I'm a millimeter away from switching from SU to Modo. It isn't as easy to just pick up and use at first, but as I learn it, I'm starting to think that, inferencing engine aside, I can be ultimately faster in Modo (for what I actually do, not just extruding blocks) than I can even approach in SU. Modo 401 now imports SolidWorks. (Huge for my situation.) Modo can do a full-screen preview render using Global Illumination with environment in seconds, sometimes actually as fast or FASTER than SU can update the same scene with SU shadows and profile lines in the actual scenes I'm doing. Modo won't choke on mere thousands or tens of thousands of polygons. Modo 401 can be had for $895 at some resellers, compared to the $795 we paid for a network license of SU. Modo does instancing and 'replicating', which means it can get into the millions of polygons compared to thousands in SU. I'm not saying it is better than SU in every way for ArchViz, but for my needs, it IS far superior. On the other hand, a lot of people are doing ArchViz in Modo now. Of course, both apps use polygons and can use .obj, so using both together is a great option.

OK. When I said their web page I'm referring to those that have one.
We have the Chris Fullmer example here, he is a good approximation to what I'm talking about. His plugins have a nomenclature who stars with his initials, this way I know they belongs to Chris tools and all are grouped in my plugins folder.
Even a text file with instructions is not always present when you download some rubys, with some words about the required components, etc.

Sometimes I need to log here looking for the animated demo of some ruby that I not use for some time or what ruby do that I need but can't remember at this point. I had a brain stroke some years ago, but this is common when you have a lot of rubys with more or less descriptive icons.

Well, I don't know how exactly, probably most of the ruby programmers are clever people, much more than me, but SU is turning more and more chaotic for moments.

@plot-paris said:

would make exporting to CAD very comfortable and timesaving (and would give me another reason to draw everything in SU first 😄 )

I already do

@solo said:

They never had it as an option on the survey, only options were things that they might be able to fix, High poly support is a taboo topic to the GSU team as they have never mentioned it, aknowledged it or even responded to all the complaints and cries about it.

SU's shelf life is nearing the end without it, start learning another app now before you find yourself redundant.

Yep, and 'high poly' is a moving target that is now in the Giga-poly range in terms of how many polys some apps can handle at once. And that's Giga-POLY, folks, not Giga-entity.

SU is getting to the point that it can choke on 'LOW-poly', nevermind 'HIGH-poly', compared to what other apps and game-engines are now handling!

How's that 'free' working out for you now?

Very strange, this unavailability, indeed... 😉

Ah, so...

Sorry then; from the website I thought the plugin itself will do the job "for free" and their additional services are the paid things.

Yeah, it's a glitch that happens (as far as I remember from the bug reports) after you scale something quite extreme in one direction. I haven't tried it now however so my "memory" may get me mistaken.

I just go to CGtextures, and I've got a nice little program to tile them... it's much better quality than what Google offers 😄

you can use SketchUp Bridge and send command Sketchup.active_model.import("file.dwg",false)
SketchUp already supports dropped images & skp

While I see what you are after, Tom, Shift is currently used to lock the circle tool on a specific plane. Since it's a general mod. key in SU for all other tools where it can be applied, I doubt that Shift specifically should be used for this.

Maybe another key?

@solo said:

How about the ability when searching to avoid the 500 pages of manufactures items that look all the same, have them grouped within the results with one model that will take you to the collection instead of hunting for those results to end and the item you are looking for to start?. (sorry best description I could think of)

Well, you can use the 3D Warehouse advanced search options in the browser, such as searching for: "faucet author:-kohler" or more simply: "faucet -kohler" might work as well.

Not an ideal solution, but sometimes helpful.

Maybe someone could write up a short tutorial on advanced searching in the Component Browser?

Sure, this is from a simple dynamic component, that only has dialog height and widtrh asigned to it.

_dialogheight_label: DialogHeight
_dialogwidth_label: DialogWidth
_formatversion: 1.0
_has_movetool_behaviors: 0.0
_lastmodified: 2009-05-06 22:59
_lengthunits: INCHES
_name: Component#1
dialogheight: 560
dialogwidth: 345
nil

Hope that helps,

Chris

@solo said:

Yeah I'm looking forward to the official windows 7 release, I was tempted to get the beta but decided to wait and make sure that all the problems are ironed out.
Window 7 is gonna be the best MS OS to date I have no doubts, from what I've heard online is that it supports pretty much any and everything, It also works great with all the new chips and old ones.

I wonder if any Mac users have tried windows 7 with bootcamp yet? and if so how does it work?

I've been using the W7 beta and this thing is rock solid. I don't feel it's a beta at all. Completely different from the Vista beta. Going to install the RC when I get some spare time.
What I just found out about W7 is that, besides being really good in terms of backwards compatibility mode, they are also offering an XP virtual environment via VirtualPC just in case there should some oddball application that would require it. Haven't got to try that feature yes, as you need the RC installed. (plus, I've had no issues with any application.)

here, here!

Remus, Chris and Bob,

Thanks for the help. I'll give Didier's align tool a try.

Fred

That's true. For just one project however, I don't think it would be worth the hassle. But of course it's always so "convincing" in front of a client to show off with such a tricky solution 😄

Well, after we'd suffered a while to get you properly in to the forums, I thought you would like to feel that it was worth the effort.
😄

I guess you're right, Coen, it's better on than off. Still, but what's the difficulty of programming the option key, as it is programmed in Move, for example? Except keep it sticky, so that once it's engaged it stays that way until turned off.

Thanks,Pilou,
I'll check it out.
mitcorb

that is a nice idea, magnato. running around in SU models like in an ego-shooter would be fun.
perhaps that is something that can be done with a ruby script... but then it had to freeze shortcut-keys while active, so that one can use the a,w,s,d keys freely for running around.
(left mouse-button is for pushing objects out of the way with sketchy physics for animation 😄 )