An imaginary space ...

[Ross Macintosh]

Created this in Xara using a raster export of the linework from my favorite 3d modeling program (SketchUp). My wife doesn't understand why I would waste my time creating something like this. Perhaps it is getting time to trade her in.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[Ross Macintosh]

Created this in Xara using a raster export of the linework from my favorite 3d modeling program (SketchUp). My wife doesn't understand why I would waste my time creating something like this. Perhaps it is getting time to trade her in.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[gdavidson]

I like it - Sketchup looks interesting. I'd like to get into 3D a little, even if just to get a wireframe into Xara to hang things onto

Actually, I just had a look at Sketchup after following your link - fascinating. Expensive but tempting indeed!

--
Graeme

[Ross Macintosh]

Thanks Graeme! SketchUp is great. Download their demo. Before you play with it watch the video training movies at the site. They are every bit as good as the Xara ones and will make any time you spend with the demo productive. It is a very easy program to learn due to its well thought out design. It is truly amazing to see what some people create during its short demo period.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[gwpriester]

Ross

That is a very cool composition. But the spheres bother me with the single source highlight which always looks very 3D generated to my eye.

Years ago I remember seeing a portfolio of a guy who did some really amazing things in a 3D program but his objects had five shadows. Kind of weird looking I thought.

How do you bring these images into Xara? And what things do you add in Xara? Maybe you could post a before Xara and after Xara?

Gary

Gary Priester

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[Ross Macintosh]

Attached is a gif copy of the jpg image I had exported from SketchUp. The rest was done in Xara. In SketchUp, the "shapes" were a donut-like torus thingie sharing space with a sphere shape. They were displaying with transparency for an x-ray like effect allowing the lines normally hidden by surfaces to be seen.

Gary - I see your point about the "highlights" and agree it is a weakness in the image. It made more sense in the Xara original. In the center of the big space I had an orb of brilliant light that didn't appear as a highlight. It didn't reproduce in the jpg export -- it just became a dull glow. When it was there, the smaller spheres made more sense as they are but tiny versions of the huge space - each with their own glowing orb at their centers. As glowing orbs I think they made sense, as highlights they look peculiar.

The SketchUp developers are working on a eps export that should greatly help the program's usefulness with Xara and other vector illustration software. For the time being I have to work with rasters.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[gwpriester]

You have done a lot more to the image than I suspected.

Here is what I was thinking of about the space spheres which would have a harder core shadow and perhaps a reflected highlight on the opposite side. (Of course this is presupposing that the light celestial light source is a rectanglular soft light :-)

Gary

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[joroho]

Very well done, Ross. Like Gary, you did a lot more in Xara than I had anticipated.

As for your wife... have you looked to see if an upgrade is available?

[RAMWolff44]

I think you are having a new love affair with a program, I don't think you need an upgraded wife!!

Saw this this afternoon at work and with the crapy monitor I couldn't be sure about the tones and richness of the colors and while they are subtle in some areas and more vibrant in the spheres it makes the eye want to travel around the image and really check it out!!

The use of color to bring out the pattens in an unearthly kind of way is just spell binding and I like your spheres just fine but I like Gary's suggestion too!!

Overall I think you have a pretty darned Kool illustration on your hands and before our eyes. Gold star to the pupil from Nova Scotia, Canada!!

Richard

---Wolff On The Prowl---

[Ross Macintosh]

Thanks guys.

And I think I'll be keeping the wife. After almost 16 years of marriage our relationship still has plenty of room to grow. Her lack of understanding on the creative front can easily be dismissed.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>