Help with Paint Tool

climbingkevin

Hey folks, I was wondering if you could help me out. I teach technology to middle school students and we are using Sketchup to create Eco-friendly houses. Some of the computers in lab have this weird issue with the paint tool.

When they use the paint tool the color of the texture comes through (transparent)but not the texture itself. Simplified, when a student selects, say, a dark shingle, and clicks on the roof, the roof will be painted transparent gray and not the shingle texture itself. What gives?

I imagine the students changed a setting or something. Any ideas how to correct this?

Thanks

Gaieus

Hi Kevin,

Unless there's some other issue, this sounds like a video card/driver problem. In a school,I could even imagine that those computers are not equipped with any strong video cards.

All in all, go to Window (Sketchup on Mac)> Preferences > OpenGL and uncheck hardware acceleration.

Now if it seems to fix the issue, try to find out about your video card and if it would (theoretically at least) support OpenGL, try to get a driver update since HW acceleration off may (or better say WILL) slow down SU with more complex models (although you can get along at least...)

Gaieus

I also thought about that but then he also says "transparent". Well, we'll see.

Ecuadorian

Go to view > toolbars > Face Style. It might be like this:

EDIT: Notice that both the "X-ray" and the "Shaded" buttons are pressed in this image.

When it should be like this:

EDIT: Notice that only the "shaded with textures" button is pressed in this second image.

climbingkevin

You guys are great. Thanks for the quick response. You are both correct... Gaieus, for saying that my lab computers are lacking a speedy video card and Ecuadorian for showing me the proper configuration of the Face Style.

That seemed to do it. Thanks for posting the gifs. That made it simple.

Gaieus

Ha! The naughty kids must have clicked everywhere they reached and then forgot to reset the rendering styles!

I want serious punishment! Now!

Joking aside; I think in a couple of weeks you're going to learn from them. How old are they? (ah yeah, middle school - all right...) I have some experience with kids ranging from kindergarten to college. They are indeed great!