I set the FoV at 60 for all my interior views. Diego is right, it makes a huge difference in being able to see more of the interior.

Hi folks. See this SU file for ideas: Table3.skp

I too think this is purely a hardware issue. I think the other comps are not strong enough to handle the model as well as your computer so they are dumbing it down while they rotate and pan. A way around this is to turn off all uneeded components while rotating and turn them back on once you get in set in place. I ususally use scenes to manage my components and styles. Chris

Nice one! Thanks.

Also note that under 70% of opacity, the window will neither cast nor receive shadows so if you want that figurine to cast the shadow onto it, keep it above 70% opacity.

You can't hide the current layer...which appears to be layer0. Just make an extra "control" layer and make that the current one.

I don't think there are a lot of great options. Here are the one's I can think of. Create the scenes in SU, send them the file, and let them play the animation right in SU. This is probably the fastest, easiest way. Disadvantage is that depending on your model this can make for a pretty jumpy animation plus they have to have SU installed and know how to play the animation. Most user friendly would be to create scenes and do a file->export->animation and save it as an avi file or something that the other person can just click a button and play. Disadvantage is that this can take quite awhile to render the animation (turning shadows off will probably help significantly) You could basically combine those by just running through the scenes in your SU model or even just manually panning around your model while running some sort of screen capture program. This might be the best/easiest solution but the quality may suffer quite a bit so that's the compromise. I also don't know much about the screen capturing software to be able to recommend a good free one. Those are about the only options I can think of. Incidently what I do for animations is I export the animation as a series of .png files and then compile them with Adobe Premiere Elements ($99). Good quality but there's a little be of a learning curve to it if this is a one time thing. It also take a bit more time than just having SU compile everything for you and export it directly as an avi. -Brodie

You mean like: some hidden lines are visible while others are not? I've wanted that a couple of times too.

THOUSAND THANKS Gaieous!!! i really apreciate your help. My best Regards

My only complaint about Fraps is that it doesnt capture the toolbar, only the working window. So you don't get to see the icons being selected or any of the windows or toolbars. I only use fraps for capturing 3dgames. It excels at that and it is a pretty cheap program. Chris

Cool, well good luck with it. There is also some discussion regarding E+ going on at pushpullbar.com under the sketchup section I believe. Have a look

In the shadows setting box you want to check that "On Faces" is turned on. That is what your model looks like is missing to me. If that doesn't do it, could you upload the model? Chris EDIT: Ok, sounds good. Glad you found the problem

Today after work I will capture step by step what I did, so you could tell me what I'm doin wrong. I'm now pretty sure that I'm making the mistake somewhere in the process, but still don't know where.

Oh good, glad I could be of help! Thanks for the nice comment on the presentation too. I had a blast at basecamp, Chris

I don't really know anything about the 3DS file structure, but I would guess that as SU itself has no other material properties than colour and texture, the exporter would set all the other required values to something considered as a default. Most users export 3DS in order to render the model in some external rendering application by adding lights and other features not available in SU. In the applications I have used, the ambient property of a material, makes it glow quite unrealistically, so I would have had to turn it off. I am not even sure that the property is set by SU. If it is optional, the problem might even be with your receiving application or its settings, if it adds a black ambient "channel" if your 3DS file has none. Just blundering guesses Anssi

Hi all, thanks for your explications and addition; it's OK now. A special thankyou goes to utiler! Please excuse me for the expression vaporfile, I'm sorry! Bert

Thanks Chris. I'll try that

Thanks for sharing this rabbit, I'm gonna give a look at it !!

Thanks for the reply, Dave. @dave r said: First, to force the axis of rotation to be along the fold line, get the Rotate tool. Click on the end of the fold line and while holding the mouse button, drag along the fold line. Let go of the button and click again for the start of the rotation as normal. Yep, that much I know. It's animating the folding of the paper that I can't do. @dave r said: As far as the animation part, you'll see in the Read Me file that edges and faces do not have transformation data. Yep, I saw that in the Read Me file. @dave r said: You need to make components or groups of the separate parts. SO each smaller face created by a fold will need to be a separate component. And that's precisely what I did. I used the line tool to draw a diagonal line across the piece of paper. I then made one of the resulting triangles a group and rotated only that group. However, it doesn't rotate about the fold - hence the reason for my post. This should all be obvious in the file I attached. I'm still at a loss for how to force the axis of rotation to be at the fold line during the animation. Regards, -Steve

Switch to parallel mode, that should sort this out. If your model still looks clipped, hit Zoom Extent, then zoom back in.