansions/etc) rendered all
> in Sketchup? Or is there an add-on that the artists have used or
> exported to better (and more expensive) software for their renders?

SketchUp will give you plenty of detail right now, and will allow
export to many others for detailed rendering. Another bonus - SketchUp
now has a plugin for Google Earth. I'm not sure if your city is a real
one or fabricated, but if you wanted to do NYC, for example, you can
toggle the "buildings" switch and get a quick 3D perspective of the
NY's buildings in greyed-out massing model style. Then you can plug in
your designs to populate it with your required amount of detail.

R

LinkBot