Reflective Glass Buildings

[nevets2001uk]

Hi all,

I'm very new to Sketchup (discovered it 3 weeks ago). Since then I've been playing with it a lot for a kitchen remodel we're doing and just today I've been inspired to build some full buildings and perhaps even a town/city.

I've got a few basic models laid out and have started working on some road components, however the area I need help with is textures and materials. I plan to render scenes in Kerkythea and I've seen some great renderings on here of city scenes. One thing many of them have is photo real textures and reflective glass.

My first question is howdo people set models and textures up for the reflective glass? I won't be designing internals in the buildings so don't want the glass transparent. Do you simply create a face and colour it in SU before setting the refletivity of that material in Kerkythea?

Ideally is someone could point me to some 3D warehouse models that would demonstrate model for real looking (ie not painted on textures) windows that would be much appreciated.

Here's a quick render of my first untextured building. I'm not sure how much detail I can get away with modelling vs. texturing if this is going to be included in full city scene renders but for now I've gone for a moderate amount of detail.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7494/maddisonbuilding1.jpg (http://img233.imageshack.us/i/maddisonbuilding1.jpg/)

[toyota74]

I dont do any photo texturing but if you want reflective glass you have to model a window an d paint a translucent glass on it in sketch up and in kerky
edit the glass in kerky -so chose reflection and set near white for it to
reflect.................there is kerythea forums for rendering
sketchucation forum for sketch up,
kerky for sketch up thread in 3d designs in sscity forum.

worth looking at all tree......your model looks clean so im guessing
you will have no problem learning kerky.:)

[nevets2001uk]

Thanks Toyota. I checked out the resources you mentioned and did a lot of reading. I'm starting to get to grips with things. As a bit a test and practice I've decided to try to recreate some areas of my home town to practice modeling and rendering. I'm working on one small section at the moment and have modelled the road layout and my first building is on it's way. I've opted for detail over texturing so much it's got a high poly count but SU and Kerky are coping ok so far.

Here's my reference photograph:

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2308/refw.jpg (http://img3.imageshack.us/i/refw.jpg/)

Here's my WIP. I've still got work to do on the windows, roof and penthouse appartments. Also I need to setup some materials for the scene. This is a 6h 150 Pass MLT Render:

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/874/renderresize.jpg (http://img3.imageshack.us/i/renderresize.jpg/)

Any comments and critiques to help me improve are most welcome.

[Mocholate]

Sweet as, I am really in to replications at the moment. It's a good way to learn and get familiar with scaling etc.

As far as Kerk goes it's better to just use plain colours in Sketchup and then convert/(create)the colour in to a material in Kerk. Kerk is much more powerfull and stable than SU :cool:

When i test stuff i usually open the same scene in 4 or 5 different windows of Kerk. Do a minor changes to each one and compare the results, Take notes of what works.

[toyota74]

good model; seems you have no problem with sketchup and
soon you will have no problem with kerky

[nevets2001uk]

Thanks for the comments. I'm quite pleased with the model to date. I've added some more depth to the windows and improved things like the balcony railings etc and thought I'd share my progress so far.

Preset 17 Render - 36 Passes, combined with Depth Map in PS

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8687/largebuildingrender.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/i/largebuildingrender.jpg/)

The Balcony Detail

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/3491/detailn.jpg (http://img230.imageshack.us/i/detailn.jpg/)

[Flamesrule]

Nice job on the building...You'll be a expert in Kerk in no time.

[nevets2001uk]

Thanks flamesrule. It's quite a learning curve but I hope to get to grips with it soon.

[nevets2001uk]

My latest render which is just a play around with a night render using some omni lights inside the "rooms".

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3827/buildingatnight330e.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/i/buildingatnight330e.jpg/)