Bonnie Roskes wrote a manual for Piranesi, the painting program that is naturally associated with SketchUp. The book is crammed with detailed screenshots and step-by-step explanations of how to achieve specific effects with materials, textures and paint.

Roskes starts her book with a Quick Start guide and ends it with a contribution by Susan Sorger who focuses on composing principles in general and Piranesi in particular. Other contributors to this book are Wang Wang, whose excellent compositions Roskes used as example of how SketchUp and Piranesi can work together to create stunning 3D models.

In other areas as well the book shows no lack of good examples. Roskes made sure the complexity and richness of the Piranesi feature set are documented by delivering screenshots with each and every project. Piranesi has a daunting array of painting and texturing methods, all with their own benefits and all potentially resulting in different looks on a model. Roskes manages to cover them all.

She explains elaborately how to paint a model, so that in subsequent chapters she can go faster through the process. She also shows some more exotic capabilities of Piranesi like the ability to paint grass or use blend modes to achieve different lighting effects.

Rendering of models is covered in the guide as well --from cartoon style to realistic, with cutouts and lighting. Even relfective surfaces are covered by the author, a topic that I myself never could make work because it is difficult to achieve just the right realistic atmosphere.

The author sent me a licensed PDF for review as the book would otherwise have been expensive to send. However, paper copies are available. You can check out http://www.f1help.biz/ccp51 The book is printed by Hignell Book Printing in Winnipeg, Canada.