@gaieus said: Imagine a case like you send a file (with certain style AND preferences settings) to someone and your file overwrites his preferences (paths to component folders, shortcuts, image editor etc.). Yes now I know what I wanted to say before sleepiness overcame me. Please refer to this thread about exporting scenes. Here I changed TIG's destination File.dirname(model.path) (same as Rick W's I think) to a fixed directory. I knew this was not the final solution but please consider this: I want to send Nero a set of models for him to build from. I want to give him the opportunity to have "working" images something like this: [image: f259_Shortsectionliving.jpg] (the sort of sketches we often make to interpret/understand/filter orthogonal working drawings - cut out the middle man eh!). So I can make a lot of scenes for him or he can make his own if my plans for a scene controller work out. But he won't thank me if all 100 or 200 jpg files (as well-named as they would be) add to what would become the great bulk of his model folder. I could though ask him via the web dialog for his project preferences files and use some script (?) to pick them up for the export. I guess some similar arrangement should be made to share styles, materials, scenes (via js controller records) and so on. On the otherhand perhaps I should just go back to bed. Chris

have a read of this thread: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10750 Plenty of useful info there.

You can buy it here http://www.suplugins.com/index.php?p=catalog&mode=catalog&page_id=buy

Have a look at fred's tools on surface plugin. I imagine that could make it quite easy when combined with joint pushpull.

To center an object exactly on the x,y,z - there are 2 (at least) ruby scripts that do this, and they each do it slightly differently. Move To Origin This script will move a component or group to the origin. It places the component axis on the model origin. This was written by Todd Burch and is hosted on smustard.com. Center on Origin This move a group/component to the origin, but it placed the very centerpoint of the group/component onto the origin. I wrote this for someone making objects for games that needed to have their centerpoint's located on the origin. So they are slightly different, but both work well. For scaling, use the tape measure tool. It works like this: Measure something that you know how big it should be. As soon as you measure it, type in the desired length and hit enter. It will rescale the entire model! If you don't want the entire model to be rescaled, then turn your object into a group/component first. Double click on it to "edit" it. Then do the measuring tool scaling trick. It will scale all objects within that component only - not the entire model. Hope that helps, Chris

The last time I looked, Podiun didn't render 2 pt perspectives of a panned/zoomed scene. Go here for help. I am able however, to render the entire model as a zoom extents 2 pt perspective scene, and produce a image that can be cropped.

@remus said: window->model info->units Many Thanks

I told you above not to be happy with this YET! It means that your video subsystem doesn't support OpenGL sufficiently. If you have a decent video card, you should try to update its driver and try SU with tis hardware acceleration ON (otheriwse SU can become substantially slower). Now if you don't have a decent card (like if you have an integrated chipset for instance), you cannot do too much but use SU without hardware acceleration.

What Chris says. It seems to be the solution here (and quite straightforward). Right click > Intersect > ...with model OR (if you select both surfaces beforehands) ...selected

Rick, I would guess that the white faces in your model are faces with their front side visible, and the bluish ones are "back" faces. Generally a model should be built so that only the front sides are visible, especially if you plan to use outside rendering apps. See the manual for more explanations. The reason why they are mixed as they are lies either in AutoCad:s sloppy 3DS export or the way SU interprets the vertices of the faces when importing. There is not much you can do about it when importing. If you want to try correcting those, the right-click menu commands "Orient faces" and "reverse faces" are the ones to use. Anssi

If you only need a very rough model you can try the method in this tutorial: extrusion intersect.skp If you need a decent model, youd be much better of modelling the duck manually, using the profiles as reference.

HI IronSheik, That character was made as an example for a dynamic component (new feature of Sketchup 7) and this is why you can simply and easily "change" his shirt colour with the finger button of the DC Toolbar. However dynamic components are "regular" components in a way that if you double click on them, you can select the individual faces inside (or in case of further, nested components you can double click to edit further) and change the colour and such. Note however that editing dynamic components so that they remain (and work correctly as) dynamic components is a "Pro feature" only.

I'm pretty new to Vray myself, but I'm pretty sure that Vray for Su doesn't have a command line and that you can't set the sun position, but I guess I could be wrong. These are the only sun settings I can find in Vray for Su [image: mWoA_Capture.JPG]

That's true but there are also server licenses (when there are more computers loaded with SU than licenses purchased) or you can imagine a time consuming animation export on one machine while working/modelling on another one...

@sfx group said: ...However i seem to have something already in 7 called "Create Face" under "tools>utilities", this worked when i selected all sides, then selected this, a face appeared and i can now make it 3d Yes but it's generally more cumbersome (slower) than just drawing over a line.

Hallelujah! Thank you solo

if turning off hardware acceleration fixed it it is a graphics card/driver issue

I want to thank everyone for there input. I was finally able to create the pulls although they were not as clean as the examples. I'll need some more practice. Thanks again, Jack

edit->delete guides.

good stuff...as gaius says...unique style. keep them coming.