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    What's your beginners tip?

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    • GaieusG Offline
      Gaieus
      last edited by

      Yes, that's a good trick. I also did it here where I painted the back face of the thick wall transparent so that windows "seem" to cut through those thick walls:

      Gai...

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      • B Offline
        bestmate
        last edited by

        If i may ,can i give you our future experts ( trust me it won't take long ) tips to help them along

        1/ Accurate inferencing, To me is the corner stone to clean non hair pulling out experiences in sketchup ( Zoom zoom to see were your putting that line)

        2/ COPLANER If that face will not fill in after 10 minutes ( and i have been there) its not flat ! If there are two lines very close together where there should be one ( you know, those lines that look alittle thicker that the other lines), then the party on its the way to pair shape city Ha ha.

        3/ Work cleanly and and erase those lines that should not be there ( the lines that keep flashing puppy eyes at your inference engine) ,and your clinical approach will reward you , in not wanting to get off your computer ,rather than throwing it out the window .
        Enjoy Phil

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        • ToboboT Offline
          Tobobo
          last edited by

          Another tip, keep coming back to this and the 'Duh' threads again and again. I keep forgetting things that people have mentioned.

          Toby

          Philippians 4:13

          I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

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          • peter_shawP Offline
            peter_shaw
            last edited by

            when composing a scene for rendering, the look around tool is quite handy. you can change your eye height by simply typing in numbers while using the tool.

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            • P Offline
              petropix
              last edited by

              Beginners tip? Use a programable multi-button mouse. I recommend Logitech Revolution VX, smallish and elegant (unfortunately discontinued). You can assign 10 functions and now you're a speed demon in SketchUp. There aren't that many makes out there which is frustrating because I've worn out four of these Logitech mice and the new Logitech iterations are cheaply made with fewer functions, although there's the option of going to a full-blown gamer's mouse.

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              • V Offline
                vjekobalas
                last edited by

                I'm a beginner but I'll allow myself to be a bit philosophical
                as I've come to a conclusion which may or may not mean anything
                to you - besides going through all the sketchup videos and duplicating
                the steps in the videos and understanding the basics of the tools, my tip
                is that you have to stop thinking about drawing (lines, shapes etc.) and
                start thinking creatively about geometry, components, groups
                and how the tools can be combined in magical ways to draw what you need. β˜€ πŸ˜„
                When you have some spare time, pick some questions on the forum on how
                something was done and you'll further speed up filling your bag of tricks.

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                • peter_shawP Offline
                  peter_shaw
                  last edited by

                  u can shortcut any function, even plugins. as a gamer, my hand automatically rests on wasd all the time πŸ˜„ so i set up shortcuts that are easy to reach from that: q: make line, w: paintbucket, e: push pull, r: move
                  spacebar: selection tool, x: xray mode
                  etc.
                  one of the best shortcuts for modelling with groups and components is view/component edit/hide rest of model.
                  the ability to toggle that is just awesome.

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                  • opalO Offline
                    opal
                    last edited by

                    needs the how to set up shortcuts instructions

                    ETA.. ^found it^ nm

                    btw.. loving that icon picture of yours Peter.. can't stop looking and smiling

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                    • A Offline
                      android no. 12
                      last edited by

                      everything has thickness - walls, glass panes, even paper when you make a face on sketchup, it is only a 2D shape which cannot exist in real life. make sure you give every object a thickness

                      start on components early. groups will prevent you from getting in a mess if you want to seperate 2 objects, and will enable you to select whole objects easily. components do the same, but you can copy a component around, and if you edit one all the others can change.

                      when drawing shapes, you will often benefit from typing in the desired length. this will help you keep track of things and have regularity in your model. also don't use sill lengths like 147.43528m unless necessary

                      Components window will allow you to keep track of all components in your model, and see which ones are in the file but not in the model. you can then delete those to speed things up. same with materials. if you use one once, it remains in the file, even if you remove it from the model

                      soften edges to hide a line, and this will also try to smoothen the face. go to view>hidden geometry to see all lines you have hidden. a curve is actually a series of straight lines, and extruding a curve will make lots of lines.

                      For accurate selection, you may want to use the views toolbar, and parallel projection

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                      • kingsiK Offline
                        kingsi
                        last edited by

                        Hello Everyone

                        I am very new to this Sketchup world, but I have 2 tips narrowed down from 2000.

                        1. Make sure you have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve with a drawing. Have the Endgame in mind at all times. Don't do a me and get distracted by overcomplicating a drawing. If you are designing something archtiectural that exists in the real world make damn certain you have decent photos to work from, from the start. Its really annoying having to go back to take more, not to mention photomatching at the end of a design is just downright depressing lol.

                        2. Learn the Lingo. As with any new piece of software what you think some operation, action or effect should be called and what it is really called and what other people call it are often different things. I forget how many times I have rumaged about youtube, typing in all sorts of keywords to only stumble upon what I wanted to learn by accident way after the fact. From what I can tell, everything I want to do with sketchup is possible, it is only me that does not know how to do it and importantly what its bloody called.

                        Noobtastic

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                        • rami_lpmR Offline
                          rami_lpm
                          last edited by

                          If you took time to arrange your toolbars, use 'View/Toolbars/Save Toolbar Positions'.
                          You never know when sketchup will stumble and ruin your workspace.


