Exploding groups in scenes = pastes to others

Jeggebis

thanks Gaieus

I meant to say i was going to hide the cylinders in each scene - not delete them

I will give the layers a try (havent even thought about them).

Once again, the quick replies one gets at this forum is just amazingly helpfull!

TIG

You CAN hide the unwanted cylinders in the different scene tabs BUT you might go mad trying to control what seen... layers that are only on in the required scene[s] are the best way forward... trust Gaieus

Gaieus

I am probably too messy and have never been able to control visibility via hiding/unhiding. For me, it is always just a temporary thing (and meant for modelling issues) OR when I want to hide edges or similar in certain groups like 3D Text or around tree leaves. Never scene based visibility.

Jeggebis

hehe yeah, i have to get better at sorting stuff in layers instead of hiding them.

btw. is there a smart way to move say, scene 40-55 all the way to the start of the animation? Cant be that you have to click every single one and use that up-arrow-thingy to get them to the top one by one. (cant select them all and move them together).

Tried searching for a script like that on the forum but no luck

Dave R

FWIW, here's an example of an animation I did awhile back It's made of 18 scenes with layers being turned on and off to control the visibility of the components.

[flash=640,509:1n7v3alv]http://blip.tv/play/gYhbgsG_bwA[/flash:1n7v3alv]

Jeggebis

Nicely done, gives a great idea on what layers can be used for.

Any chance you or any one else have an answer on how to move the order of multiple scenes at once? I really cant be asked to move 20scenes up 30-40 slots one by one with that up arrow...

Gaieus

I tried every way and could not move multiple scenes. You can select multiple but that does not work with moving, sorry.

Maybe it would even be better to delete all and start from scratch (unless you have important camera views set up this way)

Dave R

There isn't anyway to move more than one scene at a time. As Csaba suggests, it might be easier to start from scratch with layers and then make scenes in the needed order. I know for me, it would be easier than trying to straighten out a confused model.

I would use this process:

Make components, copy them to the various positions as needed, make the layers and then the layer associations for the components (all primitive geometry remains on Layer 0), turn off all layers except the ones you need on for the first scene. Create the scene. Adjust layer visibility for the next scene, create the next scene, repeat until finished.

mitcorb

Are you guys saying that type of scene sequencing and manipulation is not addressable with any type of ruby script?

Dave R

Well, at least I didn't. I only know that with the native options, you can't move more than one scene at a time. I'm not sure if that could be done with a plugin or not.

TIG

Sketchup.active_model.pages returns a list of the SKP's scenes.
pages["Scene 1"] returns the scene with that name
pages[1] returns the second scene etc
This list is in the order the tabs are displayed.
You can set_current/add/erase pages etc so you can manipulate the list...
pages.add(name,flags,location) adds a scene [or replaces the scene at 'location' - e.g. 1 for the second scene - if no 'location' is given a new page is added at the start].
The bitwise 'flags' is also optional - it represents the scene's properties - http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/page.html#update explains this...
So it would be possible to write a script to reorganize scene tabs...
BUT it's complex.
Smustard.com has several 'page' tools [some free, some inexpensive] that might help you.
One way would be to use the scene [page] export method [provided by 'pageExIm.rb' - $5], then sort the lines in the .sup file that's generated [with Notepad++ etc], then erase all scene tabs and immediately reimport the scenes in that new order as desired, using their names ?

Tip: this tool might cause problems if you haven't [temporarily] reset your Model Info > Units to 'inches' when doing the 'export' - it exports details in current units, but then imports assuming they are in inches - at least in the [perhaps older] version I have [that I have adjust to automate this temp-units issue to always export/import in inches irrespective of current-unit settings]...

There are also a Smustard tool to rename scenes logically after reordering if needed...