thanks , I will do

thanks a lot for your complete explanations they will help me a lot I will study them

I would suspect that the vast majority of us DON'T have this VMware issue - I certainly don't have it installed and get no such tag lines. There is some considerable confusion here... Correct me if I misunderstand... You details used to say MAC SUp v6, but recently you've updated them to XP SUp v8. Your problem is with your XP v8 set up. You say you don't have VMware installed on your PC. However, you then go on to speak of 'Access the VMware instance disk and plant the plugins folder within it.' how would you have this available to be found, IF it's not installed ?? VMware [Fusion] is software to emulate other OSs, it isn't needed by PC users, but some MAC users might have it to run PC only applications... There are many other VMware applications that manage large networks and so on - do you have such a setup or IT department who should be resolving this... however, if you as a lowly 'user' can install executables I suspect not... I know of no one having this issue or even having VMware installed... You speak of installing v8 of 'Sketchup' and 'Sketchup Pro'. There is no real difference between them - if the current installation finds a license you get 'Pro' features, if not it runs as 'Free'. When you download the 'Free' version you are not asked for any details, but when you get the 'Pro' time limited trial you give your details. However, if you subsequently get a Pro license [when you will again have to give your details] - or you subsequently 'remove' a license - then you should find that the version of Sketchup available to you will toggle between the 'Pro' and 'Free' versions, using the same installed files... Do you have any other applications that launch with VMware messages ? Have you tried completely uninstalling all of your versions of Sketchup and reinstalling the Pro version ? We must assume that you are not doing something complicated like trying to run it across a network or by some virtual desktop/login gizmo I am still confused about your set up and what you do to get/stop these weirdnesses ...

When I do something similar, I always group the base of the building then the walls of the first floor in a separate group then again, the ceiling of it (which is then the floor of the next storey) into a separate group etc... After this you can put everything on a separate layer and create scenes to be able to work on everything conveniently. Instead of groups, you can of course use components (and have better control of what you are doing)

Yes, for free!

You can also use the curviloft by fredo 6 just after drawing your curves The extrudes edges by Rail by TIG 2 Faces + path by Kirill2008 Even the Sandbox tool ! [image: 9BLY_20080328014326_15s.jpg] [image: file.php?id=32785]

You could try installing XnView, the free image browser and editor. Besides being able to read dozens of different graphic formats it also displays SU thumbnails. You can get it here for a wide range of operating systems. Both skp and even skb are mentioned in its list of readable formats, but for some wierd reason SU is listed as an Autodesk product.

Thank you very much guys, I cant believe I didn't think of that! Hopefully will save me a lot of time!

I found it. FYI it's under: render options> environment sampler> GI (skylight) m> However, it would be great if there were a command bar. Does anyone have a script for this?

funny. I guess it is what you get used to. I couldn't get along with multiple views in Blender. I hated it, in fact. I much prefer just working in a single viewport and orbiting the view as needed. I was working on something last night that gave me an idea about how one could create the illusion of multiple viewports. Make a component to work in and make copies of it oriented so you can see them all. I guess if you want to work that way, it isn't ideal but it would work. [image: m2h0_snap046.jpg]

Well I found some (little) time to play a bit with JPP and ........ After about 10 minutes playing with JPP, I did a simulated fuselage nose skin section, and then pulled the outer surface in an inch (thicken) in under 10 seconds. Took me over an hour to do that before using the copy, scale in 3 axis, join the edges, then tweak it into shape. Sticking a door into the fuselage (which is 3 inches thick with a window) took a minute to draw it in and 15 seconds to make the door group, versus over an hour before to get that same shape, but with many minor errors. This has got to be one of the 10 all time best plug-ins for SU, and really should be an integral part of the next SU version release. Now I gotta spend some time with it, and tweak some defaults as described in the thread and documentation, which incidentally is also the best written for a plug-in I've seen yet. Now my biggest problem is whether I go back and redo many of my airplane models and rid them of my manual error ridden thick panels. In one major case that's a 90% redraw, but probably worth it. Fredo.... THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Here's one of several possible methods of work. You always have to remember that SU is essentially a low poly modeller; it was never designed or intended to deal with small-scale, high poly detail. Nevertheless you can generally achieve a decent result with surprisingly few faces. In fact, the fewer the better, as this kind of organic stuff can rarely be done without getting in there and doing a whole load of cleaning up in the wake of various automated scripts. This model is huge, ready to be scaled down when complete. I've also deliberately left some cleaning up to do on the underside...to illustrate why you should avoid generating too many polys. You'll notice that the bevel script doubled the number of segments in the ring...so I started off with it being noticeably facetted. You can also see that despite it only being beveled, not round-cornered, it still looks reasonably smooth in a photoreal render. [image: 2Rft_ring.jpg] ring.skp

@unknownuser said: I merely enjoy being a SketchUcation member I remember when i felt like that..... Now i'm bitter and unhelpful

You might have some success using the UVTools Beta by Whaat (Dale Martens). You can find it here It creates a proxy obj bridge between SU and mapping software. I tend to use it with Ultimate Unwrap, because that's specifically concerned with mapping, so pretty light on its feet; but Dale claims that the process is also compatible with Max. It enables you to go pretty much instantly between SU and the mapping software, creating something as close as we're ever likely to get in the way of a mapping studio within SU itself. I've been using it to develop a range of fully mapped figures. They're modelled in SU (for low-polyness), mapped in UU3D, then any small, subsequent tweaks are applied using the UVTools plugin. [image: tQQ9_man.jpg]

Welcome, erzane: Feel free to ask questions, and perhaps, show us images of your progress.

Glad you figured it out. Keep plugging along and post up some of your work in the gallery soon. Cheers!

@numbthumb said: @mistro11 said: I would like to put in a bump map as well as make the floor look like someone buffed the @#%@ out of it. I'm not clear on how to achieve this using Sketchup's material editor You cannot create or apply bump maps in SU. You´ll need an external app for that. I´d suggest searching Kerkythea forums. See here for example: http://www.kerkythea.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8465&view=previous&sid=e268c81b9be81de414ec1f49cb391dfe Thank you for the link. I actually got through with a youtube search but I missed that thread over at their forums. I managed to figure out the material editor in Kerkythea and got the floors I wanted. I didn't know I could right click some things to get at more options. I think I have it sorted now. I found myself reading and watching more tutorials than getting any work done and got impatient. Was just one of those things I skipped. Patience is a vurtue.

ooo, I don't know if I could do that

perfect tool

Thanks, I kinda thought so. I'll take a look at that plugin. If Google is listening, it might be advantageous to have an "anti-matter" property we could assign to a (sub)component (3D volume) which would punch a hole (similar to a solid boolean subtraction). This might be very useful in making smarter components. Thanks again, Steve