                          1.jpg

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                          • D Offline
                            dark phoenix
                            last edited by

                            @ross macintosh said:

                            Tip: Orbit, Pan & Zoom using the middle mouse button / scroll wheel.

                            middle mouse button to orbit
                            middle mouse button + shift to pan
                            and the scroll wheel to zoom

                            The tool buttons for orbiting, panning and zooming almost never need to be used.

                            I had been using this program for about a week, and JUST found out this tip when you mentioned it! AWESOME! Thank you!

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                            • D Offline
                              dark phoenix
                              last edited by

                              @hfm said:

                              My tip:

                              While selecting different kind of materials for your model to try out looks, don't forget to delete them afterward since SketchUp will remember every single material you've selected, clogging op your model's file size in the process.

                              Thank you! I was just adding layer after layer, not deleting the old materials. That must be why the program lagged really bad after a while.

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                              • H Offline
                                Hussel Hann
                                last edited by

                                @rami_lpm said:

                                If you took time to arrange your toolbars, use 'View/Toolbars/Save Toolbar Positions'.
                                You never know when sketchup will stumble and ruin your workspace.

                                i am so agree with u...
                                my toolbar often go haywire during rendering... 😲

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                                • E Offline
                                  Earle
                                  last edited by

                                  I have found that no matter how much I think I have learned in SU, I will always have more to learn. If SU is important in your work flow then decide to research here and everywhere to see what will help you work better. Decide to spend some "many" hours to practice - research- and create. It is mindblowing to see what people are doing with this and many kudos to those who are creating plugins that make our life "that much easier". I am inspired and amazed by these creative folks.- Thanks for your work Mates.-And Always Make Components πŸ˜„

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                                  • dukejazzD Offline
                                    dukejazz
                                    last edited by

                                    When moving objects with dimensions that are very small like <0.000001 feet, it hits a base grid of precisions. The snapping grid is usally above this precision but if you zoom into base points it will turn into a snapping grid.
                                    Yes this is true that it act like a snapping grid when you zoom to base precision even if you have the snap off.
                                    pic_0041.jpg
                                    Now how can you get the objects to move about smoothly in very high precision?
                                    1)hint By turning the units feet to in, cm, or mm will lower the base snapping grid.
                                    Also
                                    2)Trick I do is to use the scale tool by pulling one side a given scale and then pull the other far parallel side in same direction with same scale when done it shift objects to your point.

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                                    • P Offline
                                      PhilE
                                      last edited by

                                      Use the zoom tool - and use it a lot

                                      I had some odd problems with straight lines refusing to join up with other straight lines, faces which should have been at right angles to each other behaving as though they were seperate and what appeared to be other strange things going on with SU's inference engine.

                                      What I'd forgotten was that the day before I'd been playing around trying to orient my model (our house) so that I could drop it onto Google Earth. When I zoomed in real close, the cause of all my problems became clear. When I'd rotated the whole model, I'd done so by about 178 degrees. As a result it was now slightly out of alignment with the red and green axes, causing all the inference problems I'd been seeing. Putting it back in line solved all the problems.

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                                      • D Offline
                                        dmhmaestro
                                        last edited by

                                        If you're working on a model and you want to select something and make group, but when you select thing with one click and pull of a mouse you are not sure if u selected the things you wanted or something else also, so you just copy and paste it and then you will see what do you have in your selection if you put it outside of the model where you can see only pasted surfaces... that helps me, its quick so i hope it will be helpfull for someone else

                                        so ctrl c, ctrl v, and you see your selection outside

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                                        • A Offline
                                          AMadinger
                                          last edited by

                                          Having just started with SU a couple days ago, the most important tip I've received is how to multiply/divide a copy.

                                          For example, I wanted to make a brick wall. To use this feature:

                                          select the object to array
                                          select the "move" tool
                                          push ctrl (this shortcuts the copy feature)
                                          click on a part of the object as a base-point to move from

                                          IF you want to use the multiplication tool

                                          place the copy in the direction you want your array of copies
                                          also place the copy a distance away from the original at desired interval (all copies will have this spacing)
                                          after placing the copy (before leaving the move tool) type in the number of copies you want in the format "#x" for example, if I wanted 3 copies made in addition to the original, I would type "3x"
                                          if you need more or less, type again. you can edit the number of copies until you leave the tool

                                          ELSEIF you want to use the division tool

                                          place the copy in the direction you want your array of copies
                                          also place the copy at the desired position for the last piece
                                          after placing the copy (before leaving the move tool) type in the number of copies you want in the format "#/" for example, if I wanted 3 copies made in addition to the original, I would type "3/"
                                          instead of continuing outward infinitely like the multiplication tool, the division tool will space the copies out evenly in between the original and the specified end piece.
                                          if you need more or less, type again. you can edit the number of copies until you leave the tool

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                                          • sh00ksS Offline
                                            sh00ks
                                            last edited by

                                            • Start with copying/modeling stuuf in your direct surroundings
                                            • Start simpel and work your way up to the more fine and difficult stuff
                                            • Ctrl-S is your best friend
                                            • Ctrl-Z is your mistress
                                            • Doubting if there is no faster/easier way to do 'something'? ask here and search for plugins.
                                            • Press every button, use every tool, change every setting and learn as you do

                                            Last tip, but certainly as important: don't let your courage drop when you see all them beauties of models on the net, here of where else! One day, you will be able to do the same it just takes time and experience.

                                            Ooooh God, how I wish I could buy time. Any tips on that anybody? πŸ˜„

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