MODEL: WIP Model Project: 50’s Style Rocketship Model

I am currently working on a new, 1950’s style, “futuristic” sci-fi movies rocket ship ala Buck Rogers. Currently it’s still a work in progress but when done, it will have a completely detailed engine room with rocket engine, crews quarters, turbo lift (thats an elevator for all you non-trekies out there), science lab, bridge, and more. Everything will have that corny, 50’s sci-fi movie treatment and will include all textures. I plan to offer the model, when done, for sale on Turbosquid and my own website at SixBicksPress.com. Here is sneak peak at the interior (still a WIP and no hull is showing), rendered in clay model form without any textures. Please let me know what you think! Click the following thumbnails for larger images:

WIP: 50’s Sci-fi Rocket Model

WIP: 50’s Sci-fi Rocket Model (Engine)

WIP: 50’s Sci-fi Rocket Model (crews quarters)

WIP: 50’s Sci-fi Rocket Model (thruster)

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Plugin: Sketchup Custom Toolbars

Jim Foltz, moderator for the Sketchup Community Forums, has released an incredibly useful script called Custom Toolbars. With it you can build your own customized Toolbars from a large, preconfigured list of commands, which should be expanding as Jim finds the time to work on it. Creating a Toolbar is easy; Custom Toolbars creates a “Toolbars” folder in your SketchUp Plugins folder. Create a .txt file in this Toolbars folder and give it the same name as you want the name of the Toolbar. Then, edit the .txt file and simply list the name of the tool you would like to appear in the Toolbar.

The script comes with really cool icons for each of the commands and the installation instructions are really easy to follow. This one is definitely worth the download! Thanks Jim!! 8)

Click here to download it directly from the Sketchup Graphics Blog

My Sketchup Workspace using Jim's Custom Toolbar Script

Another Sketchup & Kerkythea Image

Here is another example of the power of Google Sketchup Pro 6 and Kerkythea as it pertains to lighting. This is an concept OEM LED Undercabinet lighting fixture that my company, International Light Technologies is manufacturing for a customer (the one depicted in the image is an earlier version concept). When you combine the powerful and fast modeling capabilities of Sketchup with the awesome non-biased rendering power of Kerkthea, you have a rather inexpensive but immensely powerful tool for rapid visualization. 8)

Click on the thumbnail to see the full size image

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3D Light Design Rendering Using Sketchup & Kerkythea

As promised, I am posting a rendering (using the Metropolis Light Transport rendering method) showing what the great combination of Sketchup Pro and Kerkythea is capable of. The picture is of a simple, small commercial staircase with metal and frosted glass railing (modeled in seconds in Sketchup using a stairway ruby script) and a recessed, vertical surface-mounted, cool-white LED accent fixture I modeled in Sketchup, which are the only lights in the scene. This is just a sample and architectural lighting designers can take the combination to new heights but combine these programs and the DIALux lighting analysis program and your well equipped as a lighting designer without spending tons of cash.

PS. Let me know what you think of the image by posting a comment please 🙂

Click to view the full sized SU & KT Rendered Image

Click to view the same scene rendered in Sketchup only
Technorati Tags: architectural lighting, architectural lighting design, solid-state architectural lighting, led architectural lighting, architectural led lighting, lighting design, solid-state lighting design, lighting designers, lighting artist, artistic lighting, lighting engineering, architectural lighting industry, designing with light, architectural design, office lighting, solid-state office lighting, office lighting design, sketchup, google sketchup, 3d software, 3d rendering, architectural visualization, visualization software, 3d rendering software, lighting design software, lighting visualization software, kerkythea, kerkythea rendering system, 3d architectural rendering, interior lighting, light modeling, 3d modeling, lighting design tools, architectural lighting design tools

Inexpensive Tools for Architectural Lighting Analysis

For any lighting designers or architects that have to work with lighting design and want to do some visualization for your clients might I suggest the powerful yet low cost combination of Google Sketchup Pro and Kerkythea Rendering System. Google Sketchup is a terrific program (I use it extensively myself both professionally and outside my company and I spec’d it FOR my company) to rapidly and quite intuitively make 3D models of almost anything and is particularly well suited for architecture. It’s own rendering capabilities lean towards the “hand-drawn sketch” look hence the name but when you combine it with Kerkythea which is a fabulous and quite powerful rendering system, the results can be truly amazing. Better yet, to anyone interested, this combination of software is highly functional, easy to use, and quite a bit cheaper than the bigger name packages out there since Sketchup is only $495.00 (single license) and Kerkythea is totally free! There is a free version of Sketchup for those who want to try it out first.

If your interested, check out this thread about using Sketchup and Kerkythea for Architectural Lighting Analysis from the Kerkythea forum.

Here is a sample image from the above mentioned thread that shows what Sketchup and kerkythea can do and quickly too!

Fly over to my LED Development Blog to checkout a couple of non-architectural lighting related Sketchup and Kerkythea renderings I did.

Technorati Tags: architectural lighting, architectural lighting design, solid-state architectural lighting, led architectural lighting, architectural led lighting, lighting design, solid-state lighting design, lighting designers, lighting artist, artistic lighting, lighting engineering, architectural lighting industry, designing with light, architectural design, office lighting, solid-state office lighting, office lighting design, sketchup, google sketchup, 3d software, 3d rendering, architectural visualization, visualization software, 3d rendering software, lighting design software, lighting visualization software, kerkythea, kerkythea rendering system, 3d architectural rendering, interior lighting, light modeling, 3d modeling, lighting design tools, architectural lighting design tools

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