A Welcome Message to New SketchUcation Members

remus · 16 Jun 2009, 06:28

Hello lonach,

sounds like it should be possible to do what your asking in SU.

Dont be afraid to start a thread if you start having problems.

Gaieus · 16 Jun 2009, 08:50

Hi Lonach and welcome.

This boat should be quite easy to build in SU, too, not only in "real life". You need to get used to accurate modelling however. In your model, I exploded some curves and turned on the visibility of endpoints (so that they are easier to work with). Have a look at the below picture however:

I found that one of those vertical, flat panels doesn't even lie on the curve. These small glitches can be very annoying if turning out when your model is more advanced.

I also like boats so please, post more and as those questions if needed.

Shah1 · 19 Jun 2009, 09:35

Hi all. I am new here. I am not a professional but designing is my favorite. I tried many apps of 3D but these are very hard to understand but SU is very easy so I like it very much. I want to learn SU more and more so I am here in between you.
Thanks.

Shah1

Gaieus · 19 Jun 2009, 10:32

Hi Shah and welcome!

Never mind not being a professional - I'm not one either and still enjoy SU.

big brade · 21 Jun 2009, 01:22

Hi, All I am a newbie SU 7. I wanna learn sketchUp fast, help me !

Gaieus · 21 Jun 2009, 09:22

Hi BB and welcome. I'm sure you'll get much help when you encounter some problem.

gclyde · 21 Jun 2009, 14:01

Hi Folks,

I am another newbie to SU. I have spent the last week watching loads of video tutorials too - in no particular order, which makes the brain go a bit fuzzy!

One thing that I'd wish for is for a set of video tutorials that are in some sort of logical order, taking the newbie from the start to the end of a new project. For example, I am particularly interested in drawing construciton drawings for new houses, and need to draw 2D scaled plans for printing onto A3. Anyway, I will add it to my wish list.

In the meantime, I jumped straight into drawing a rather large building in SU, but finding it difficult to do mcuh internal work. I now know that I should have made groups, components, scenes and layers

I am now faced with either re-drawing the building, or backtracking in order to introduce all of the above.

Please open the attached file and see what I have done so far.

Regards
Gra

Star Theatre

remus · 21 Jun 2009, 18:28

Very good start graham Looking at that model i'd say youve got a fairly good grasp of the basic modelling tools, as you say grouping/componenting your model would go a long way to cleaning it up, though.

Another thing to be aware of is that you should always try and keep the front faces of your model pointing 'out.' A bit more detail: faces have a front and back side, in SU these are coloured white and blue respectively. You want to try and keep the white faces pointing out wherever possible. You can do this by right clicking a face(or selection of faces) and selecting 'reverse face.'

gclyde · 21 Jun 2009, 19:06

Hi Remus,

Thanks for the comments. I am also finding it very hard to work inside the building. For example, the exisitng balcony is stepped, but I can't get in to complete the 'push n pull'. Any suggestions?

Also, I need to instal at least 2 flights of stairs and to introduce a basement room to house the boiler. I have also a swimming pull to instal.

I would like to produce multi-layered walls, but not sure how to go about it. Will the 'Push n pull' work with multi-layers?

Sorry, there are loads of questions!

Gra

Gaieus · 21 Jun 2009, 19:21

Graham,

The very first thing that you MUST do in order to properly organise you model is to group certain elements (or make components of them especially if there are more than one instances of them like windows, doors whatnot). Before this, don't even touch the layers because you will end up in a big mess.

Make your groups/components in a "logical" way. Say make a single group of all the walls on the first floor, make a separate group of the floor itself etc. (only you know what YOUR logic should be here). You can then examine and edit all the group/component hierarchy in the Outliner (Window menu). You can easily hide/unhide groups/components in order to access interiors and be able to insert staircases for example.

Only when you have already made your groups/components, "place" them on different layers to control visibility (and only that with SU as layers do that but don't separate geometry from each other).

