Back Face Color Gremlins

jhearcht · 5 Feb 2008, 00:53

SketchUp Pro 6.4.112 on Windows XP

I'm constantly frustrated to find that back faces I have set to a specific color have changed to another color or texture when I look at that surface later after making changes in other parts of the drawing. The original face is part of a group, and I have edited other groups that are not connected to the original group. It seems that when I add a texture to a vertical surface, other vertical surfaces in the same drawing are globally changed to that texture. I'm getting very tired of doing the same fix over and over. Any useful suggestions to avoid this gremlin will be appreciated. Thanks.

remus · 5 Feb 2008, 07:05

are you appyling the textue to the group? if so everything in the group will be painted with that texture, inlcuding any back faces. To solve it, just double click the group/component to edit it and then colour each face individually, or hold shift to colour all the front faces that are the same colour as the face being painted.

jhearcht · 6 Feb 2008, 19:43

Here's an example:

I had previously created a sign from 3D text and colored the faces white. The sign is part of an entrance canopy group. Later, I changed a face in another unrelated group on the ground plane to asphalt material. When I zoomed back out to view the model I discovered that the sign is now colored asphalt.

This has happened all over my model. Each time I reopen the file, I discover things that were correct before, now have taken on a material color from another part of the model in a separate group. The object which takes on a new color is never visible on the screen, or in the current selection when I am applying that color to another object.

How can a material change in one group affect an unselected object in another group? As you might imagine this is very frustrating.

denhom · 6 Feb 2008, 21:22

Is any part of your group a component that is found in other groups? Could that be the source of your frustration?

jhearcht · 6 Feb 2008, 23:03

No. In the example above, the sign component is an extrusion from text, and the other object was a part of the floor surface. No relation at all, except they are in the same drawing file.

I'm wondering if this might be an Open GL glitch. Since SU06 moves and orbits objects in a frustratingly slow and jerky manner, I'm thinking about buying a new, $1000 graphics card to replace my four-year-old, $500 GL card. I have other problems such as lockups while zooming and panning in my CAD app. Any suggestions?

remus · 6 Feb 2008, 23:06

the nvidia quadro range are generally recognised as being pretty good for design applications.