What's your beginners tip?

SketchUpNoobie · 19 May 2011, 17:28

@jgb said:

Like Apples IPhone, there's a plugin for that.

This should be TIG/Fredo/Thomthom/Whatt's slogan.

Mike Lucey · 18 Jun 2011, 15:52

Hi Newbies,

While learning SketchUp back in the good old days of @Last it was all new to me to. One of the problems I had was things 'sticking' together that I did not want to 'stick together'. Of course all I had to do was remember to 'Group' the items that I wanted to remain 'non sticky' by 'right click' then hit 'make group'!

I likened this to a teflon coated frying pan! So I got into the habit of saying to myself as I worked along .... 'Teflon coat it!' .... I still do

Mike

Gaieus · 19 Jun 2011, 09:55

Well, this reminds me that I am hungry. Will be back in a minute...

cheneymax · 29 Jul 2011, 20:30

Come up with a project to work on. It doesn't have to be complicated. Maybe a simple 1-story house with a flat roof and 4 rooms. This way, you get a feel for what you can and can't do. It's best if you choose a project that you DON'T think you have the ability to do. This way, you have to learn Sketchup in order to finish the project. Don't forget to ask questions here on the forum. We are all here to help each other.

mics_54 · 3 Aug 2011, 04:59

MY TIP is...when scroll wheel zooming you must be sure the curser is on an element within the drawing rather than on sky or other distant "plane". If the curser is not on a drawing element the zoom seems to hang up or only move minutely. I struggled with the scroll wheel zoom for years until today! I didn't see mention of this anywhere...surely this isn't unknown.

Dave R · 3 Aug 2011, 13:01

That's a good tip, mics_54. It is mentioned somewhere but I don't remember exactly where.

I wish I'd known a long time ago that was giving you trouble. I wouldn't have let you suffer so long.

mics_54 · 3 Aug 2011, 16:40

Hi Dave, the reason for the "zoom with scroll wheel" thing seems so obvious now that I figured it out, I don't know why I didn't get it before.

Roger · 3 Aug 2011, 17:33

Spend a couple hundred hours constructing perspective with T square and triangles and then rendering the results outside of a rendering program. Also take your camera and photograph buildings. As a result you will learn that if you don't know what your are doing and are relying on computer and camera to make up for lack of knowledge that you will continue to be disappointed.

I often see renders where the composition is bad or the lighting is bad of shadows from a building to in one direction and the shadow from entourage go the other direction. Computers increase speed which means you can get a good product faster or you can get a bad product faster.

Learn to see first and then learning to render will be much easier and the quality will be higher.

mitcorb · 3 Aug 2011, 18:23

Tip. Elegant appearance does not guarantee elegant function.

Roger · 3 Aug 2011, 18:35

@mitcorb said:

Tip. Elegant appearance does not guarantee elegant function.

And elegant function does not guarantee elegant appearance. Its best to get them both right and then the thing is truly elegant.

Dave R · 4 Aug 2011, 02:10

I use the analogy of a sandwich when talking about groups. Something like this.

You make a sandwich of a bunch of entities; bread, cheese lettuce, tomato, meat, etc. Then you try to pick it up by a corner and it falls apart or distorts. You lay one of those great big dill pickles on top of it and the juice soaks into the bread changing the sandwich. that's loose, ungrouped geometry, Picking the sandwich up is like grabbing it by the corner with the Move tool. Putting the pickle on it is the sticky nature of entities.

Now wrap the sandwich in transparent cling wrap. You can still see the sandwich and you can pick the sandwich up by the corner and it doesn't fall apart. If you lay the pickle on top, it's juice can't soak into the bread so it doesn't change the sandwich.

Suppose you want to put a slice of onion on the sandwich. You can lay it on top but it isn't part of the sandwich. If you really want the onion to be part of the sandwich, open the cling wrap and edit the sandwich. The same goes for applying materials or other geometry to a group or component.

Of course the analogy falls apart a little when talking about components. In reality you can't just open one sandwich wrapper to put on the onion and have it appear on all the other sandwiches. It's goofy but it seems to work with my students.

I like the teflon idea, too.

Gaieus · 4 Aug 2011, 05:26

@dave r said:

open the cling wrap and edit the sandwich

Next time I need something in my food, I will tell my wife to editit. "Would you please, edit that bowl of stew and add some pepper, please?"

jgb · 4 Aug 2011, 18:14

@dave r said:

That's a good tip, mics_54. It is mentioned somewhere but I don't remember exactly where.

I wish I'd known a long time ago that was giving you trouble. I wouldn't have let you suffer so long.

Dave
That's commonly referred to as "Hyper-Pan" or "Hyper-Zoom" and has been a bone of contention since I started using SU years ago. Others have bitched about it too, and even John from Google-SU said he would look into it and get back to me. That was last year and no word yet.

There is a way to fix it inside SU. Simply maintain the original rate of pan/zoom when the cursor slips off the object, and only until the cursor is back on an object or any button/key or tool is activated.

At least that way you won't go off in space somewhere.

Dave R · 4 Aug 2011, 18:19

Yes. I'm well aware of that.

david_h · 4 Aug 2011, 18:43

@gaieus said:

@dave r said:

open the cling wrap and edit the sandwich

Next time I need something in my food, I will tell my wife to editit. "Would you please, edit that bowl of stew and add some pepper, please?"

I tell my wife all the time to Hide Unused Basil . And she tells me to go Delete Myself.

jgb · 5 Aug 2011, 15:15

All I get from my wife for any request for anything is
Access Denied

And so begins another downward spiral of a once good and interesting thread......

rbecker · 10 Aug 2011, 20:00

I'll add this one because it took me way too long to figure out.

If you have a component you've used throughout your model, and you realize you have several instances you need to alter in the same fashion, but you don't want that to apply to all the instances;

Select one of the instances, choose "make unique". Now, select the other components you want to alter. Go to the component browser, make sure you are viewing components "In Model". Find the new unique instance you created, right-click, and choose "replace selected". You now have a new group of components, edit one and they all get the same new treatment!

Gaieus · 10 Aug 2011, 21:09

Ross, if you want to make a bunch of instances unique, just select them all then right click on any of them and make unique. This operation will make all selected instances of this new definition - so you spared the replace step now (which can indeed be useful though for other actions).

rbecker · 10 Aug 2011, 21:23

Gaieus,
DOH! I thought I tried that and it made every selected component individually unique. I just tested it again and it does exactly what you say, which is what I was trying in the first place. Thanks!

Gaieus · 10 Aug 2011, 21:54

Never mind (we have a doh thread somewhere if you want to join - many of us have posted in there about our "doh's" too).

The "Replace selected" function is indeed a good one and a useful hint for newbies in this beginners' tips topic to look at.