That Armoire

[SketchUp Guru]

I was just playing around with the armoire from the tutorial and came up with this. Thought I'd share.

 

[Philly]

Oooooh! Nice!
Philly

 

[garywayne]

Very nice Dave.

Now you have given us a step by step tutorial on how to draw plans on ScetchUp , are you now going to do a step by step tutorial on how to physically build the armoire for Mrs R? :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thank you. Thank you.

I don't think Mrs R cares for it that much. I think she'd rather have a tire swing. Still, I might make one some day. It's not on the short list though. I want to build another boat but I expect I'll be building a toy chest or something for my son.

After posting this I zipped out some quick knobs and added flooring to my drawing. This is what I got.

 

[andrewm]

Dave,

Looks good. Which rendering engine are you using? Or is that native SU5 output.

Andrew

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Andrew, I wish it was native SU output. The renderer is Kerkythea which is an amazing piece of freeware. I don't fully understand what I'm doing with it yet so I just poke at it and look at the results, poke some more and look some more....

It is fun to see a more photographic representation of your model though.

Thanks.

Dave

 

[garywayne]

Excuse me chaps.

What is a rendering engine, and what do you do with it?

 

[gidon]

Very impressive Dave!
Cheers
Gidon

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Gidon, thank you.

Gary, a render engine is an application that creates the more or less realistic computer images you find in all sorts of places. Render engines can work out shadows and reflections and even the way light would behave as it passes through a material such as glass or water.

Although it probably isn't that useful for a woodworker who just wants to create some working drawings to build from, it is nice to show a client if you need to. Take a look at the recent entry in the CAD Gallery thread. There's a couple of pretty amazing images from a renderer. If you didn't know better you'd almost think they were photographs of real furniture.

 

[mailee]

That really is amazing Dave! Just where did you get the freeware version of Kerkythea and is that the only program you need to make stunning pictures like this? I have already impressed my customers by being able to show them a walkthrough of an item on the laptop straight from SU but this would be a fantastic way to show off projects to customers. Of course that is if I am still young enough once I have learned how to use it. Does it require a lot of memory/large processor or is it computer friendly? :?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

You can get Kerkyhtea here: http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/~jpanta/Graphics/Kerkythea/ . there are tutorials and a forum where you can ask questions. I still don't have a handle on the entire program but part of the problem is it might be months between renders so I forget what I did before. It doesn't take a great deal of memory or processor but the more you have the better. Renders can take anywhere froma few seconds to hours depending upon what is going on in the model. Lots of lights or transparent materials will take longer to render. I did these two at pretty high resolution settings using some fine render settings to get the fine shadow lines to show well. It took my machine 10 or 15 minutes to render that.

there are other programs that do the rendering. Blender is another freeware application. I had it but it was more complex to understand and I deleted it when I started playing with Kerkythea. There also are a number of rendering applications you can buy but I haven't seen any evidence that it is worth buying one of them.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I forgot to mention that if you have GSU you should download and install the SUtoK Ruby script. I believe it will export a file you can use in Kerkyhtea. I use SUPro5 so I can output OBJ files directly. SUtoK will also export camera settings from SU as well as other things.

You can get that on the Downloads page on the Kerkythea site.

 

[mailee]

Many thanks for that Dave. I have downloaded it from the site and shall have a play with it later in the week. I also have SU pro 5 so shouldn't need the ruby script. I take it I must export the 3D graphic into Kerkyhtea as an OBJ file? can it then be imported back into SU or do I use it direct from Kerkyhtea? Sorry for my ignorance but I am new to rendering programs.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

You'll use the file in Kerkythea and then output to JPG or PNG. Download the SketchUp related tutorials--there's two--and watch them. It will give you a pretty good idea of how to get your model from SU to Kerkythea and what to do then. They are under Tutorials, I think.