@jerrymich said: I understand now what you are saying about the components being unique. So, if I make a change to one of the unique components, it will NOT make it on the other unique ones as it normally does on a change to a component. Correct? Yes, essentially. I general, when you make a change to one instance of a component, all other instances get edited which is incredibly powerful when used correctly. Make unique breaks the relationship so the unique component(s) is no longer related to the others. This is also very useful in some cases. @jerrymich said: As a general guideline, is it better to make components as you go and then come back and group the components? Thanks for your help Jerry My approach is to make all the individual parts as components and do the nesting only after the individual parts/components are finished. I see too many incorrectly nest components in models by others. You have some good examples of that in this model. For example, take a look at your "board#18" That component is made of a component called "board#22 and a bunch of loose geometry that looks like a drawer case maybe. I don't use groups for anything. I only make components. Others do use groups but in about 10 years of using SketchUp for woodworking projects I've never found a case where a group makes more sense than a component. You can do as you choose, of course.

You can use more than one projection face (it doesn't have to be a 3D thing, it can be just a face) but you'll need to paint the materials one at a time. You might actually get a more realistic look if you place the projecting plane vertically instead of at an angle. Are you trying for realism or are you just trying to insinuate the wood grain?

Dave has shown you how to use move and autofold beautifully, you could also use "scale" in this case too. I'll let you think about how. People sometimes miss the intricacies of scale. You don't just use it to modify whole pieces, you can use it on a single face to modify a shape. Scale one face of a cube and you can create various shapes with the variety of scale options. [image: F3AP_Simplescale.PNG] It's well worth pointing out that it's easy to get a bit plugin blind. Many of them are so good you often don't need the basic tools, but that can lead to problems. If you don't understand what the plugin is really doing you can tie yourself in knots unnecessarily. Being able to make your models in "longhand" is crucial. Using plugins to speed up and perform repetitive tasks is what we all should aim to do. I guess it comes from my time as an apprentice and then having many apprentices of my own, the rules were always the same, once you prove you can do it manually I will let you use a "Tool". If you are old enough to remember letraset, we had to show that we could do the lettering by hand before we were allowed to touch one sheet.

No trouble caused. Glad you got it worked out.

It's hard to determine an appropriate design without seeing the design of the rest of the room/house.

Thank you Oli. Problem solved by plugin.

@box said: In the shadows dialog box, un tic Display on ground. Perfect, thank you.

yes it's the 3D program who has the more speedy learning curve!

There is a custom toolbar plugin that might work for you. Look under Jim Foltz in the Plugins directory.

Posting an image would help us help you... Any three lines drawn so that they connected at their ends will automatically form a triangular face, because their three shared vertices must always be 'coplanar'. But if you draw four separate lines that join at their vertices, then their four vertices might not be coplanar, and then no face can form. This can be resolved by drawings a 'diagonal' line to form two triangular faces from those four edges - because the two sets of three vertices must again be coplanar and thereby support a triangular face. If you need 'rectangular' faces then use the rectangle tool to draw them - this guarantees that the the face forms. This also works for circles or polygon faces. OR you can draw edges snapping to the same larger face [perhaps within a group] so that the result is a loop that will 'face'. If a edge needs by a face is erased the face vanishes, it can be remade by redrawing the edge. If a face is selected and then deleted, then provided that all of its edges remain it can usually be recreated by drawing over one of those edges; some very complex outlines [especially those with inner-loops forming 'holes'] might not 'auto-face' on overdrawing an edge - in that case draw one or more diagonals to split the loop and get two or more faces added, these unwanted diagonal lines can be erased afterwards without compromising the integrity of the remade face. If you do not draw a full 'loop' of edges then no face will form, since an 'outer_loop' is needed to support any face, no matter how simple or complex its outline is...

Perfect! Thank you very much!

What do you mean by it doesn't stay closed ? Are you referring to the bottom car profile ? If yes, then you should zoom in in the back and near the wheel arches and you will see that the lines are not laid on the ground plane . Other advices, keep your curves with smaller segments because it will be easier to manage in the future . Also why haven't you tried to search the forum for some tutorials, there are a few. [image: 5365_CarSketchrev.jpg] CarSketch rev.skp

It seems it's an integrated chipset which is not the best for SketchUp (you'd need a dedicated video card). Your only choice is to turn hardware acceleration completely off under Window > Preferences > OpenGL settings. SU will run slower this way (although your card would not support acceleration anyway) but "safer" from these display issues. Someone has already suggested checking this out above.

Look up Ramit Sethi's blog - he has awesome advice for young people looking for a job.

Guess I'm just not an ALT kinda guy.

Great, Thanks.

I am having a same problem but none of the option seems working. Also neither version of .dwg file works and suddenly sketchup won't open ANY cad file, even those that used to be easily imported a while ago. Any ideas?

Its Light-up. Product of Adam Billyard. Im a beginner compared to some of the stuff I see out there. Im just blown away and strive to be as good.

@tig said: Pro has an importer, but you will probably need to convert max files to 3ds in max ? ... AFAIK 3ds and fbx can still be imported in the free version (only dwg/dxf is limited to Pro). Maybe fbx would be a better choice in Max (I guess it can export in fbx) as it is a more advanced file format than the archaic 3ds.

Chances are you do not have sufficient access-rights to add/change files/subfolders in your SketchUp Plugins folder... By default Windows will probably have limited you to have Read-only access, because the Plugins folder is within the 'Program Files' folder 'tree'... BUT you will need Read/Write [FULL] rights to add/change its files/folder... So... you need to find your Plugins folder's icon...*** Select it, right-click > context-menu > Properties > Security > Edit... Ensure everyone/every-group listed [of course including yourself] have FULL rights to that folder... You might have to have admin-rights to change this... Ensure that these FULL rights 'trickle-down' to all of its contained files/subfolders... Also check that the owner of the folder has similar rights, if not perhaps try changing its owner to be 'you' ? ***You are on a PC so depending on your OS your Plugins folder should be in C:/Program Files/../Sketchup../ But copy+paste+<enter> this code into the Ruby Console if you are not completely sure... Sketchup.find_support_file('Plugins') it'll return somethings like... C:/Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins Other related SketchUp folders that you might want to write to from time to time... include Components, Materials and Styles... which should also have FULL permissions set...