[clayton chipper]

daniel, what are you using it for specifically?

im also using it for simple fencing, and wiring eg wire on trellising and espaliers.  i added wire diameters into profile builder and i just get a calculated amount used of each wire diameter in the design.  very nice.

[clayton chipper]

i hear ya.

its also great for irrigation piping as it calculates all your lengths used for all your piping sizes.  before i found profile builder, that was the thing stopping me from using sketchup solely in garden design.  i was having to got back and forth between sketchup and vectorworks.

[clayton chipper]

thanks for the advice brian and daniel.  the soften edge worked for me.  not quite sure why?  its like when i was adding detail, the detail was acting like normal hidden geometry but the original google terrain wasnt, and wouldnt hide.  when i selected it and softened, it disappeared straight away and then worked properly with the ‘hide’ menu.

 

lots to learn about sandbox terrain!

[clayton chipper]

steve,

can you upload a screen shot of the xfrog plants in sketchup? im interested to see how different they look after going through xTune, compared the hi-res equivalents.

[clayton chipper]

hmmm

i see xfrog have food plants!

[clayton chipper]

i hear ya! i dont bother with 3d trees at all especially since i work on a macbook. i only use 2.5d trees. i like the idea of your workflow. do you do your cost estimates in landfx?

it would also be possible to do your workflow idea with layers in sketchup. just have multiple layers for each tree component. 2d layer-low poly/then a high poly layer that you could switch on just before rendering. My work is mainly school gardens and community gardens so i use a lot of food plants in my designs, not many of them around the web, that ive found anyway. im thinking of just making some of my own 2.5d versions, a little bit like what WorkAc have done
http://work.ac/ps-216-edible-schoolyard/

i used to use vectorworks and sketchup but now i just want to do everything in sketchup if i can.

i also tried some of the in-sketchup rendering progs but they were pretty buggy. Thea has an interactive render window so it looks like the preview window from Renderin.

i will go and check out x-frog…i think i remember them from vectorworks.

[clayton chipper]

Ive heard Vue is good for trees. Thea seems to be responding to requests from sketchup users to make importing 2.5d trees with pngs easy. the new thea sketchup importer supports alpha transparencies.

ive heard vue is also good for created ecosystems but I dont want to add trees in the render program because i do all my cost estimates in sketchup, so all the tree components need to be in the sketchup design to be counted. nice renders Daniel. I also have your book which is very informative.

[clayton chipper]

Ive been trying quite a few rendering options for mac. my main issue has been finding a render software that will render 2.5d trees well without too much hassle.

tried:
podium
renderin
thea render
light-up
and a few more i cant remember

ive ended up going with Thea Render.

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