Components out of control?
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It seems that I may have gone a little "component crazy" after discovering the wonderful world of components. I have components within components within components, ad nauseum . If I have a component showing up in my components list, and also a component showing up made of several of those first components, and on and on, is this a problem? Does the fact that I have all these components showing up numerous times in the list mean anything bad as far as file size, edge count, whatever? I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well, I usually don't, so could somebody please take a look at the attached file and see if there is actually anything to worry about, and I would really appreciate any suggestions on how to be more organized and efficient in my modeling practices. I need to learn this stuff now, early in my "Sketchup Career", to avoid problems down the road.
Also, why is it that when I copy a component from the list, it sometimes comes out much larger than in the actual model, and/or oriented completely different? Is that because of it's size and orientation when I first made it a component?
Thanks in advance.
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@hellnbak said:
Also, why is it that when I copy a component from the list, it sometimes comes out much larger than in the actual model, and/or oriented completely different? Is that because of it's size and orientation when I first made it a component?
Sounds like it yes. If you scale a component instance you do not affect the component definition. To do so you must open the component and do your modification there.
However, if you have a component where you want a scaled component instance to be the default scale, right click it and choose "Scale Definition" -
Actually that question was just an afterthought. What I really need help with is my components window list. It's crazy. I make three instances of a component and the list still shows zip instances. It will highlight the three copies when I check for instances, but it won't count them. I want to delete a component, and it won't give me that option. Or maybe it will, if I check back later. Who knows? The outer rim is composed of 61 "instances" of a component - it shows a thumbnail of the complete outer rim, with 61 instances. It's the complete rim, it should show zero instances, right? It shows a thumbnail of the component used to make the rim, no instances. Shouldn't it show 61 instances for that? There are 5 lugnuts, each a copy of the original component. It shows only 1 in the list, which is fine, but with no instances. The tire is made up of 42 copies of a component - there is a thumbnail for one of those components, showing no paint on the reverse faces - no instances. There's another thumbnail of it, showing painted reverse faces - 1 instance. But if I delete either of these components, the entire tire goes away. There just seems to be no logic to all this, no rhyme or reason, at least not to me. Instead of the list being a helpful component management tool, all it does is confuse me and raise my blood pressure. I know it probably has something to do with the way I do things when I'm creating a model, probably very basic stuff I'm doing wrong, but I need to know what that something is, now, before I go any further and make things even worse. I've looked in the books, I've searched the web, all they seem to offer is basic info on the subject, no comprehensive insights or tips, nothing in depth, nothing that comes close to answering my questions. My frustration level is very high and rising daily. I need for someone to help me make some sense of all this.
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Could you post an image of the model. Perhaps seeing it will suggest how to disassemble the byzantine heirarchy.
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Here the dang thing is. It's just a tire, how can it be killing me? The thing is, this is just one part of the car I'm working on, can you imagine how screwed up things are overall? There's also a skp file included with my original post. thanks.
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Nice wheel and tire. I have yet to complete one.
Make a copy of the model in another file if necessary, say Wheelx. Disassemble the model in this file.
Each "spoke" should be instances of a component called spoke, maybe. Likewise with the lugs. Likewise with the wheel/rim proper.I will be unable to dive into the skp. I am not nearly as quick as some folks here.
If you cannot disassemble you may have to reconstruct some stuff. Or you may be able to rename identical stuff in the Entity info window as instance numbers.
Consider moving identical components out a distance along an axis and explode just these, then recomp them individually or as a collection.
These are just ideas I would try under similar circumstances.
Of course, this is a forum, and others may have a better solution. -
Thanks for taking the time. I'll give your suggestion a shot.
One more post and you'll reach the big "1,000"
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Not to give you too much to think about
, but have you been introduced to the Outliner? I think that's what you are looking for in the component browser. The component browser just shows one instance of each component in the model.That nifty window (found in the Window menu) lets you see the complete hierarchy of groups and components in your model. You can even do things like open a nested component for editing by clicking on the component's name in the Outliner, or drag and drop entities between groups (similar to Cut -> Paste in Place). Since the Outliner uses the names of the component, you'll find it easier to navigate if each component is named logically (good luck with that!
)Hope that helps
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Now that's gonna be useful!!!
I think I can use that to do what I need to do, has all kinds of options for working with the components and groups. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help - although I would still like to know why the component browser gives me such weird results. I'm firmly convinced that my basic modeling practices are far from ideal, and I'm paying for it with things like that. While I can do what I set out to do, pretty much, eventually, I think my sloppy techniques are resulting in some unnecessary bumps in the road and larger files and edge counts than need be. If I don't get it right now, it's only gonna get worse as I delve into more complicated models.Anyhow, thanks again.
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