Big File Sizes/ High Poly

gaucho · 28 Jul 2008, 09:46

Hi everyone!

This is my first post in the general board... (normally i limited myself to the portuguese section)

I work in a company that build and manage shopping centres. Now i'm working in this huge projetc in west London.

My problem so far, is that my basic file has now 190 MEGA... with it, all the possible problems that someone can have with a file of this size: the incredible slow motion... with crashing all the time, and the unability to render complex images.

Does anyone with more experience has some tip or advices to how to deal with this kind of file within the SU limitations?

Thanks very much!

remus · 28 Jul 2008, 10:06

The main thing is to keep everything on layers. If you do this you can then turn off all the layers you dont need, this should speed up SU quite considerably.

Also make sure youve got shadows turned off when your working on the model, and if you can afford it turn the textures to monochrome mode (view->face style->monochrome.)

If your going to be rendering your model, it might also be worth investigating wether your rendering engine supports proxy components as this can save the poly count considerably. If your very keen, its also possible to run a similar system in SU using the 'replace selected' form within the components browser. Its a bit fiddly though.

Those are the main things really, apart form that its really just a case of putting up with it.

juju · 28 Jul 2008, 10:08

I think the best way to tackle this is to divide the model up into sections and replace those sections with simple geometry proxy components. When you're working you won't see the entire product, but once you're done it's quite simple to reassemble the entire product using the component replace feature.

It's not the most elegant of solutions, I like to see the entire product when working, but it should help speed things up considerably.

+++ EDIT +++
remus, you beat me to it.

kwistenbiebel · 28 Jul 2008, 10:30

The others seem to have covered most tricks already.
A thing that is handy as well, is setting the material browser to 'text names' instead of icons.
Also closing the 'outliner' panel gives back some editing speed.

Besides all the workarounds that can improve workflow a little, I really hope SU7 will adress this.
When doing bigger arch projects, this problem always shows up...

gaucho · 28 Jul 2008, 10:46

Thanks Guys.

Well, the layers organisation is basic, i do that, in the begining (about 90 mega)it seamed to solve the problem, hiding/showing the layers... now it doesn't anymore.

Same thing with shadows, wich i never used when modeling.

The render images that i mentioned before was about the skethup images themself. We choose to use sketchup most of it because of the quick view of the images, even not being photorealistic ones, once that is to company's internal resolutions only. That part is basically where i have more problems with.

Anyway, what i'm doing right now is that: i copy and paste the elements that i'm editing to a new drawing, do the changes than i paste it back.

Thanks for your help guys, and apologies about my bad english!

Howard leslie · 28 Jul 2008, 11:21

Giovani,
Some ideas / suggestions you can try:

Use Components whenever possible (always).
Purge your model frequently (purge ruby very useful for this). Gets rid of unwanted junk.
Delete out any CAD data from your model as soon as you can eg any imported data from AutoCad etc. Keep the number of CAD files that you have imported into your model down as low as possible.
Curved / Circular objects - Keep the no. of sides as low as you can get away with - without making your curves look too angular (a compromise needs to be found depending upon how much you'll be zooming in to your model). This helps keep the no. of edges / faces down - this is important on large models.
Use the X-Ref Ruby and break your model up into areas or sections.
Work on each section seperately in different SketchUp files. Now they'll be much more manageable.
Have a model that contains all your Xref'd in data - but use only this model when you really need to.
Turn off Shadows (Gives your PC a break !!!).
Face Style Toolbar (Rendering) - Turn off Shaded with Textures, use Shaded instead. (also gives your PC a break)
...
Hope this helps

Howard L'

gaucho · 28 Jul 2008, 11:47

@unknownuser said:

Use the X-Ref Ruby and break your model up into areas or sections.
Work on each section seperately in different SketchUp files. Now they'll be much more manageable.
Have a model that contains all your Xref'd in data - but use only this model when you really need to.

That may be a good solution!
At least in Autocad was it.

Thanks, i'll give it a shot.

plot-paris · 28 Jul 2008, 12:20

very small thing: I believe SU speeds up a bit, if you turn off profiles...

pav_3j · 28 Jul 2008, 12:31

@unknownuser said:

Use the X-Ref Ruby and break your model up into areas or sections.
Work on each section seperately in different SketchUp files. Now they'll be much more manageable.
Have a model that contains all your Xref'd in data - but use only this model when you really need to.

how was i not aware of this ruby? is it on smustard as i can't seem to find it.

i think gernally cleaning up cad drawings before importing is a good idea too, when working from colleagues drawings i always spend a few mins deleting layers and simplifying them as much as poss before the import.

pav

remus · 28 Jul 2008, 12:35

The xref ruby is here pav: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=7329&hilit=+Plugin

pav_3j · 28 Jul 2008, 12:52

legend, gonna have a play now.

cheers dude

pav

Chris Fullmer · 28 Jul 2008, 16:16

Another thought on image exporting is to turn off anti-aliasing. That causes SketchUp a lot of extra work. Also, you say SketchUp is crashing. Is it actually crashing and closing? or is it just stalling with the screen still open. If it doesn't full close down, then its not crashed generally. I've had times where I've exploded a large group that took over 4 hours to finish the explode. It never crashed, it just sat there frozen, but it was still working in the background. Good luck!

Chris Fullmer

AdamB · 28 Jul 2008, 17:45

@plot-paris said:

very small thing: I believe SU speeds up a bit, if you turn off profiles...

Its not a small thing. It can have a quite significant impact on display update rate. Try it.

Richard · 29 Jul 2008, 06:24

Also make good use of scenes!!!!!!!!

I usually have a few pages set to manage my layers and put me in wireframe before doing to much navigation in large models. Using a shortcut to textured or hiddenline mode can quickly set you back to the display mode you want!

BTW all! Profiles? Does anyone ever use profiles? I think I turned them on a few years ago and didn't like them at all!

dylan · 29 Jul 2008, 06:46

I think I switched profiles off on day 1 of discovering SU. Always thought they looked ugly.

plot-paris · 29 Jul 2008, 06:48

can help sometimes though, when you are looking for some unclosed faces in complicated models.
but yes, they are ugly and I switched them off instantly

mateo soletic · 29 Jul 2008, 07:17

@unknownuser said:

BTW all! Profiles? Does anyone ever use profiles? I think I turned them on a few years ago and didn't like them at all!

Same here,now that You mentioned them, I allways wondered what they were for.

Gaieus · 29 Jul 2008, 07:38

I don't use them either (only in rare cases like what Jakob mentioned)

gaucho · 29 Jul 2008, 08:39

I've never used the profiles too... i'm working in sketchup about 3 years now... and i also turned them off in the first day... useless..

And the crashing is in the moment when i'm about to export the 2d image, it closes and gives me the classic bug splat message... so... no work in the background...

Turn off the anti-aliasing sometimes solve the problem in this moment, but gives me a terrible final image...

In the end of the day for now, better thing is to separate the drawings... unfortunatly... managing the overall size of it...

Thank you all guys!

chango70 · 29 Jul 2008, 09:36

Try exporting image without anti-aliasing 2x the size u need. Then use Photoshop to resample and downsize the image. This way photoshop does the anti-aliasing for you. I always use this trick for my work.