The skatter plugin has been really great in creating better, and especially faster vegetation inside sketchup.
There is only one function I am not sure if it is in the plugin:
Is it possible to manually place a skatter component? By this I mean: The possibility to manually place a component (for example a tree) on the position you require, but keep the file a skatter component whereby you can scale, rotate, exclude from camera and render only.
I have a few urban layouts whereby the trees are on fixed positions. I’ve tried to make small squares and convert them into components, and then place 1 tree on the spot. But this method lacks flexibility.
If this can work, the skatter plugin can also be of great use in interior renders, since you don’t have to place the big models (decoration elements, pillows, sofa’s etc.) inside your sketchup model.
Right, and a few workarounds for juggling hi poly components with skatter:
-use proxies (depending on your render engine) can cut down on in model geometry
-place the “original” meshes on a hidden layer after you create the skatter group. This will keep SU from having to draw the high poly object when your working/navigating in SU, but stil keeps the instances for your skatter group
Thank you for the answer! I didn’t realize the ‘point sets’ were used for this.
I am using proxies for keeping the model geometry simple. It is a bit of a workaround, but most trees, and sofa’s I’ve remade in low-poly versions and used this as base for the proxy. In this way I can still place the components on the perfect spot.
It still would be awesome if sketchup could work with ‘x-ref’ like files which don’t need to be loaded in the file but only when you render an image.