@jean lemire said: BTW, the center of a square or rectangle created with the rectangle tool or with separate lines can also be infered with two consecutive midpoint inferences from two adjacent sides. I know. But it is not about finding centers. I learned 3D with Blender where 0,0,0 is more center than bottom left. [image: MKZF_toonsway.png]

Dave, Thanks for the info, looked everywhere but didn't touch the edit tab in Styles. Managed to make the model opaque even though the colour of the model rendering doesn't seem to apply over the photo. Nevertheless, it much more presentable and effective as an illustration. Cheers, Paul

How about if you "wrap" them (the entire model) into a single component before uploading? Doesn't that return that very component when downloading, without answering questions like "..download...in current model? Y/N" ?

In the shadow settings, uncheck the box for casting shadows on the ground...just leaving them cast on the faces. Either this, or unlock the imported geo terrain, select the entire model and move it upwards so that nothing is beneath the ground plane.

The prop was rigged to explode just after this shot was taken, it looked like it was just pushed together for a quick shot, and they probably used a wide angle lense...I'll stick to practicing on houses

Andy, You have the pro's help here, but maybe I can add something. You can make a component from one-half of our model, copy and scale by -1 and have symmetrical parts. Then you only work on one half, the other side will update accordingly. To see some basics on fabric shapes, see Daniel Tal's video here: http://sites.google.com/site/3dbasecamp2008/all-sessions-2008/working-with-terrain-and-other-irregular-surfaces towards the end. Oldie but goodie. Then going to Curviloft and Extrude by Rails & other plugins you can expand on your organic modelling abilities. Peter

Thanks Dave, top tip

Because it's symmetrical do one half and then mirror a copy to finish. Also group and hide all superfluous things to make life bearable.[image: UXLU_Capture.PNG] Join all curves into continuous sections [use weld.rb]. It then Curvilofts or EEbyRails OK...[image: 19nE_Capture1.PNG]

Something like LightUp exports to be viewed by a player

Thank you. It took a good deal of time to get a result but I got there in the end. I am happy with it. Mike John [image: xuX4_boat_tail.jpg]

Export to Collada dae. It works just fine.

by the way, before i forgot. below is the link to Tutorial Tutorial or, you just look for the red rounded box button, on top of the page written Tutorial. have a good time in the forum

Thanks - i will give it a try

Thinking back on it, If I was to do it all over a third time, I think the way to avoid hand measuring each and every crenel while still getting the organically-curved wall would be to draw the whole wall down a straight line first, then add slices, and bend it on those slices.

Hi folks. From within SketchUp: Help Menu --> Help Center --> Learning SketchUp(top button in the left list with the title Get started). You shall get there: http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36207 There is an hyperlink labeled video tutorials in the middle of the first line of the paragraph entitled Start here: Video tutorials. Clicking it shall bring you there: http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/training/videos.html Just ideas.

Hi folks. Click in sequence on the scenes tabs of this SU file for ideas. Flattening a curve.skp

My OBJ exporter [and the Pro one as far as I know] simply exports the geometry and groups/instances-geometry in the order they are found in the SKP's entities context - this in turn is probably affected by the order in which they were placed into the model itself. There can be no control over the OBJ file's ordering. As an OBJ file is basically a text file you could manually edit it with Notepad++ and reorder the hundreds of lines of code individual 'g' definition, but it'd be so easy to break it I wouldn't try. Also we don't know how your third-party tool imports the parts anyway. If they are not in the order they are in the SKP but say alphabetical then as Dave says rename them ! You issue really isn't with Sketchup, perhaps it's with OBJ export, perhaps it about editing an OBJ file, perhaps it's about your other app - which you haven't given many clues about either

I'm afraid not, because drawing a person in SU is pretty difficult...at least if you want to create one with a usable number of polygons. You also need to be able to draw a person with pencil and paper if you're even going to reach first base. Almost all of the 'decent' human figures in the 3D Warehouse have been drawn in some other software...probably 3DS Max...then imported. Some have simply been pulled in from commercial collections or are imported Poser figures. That's not to say it can't be done in SU; I've made hundreds myself, like the ones below...but explaining how would take an entire book. Edit: ...other than Justin's blog...which I forgot about. I use an almost identical technique, but I don't think he goes into detail about how to make hands, faces, hair etc. which would require whole other sections each. [image: requestFile.php?type=1&id=13475&img=small_FF_Model_ID13475_winterppl14.jpg] [image: requestFile.php?type=1&id=13572&img=small_FF_Model_ID13572_4346.jpg] [image: requestFile.php?type=1&id=14167&img=small_FF_Model_ID14167_steps.jpg] [image: requestFile.php?type=1&id=15749&img=small_FF_Model_ID15749_main01_04.jpg]

Thanks Gaieus, as usual on the money. Sketchup is so modestly sophisticated, the more I learn the more I realise I know NOTHING! Thanks Steved

No prob