I'd suggest you take a look at the TWR Forum, where you - among lots of other things - can find the Best Of Tips and Tricks - The Master List... If you're a licensed user you will also have access to many resources at the "Red Carpet Club"...

Understand...... Untill my "banker" OK's the $$ for Pro I'll adjust and deal with it.... Thanks again!

and I assume most people know this but... if you scale by -1 then you mirror the object.

If you copy a SKP to change its contents into a something similar you can readily relocate its parts using Move etc, then edit affected sub-components using PushPull on existing faces to change their geometry as desired; or use a left-right fence to select several bits at once and then Move en mass - e.g. a top's end with notches would need all of the notch faces PushPulling in turn until they were are in the right locations, but a select of the affected parts with a single Move will do it in one go! It must be quicker than starting from scratch - you can always add new geometry etc too...

I have actually a question about the small dots or points on my glas is that because of too much light or not enough light ? I tried different things and Im still not sure what might cause that light noise in my model. regards

Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes sees the obvious. Everyone has a 'doh!' moment now and again

I don't know. Maybe they do have to be the same height. Those happen to be the native dimensions of my screens.

Glad that worked. I don't think I ever discovered which one came that way. If I remember correctly, sketchup.rb used to live in the Plugins folder but it was moved to Tools in V6 or 7. I suppose the plugin was from before the move and having it included was no big deal then because it would either not get installed or would overwrite the original file.

I tried the follow me with a cross section before i posted - couldn't get it to work. However, I have cracked it! I constructed a doughnut with follow me and isolated a thin section from its centre with an extruded circle and then intersected the two faces and deleted the outer bulk of the doughnut. Phew. I'm off to try your method again.

Have you tried using the Autodesk FBX converter TIG suggested?

I thought perhaps Geosketch from Cogent3d.com would have some relevance. This is what I mentioned, but couldn't remember. Another part of the name is TacForge. It is not a simple tracer.

Thanks for your quick help!

More than one year after the last reply. I am assuming no one found a solution? I just started using dynamic components and I was starting to be happy of the possibilities they allow, but now I came across the same problem you guys have (it's what lead me to this thread). It is very frustrating that I cannot seem to identify a rule as to why and when SketchUp decides to make a unique component. For example I have a pipe and users can input the lenght. The component works perfect, no renaming no unique copies, no problems.. no matter what kind of copy/move operation I do. Now I designed a component a bit more complex. It includes 3 groups and one sub-component. The position of that sub-component plus the size of the groups change according to what the user chooses (drop-down list) If I just insert the component and move it/copy it NO new instances are created. But If I go to attributes and select the second configuration, right after I press APPLY, a new instance is created #1. Now, copying this new component does not create a #2, BUT if I dare to change one of these copies back to the first configuration, it creates a new instance. This really ruins the whole purpose of having dynamic components.... At least if we had control over the renaming, for example appending at the end of the initial name, the label of the attribute changed.

in my racing simulator rFactor, there is some type of formula or script that runs during the game, and when we have a wreck it morphs the models. in the settings of the game or actually the game files themselves, there is variables where you choose different vertices and then determine how far they can be moved in a wreck and in what directions. wonder if a similar plugin could be made?

If you go into C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8 I'd transfer over the Exporters, Importers, Materials, Plugins, Resources, and Tools folders. -Brodie

@aerilius said: @jgb said: cannot boot any PC after WinXP destroyed the boot sector It doesn't boot the Windows XP CD (repair cd)? If the boot sector is not physically destroyed, there could have been a chance to try to type the word "fixmbr" into the recovery console. I was following the MS procedure to "Replace Motherboard" when I got BSOD as WinXP was finishing the "repair". Then I fixed that BSOD, but WinXP continued to get BSOD every reboot for various driver issues, until I gave up. It will now NOT allow me to reinstall as it always wants to complete the repair, which it can't. The "new" HD has Win-XP Pro on it and I am clearing it out of the old users non-essential stuff then I will start pulling my old stuff over to it. I suspect I will have to re-install most of it, and other issues are delaying me or just making life miserable.... but the new PC runs like stink. Except I am a bit disappointed with the NVIDIA GPU. My old 256mb ATI card of 7 years ago produced a much crisper image in SU than the newer 500mb NVIDIA, even at max resolution and with the best setting for anti-alias. But I can live with it.

Cheers, Massimo!

PM away...