I thought it may be worthwhile to offer help with sketchup
if anyone needs it?

i know there's tons of vids and tuts on the net..but shout if u have a problem and want fresh eyes to tackle it

Do you use the free version or the pro version of sketchup? If so, could you give me a list of bonuses that I would recieve from upgrading?

Im using the free version and considering buying it. It may not be as expensive than other modelling software, but I want to make sure that its worth the money.

I think you are allowed to sell your work (otherwise you can only distribute it for free). Other then that it has some more plugins. Just follow this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+sketchup+products

But I think that you can download most plugins which are similar from sketchucation.

And be careful with upgrading. This may also change the version (su8) and I am not sure if sk8 works with ce2.

Cheers

i use the free version with plugins :)
there's not a lot u can't do with them..just be aware some are beta versions so can be buggy
the most useful plugin i have found is called Curviloft by Fredo at sketchucation

regards upgrading...if you want to make models and use them in crysis..then don't go beyond version 7

Damn, I upgraded to the free version of sketchup when it came out. I guess I should just wait until cryengine3 comes out.

Any idea how to export very detailed models from Sketchup with collada cgf?
(Without splitting them into several pieces?)

with the last few projects i have been working on i noticed that collada starts corrupting the model at 14 thousand to 15 thousnd faces..
how many have u got?

i also notices that sometimes collada will process a group in the model
if u have patience try selecting smaller parts of your model and grouping them and then running collada
whatch out for your materials though...depending on your grouping it somethimes sees them as different materials in the editor, even though in sketchup it it says 5 materials in the editor it cranks it up to 10
work around on this is to reset all your materials to the standard white..reverse faces and apply the white again..then start applying them from scratch again..
double click the groups to edit/apply materials to them at the same time

Edit:
(as u can see in the pic patience is everything lol)
try one change at a time and import it into the editor to see the result before u do too much and cannot find the point where the model breaks)

beyond that we're kinda stuck with the limit of cllada...not sure why it wont process more faces ...anyone have an idea?

I talk about stuff with more than 10000 Triangles. But I found out that Sketchup 6 even handles 40.000 to 50.000.
The model I currently try to export has 20.000 faces or 160.000 triangles.... (as shown after exporting to collada/kmz)
I get the following error: "Error merging nodes: Too many total vertices to merge"
"failed to convert file"

What do you mean with "try selecting smaller parts of your model and grouping them and then running collada"?
Exporting several Groups at the same time?

I found the limits of collada:




[QUOTE]
"Limitations on <geometry> elements

The Blue Mars software is limited to a technical maximum of 65,535 vertices, normals, texture coordinates, triangles, etc. in a single object.
The Blue Mars file format units are in centimeters, with a XYZ resolution of 0.005 cm. This means that any vertices which have x, y, and z values within 0.005 cm of each other will be considered to be equivalent and may be merged together. Merging of vertices may result in degenerate triangles and result in errors in the Blue Mars software. [END OF QUOTE]

Source: http://create.bluemars.com/wiki/index.p ... lity_guide


The 65,535 vertices limit might be because of unsigned int filetype being used??? 65.535 values

So my guess is that the maximum number triangles is 65535 (the number of faces is lower)

download the trail version of the pro version and export it as .obj
than open it with XSI or 3DMax
and export it there

the trailtime is a total time while the program is open/in use
so you can export hundreds of models after the trailtime of 8 hours ending

You don't need the trial version to export .obj, just use the ruby .obj exporter plugin for sketchup free.