G'day to all

G’day folks. Devo here. Been using SU for several years now. Sole trader landscaper / designer / environmental consultant (B.App.Sc.) located near Alstonville on the Far Nth. Coast of N.S.W. Grew up surfing, sailing, skateboarding, sliding down grassy slopes in bath tubs until something stopped you and…hanging out with too many hippies :mrgreen: …lol.

Started off building boats for Hobie Cat Aust. after I left year 12…then went to the States for over a year working in Florida working in the boat industry plus many other jobs. Then spent a couple of months in California landscaping for a sailing mate who had his own business which mainly employed Mexicans to do all the work…which was an education in itself…lol. I was planting out Aussie natives in the Californian foothills & kept warning them that “these here plants have evolved with fire & tend to burn you do realize you stupid seppo’s”…but they ignored me…see how that worked out…he he. Still managed to get into pretty much every club/tavern/bar I went to regardless of only being 19-20 at the time. Times have changed I suspect.

Anyway, I digress. Mainly use SketchUp for my own landscape construction designs but also contract out S.U. modelling services for large civil engineering tender proposals. Visualizations/Animations to show how they propose to undertake the project. Gets rendered out in Lumion as an animation video (and no, I don’t have Lumion…but if you want to buy it for me…feel free…lol). I also do a bit of Blending (Blender) but not so much lately as I’ve also been learning Houdini (SideFX) which is a beast to learn but oh my sausages…it is a pretty dam awesome bit of software, I must say. Non-destructive/procedural modelling is pretty cool I must say. I started out using it to make 3D plants, because I got sick of using Nth. Hemisphere spp. available online. I focus on Aussie natives, specifically ones I commonly work with, although I do make exotics as well or pretty much anything for that matter. I have a Houdini Simple Tree Tool that is like Speedtree but way cheaper. I can make my own textures for the leaves/bark/flowers & enjoy the challenge of making them botanically accurate…leaf/branch arrangements etc. Exports straight into UE/Unity/Game Engines so you can run around with your controller checking out your plants in the rain/wind/snow etc., or blow them up if you want :sunglasses:

So, I think that’s enough of a rant for now. Oh, before I go…how do you find a draft post you’ve made on this forum? I started a post, saved it as a draft & now I can’t find it to finish it…lol.
Devo, the force is strong in you…domestic blindness force that is…ha.

Catch ya’s later.

Woahhhh. . .There’s a lot going on in this post! Have you considered a blog?! You like to write!
I’m not too sure how to retrieve a draft post but I’ll have a look.

G’day Devo, welcome, ar eyou usieng PlusSpec pro or PlusDeisgnBuild?

Tips if you are doing landscaping:
Tip 1
use the BIM tool and save the trees to your components library.
Tip 2 You can also use the customer estimating tool inside PlusDesignBuild to your quantity takeroffs. EG mulch per cube, grass/turf per square metre, excavation in cubic measure, and you can create recipes for underlay, road base etc.
Tip 3: In the components tool you can create sleeper retaining walls that will estimate as well.
Post a screenshot of a job when you get a minute.

Hey Devo,

Re the draft post :
There should be a ‘Load draft’ button that appears when you start writing a post that then allows you to select which draft to load. Maybe try that?