Replies

1. 
   WoodRivWW | Jan 07, 2008 05:31am | #1

   Beautiful design and use of Sketchup. Could you tell me where you get the lovely grain patterns you used?

1. 
   Russell | Jan 08, 2008 06:05am | #2

   Hey woodrivWW,Instead of going into where to get good wood scans, I'll just give you a link to a posting that I did a while back, goes into detail about that and a few other things, cheers.
   http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=38170.1
   Russ

1. 
   Russell | Jan 09, 2008 03:15am | #3

   Here's a rendering of the same cabinet and a desk and chairs I designed a while back. Pretty amazing what these rendering programs can do. Cheers.Russ.http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com

   
1. 
   daverichards | Jan 09, 2008 04:34am | #4

   Excellent! What rendering software?

    

   Not to hijack your thread but here are a couple I did over the weekend. It is kind of fun.

   
1. 
   Russell | Jan 09, 2008 05:03am | #5

   Hey Dave,No worries on hijacking the thread, the more the merrier. I always enjoy seeing what your working on (very nice by the way). We have a similar style in furniture design. Kind of arts and crafts, greene and greene meets japanese. I'm using Indigo at the moment, I think I'll try Kerkythea out there too at some point. Which program are you using? I'm still having some trouble figuring out the lighting with indigo, I try lighting with lights that I've created but it never seems to work. So for the moment I'm just using sunlight until I figure out what I'm doing with the program. Cheers Dave.Russ.

2. 
   daverichards | Jan 09, 2008 05:16am | #6

   Russ, thank you. Yes, I think we like the same sorts of furniture.

   I used Kerkythea for these two. The SU2KT exporter along with the included lights make it fairly simple to set up and then render an image. Sometimes I'll create emitters which are quite easy with KT. Usually though, I just use the spots and pointlights from SU2KT. In the case of the cabinet, there are three point lights inside it and there are two spot lights lighting the exterior.

   I have found that it helps to put a ceiling on the room to help keep the light in.

   I have Indigo, too but found it less easy to use. when I asked for some help on the Indigo forum I just got blasted for not beveling the edges of the piece of the model. My argument against this is that my primary reason for drawing them is to create working drawings for the shop. The rendering is a secondary thing. As you may know, I don't believe in loading up a model with unneeded geometry. In most cases, beveling edges just to get a highlight along them adds unnneeded geometry.

   Keep up the good work.

   Dave

3. 
   Russell | Jan 09, 2008 11:06pm | #9

   Dave,Do you notice much of a difference in the quality of picture that you end up with when comparing indigo to KT? I really like the realism that I get with indigo, but I have nothing to compare it to yet. I think I'll download KT tonight and do a bit of a comparison experiment. I agree, you can really go too far with the details. The main reason I've started rendering is to basically give potential customers a more or less photographic representation of what somethings going to look like, without actually having to build it. I'm quite sure there not going to be looking over it with a microscope. It's a wonderful tool though.Russ.http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com

4. 
   daverichards | Jan 10, 2008 01:27am | #10

   Russ, I don't know if there's really a quality difference between the two. I'm more comfortable with KT and I have a feeling there are more folks using it. Their forum is pretty active and a lot of the KT users use SketchUp too so it is easy to get help.

   I think you're on to something about showing your clients a more photographic representation of the project. It helps them understand what they're getting.

   Cheers,

   Dave

2. 
   wood_donkey | Jan 09, 2008 05:56am | #7

   Nice look, went for a more simple grill on the doors?

   Donkey

1. 
   Russell | Jan 09, 2008 07:34am | #8

   Hey Donkey,Yeah I'm going to veneer the doors with quilted maple and I'll let the wood do more of the talking with a much less elaborate pattern. Cheers.Russ.http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com