If this means to restart your model then don't hesitate to restart. No-one (I believe) succeeded with his first model. You can even copy certain elements from one model into another one so you may even "rebuild" your more proper model by using simple Ctrl+C to copy in one model then Edit > Paste in place in another one. This is also good to add geometry into an existing group if you accidentally left something out.

gclyde · 21 Jun 2009, 19:28

Thanks Gaieus,

It was my first attempt. But got stuck!

It took me hours to do too....the thought of re-doing everything is daunting.

I do take your point about creating groups and layers etc. I kind-of know that now. Is there an easy that I can do that with what I have done already? I am still getting to grips with groups and layers - the penny has not quite dropped yet though!

I am sure that I will get there with a little help and guidance from you guys

Gra

Gaieus · 21 Jun 2009, 19:58

It's never very easy to make logical grouping from a complex set of geometry but never hopeless (although sometimes takes longer than redoing...)

What you can use is what I suggested (let's say this is with the walls):

select as many faces of the walls as you can easily
right click > Group
now select the rest
press Ctrl=X (this will cut it out)
double click on the group to edit it
go to Edit > Paste in place (you can assign a shortcut to this operation to speed up modelling - see Window > Preferences > Shortcuts - I use Shift+Ctrl+V for this but y6ou can go with anything you like)
repeat these steps until all the faces and edges of your walls are in this group
NOW make a layer, name it Wall (or something)
right click on your wall group > Entity info
change the layer from Layer 0 to Layer Wall
uncheck the visibility of your wall layer and the wall disappears.
now do the same with something else that you think should logically belong to each other (say the floor) and turned into a group...
Ir, at the end, you end up with a couple of stray lines that don't seem to belong to any groups, don't worry just delete them. When grouping geometry, edges that are shared with geometry outside of the group will be duplicated so you are pretty unlikely to erase something important.

x2ferp · 22 Jun 2009, 07:12

Hello masters, im happy to be part of this forum. i had a hard time logging in but finally i made it. one thing i would like to ask, when i view most of the topic i cannot completely relate myself to it because a statement always showing up like this;

"You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post."

Is this normal? or is there anything that i forgot to clik on or do something in my account? hoping for your enlightenment and answers. thank you very much.

Gaieus · 22 Jun 2009, 09:46

Hi Chris and welcome.

There have been some problems lately with the browser cookie settings, please, have a look at this announcement and try to delete your browser cookies.
you may also need to delete your board cookies (you can find the link at the bottom of the page).

Jack Barnhill · 30 Jun 2009, 01:30

Hi! I just found this forum thanks to a posting by DaveR on a woodworking website. I've dabbled in various CAD and modeling programs over the years but have never gotten too serious about them. I'm trying desparately to learn as much as I can about SU to help me with woodworking designs and documentation.

I'm looking forward to learning as much as I can on this forum and, eventually, being a contributor.

Jack

cuevasj1126 · 1 Jul 2009, 23:57

Hello everyone My name is Javier Gonzalez and am new to this forum so I would like to introduce myself because so many great people have share their knowledge and experience of sketchup like tips, tutorials, plugins.... with all of us and this have been very helpful not only for me but for some of my friends. I am currently a student trying to get my bachelors in Architecture and would like to THANK all of those people for taking the time to improve our sketchup abilities. I would try to upload something one day even though am not as good as most of you.

Javi

Gaieus · 2 Jul 2009, 02:02

Hi Javi and welcome.
Don't be shy about your work so don't hesitate to share it if you wish.

mel3dx · 5 Jul 2009, 07:36

Hi my name is Mel, I'm registered user for a long time but haven't visited a long time. this site is great!!!

remus · 5 Jul 2009, 18:04

Hello Mel, good to see you posting

NOHD · 7 Jul 2009, 01:29

hi! i've been using sketch up for about 2months now. I'm searching the web for free sketchup plug ins. I'm looking for useful plugin tool that can easily make the edges round or can make irregular shapes. can i download it here? thanks. im hoping to learn more about sketch up from this forum.

Dhon