Newbie Questions

vlkster

Hello all. I have just started using sketchup 2014 about 3 weeks ago. I love it and it has helped with my new job. My question is, I have made some fairly large models(100mb+) and it freezes or just stops when i try to make scenes to create a movie. I come from a very long career using 2d Autocad and if something like this happened a simple video card upgrade or more ram would do the trick. I have read though alot of the topics on this forum and it seems that this is not the case for sketchup. Currently i have a I7-3770k, 32gb ram, windows 7pro 64 bit and a 1gb ATI AMD Radeon HD 7000 series video card. Since I have become the new product design person and I have a good budget, what would be the good, better, best computer setup and i'm open to both PC's or Mac's. Also i'm starting to use adobe creative cloud suite too. Any help would be great.

Thanks

pbacot

Depending on what it is exactly you are modeling, you may find your files are needlessly large,and learning to efficiently model may help you. On the other hand, have you looked at other software? SketchUp may not be up to what you need.

vlkster

Maybe they are not that large. I was able to look at one of the drawings i'm having issues with and it's 30mb. I've learned to make my product into a component, but when i start copying my component(336 times) and try and make that a larger component is when i get the hang ups.
What other software could i use that is simple and easy to use as sketchup? I did see Lumion which peaked my intrest. Could i put different models in that program and mesh them all together? Again i'm new to the 3d modeling side of the CAD world and sketchup was easy to pickup and learn, so i've run with it and my company is extremely happy with the results but now with what i have done and shown them, they want more of it and bigger models to promote our product.

mac1

vlkster;
SU is not cad and as such it does not use layers the same. Its layers are used only for visibility control and geometry isolation is done by use of components/ groups. Folks many times get into problems with high poly entourage which puts a large rendering load on the graphics. One can also use proxy components ( like your 336) and then batch replace later.
There are two main issues, related, but not same. 1) Open or save of model means total model must be processed or if auto save is on during presentation modeling time delays etc can occur; during modeling one can usually mitigate the rendering issues.
SU runs as a 32 bit app, single core so controlling render load is key to prevent problems you note.See the links
https://sites.google.com/site/sketchupsage/faster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnhkei2dSrY
Is it possible for you to post your 30 MB model folks can give more detail comments. That size exceeds this site attachment limit so upload to file sharing site and then post URL here

pilou

@unknownuser said:

I did see Lumion which peaked my intrest. Could i put different models in that program and mesh them all together?

Of course yes!
Lumion is not really a modeling program, just a blender render of elements !

vlkster

@mac1 said:

SU is not cad

No offence, but sketchup is a form of CAD, you are drafting with the aid of a computer

@mac1 said:

Is it possible for you to post your 30 MB model folks can give more detail comments. That size exceeds this site attachment limit so upload to file sharing site and then post URL here

No i can not, sorry, but company will not allow this.

What other programs can i import sketchup models into and render, like Lumion?? Again i'm new to the 3d/rendering industry and i know i'm a noob, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank

vlkster

Ok, so moving on from the 1st question. What do you use to animate objects? I've looked up sketchyphsics, but doesn't work for 2014. i'm looking to make an excavator dig, ect.
Thanks
John

Dave R

@vlkster said:

I've looked up sketchyphsics, but doesn't work for 2014. i'm looking to make an excavator dig, ect.
Thanks
John

It doesn't, huh? I wonder where you looked up that information.

Well, maybe Keyframe Animation would do what you need.

vlkster

@dave r said:

It doesn't, huh? I wonder where you looked up that information.

Yeah that was me not looking that hard and only finding 3.1 that didn't work with su2014, i found 3.5 after i wrote that.

So here are the specs of a workstation i'm pushing for at work.
I'm running sketchup pro, Lumion 4.5, BricsCad, adobe photoshop, and Premiere pro

i7-4790k, 32gb-2133mhz ram, (2)gtx 980, 1000w psu, 128ssd + 1tb hd, & liquid cooling

Any thoughts?

Thanks
John