Beware. Bomb.rb can be undone via Edit>Undo but if you make any modifications to geometry after running it, those modifications will need to be undone before you can undo the bomb action. If you explode a component so you can edit it, you lose the power of editing all the like components in the model because the exploded one is no longer related to the rest. It is just a lump of geometry. A better way to edit components is to open them for editing either by right clicking on the desired component or double clicking with the Select tool. Then perform the editing operation. If there are other instances of the component in the model, they will get the same editing which wouldn't happen if they are all exploded into loose geometry. And there's no risk of modifying unrelated components because they can't be changed while another component is open for editing. I know what you mean about bartering. It's easy to get the short end of the stick. Good luck.

I prefer to use Hide as a way to temporarily hide entities while working on the model but I use layers for controlling visibility. As Chris says, all geometry remains on Layer 0. Only components have other layer associations. One way to think of this is that turning off a layer's visibility activates a cloaking device around the the geometry. As long as each storefront proposal is a different component (or group) you will be safe having them occupying the same space and not showing unless you turn on the specific layer. I use this way of showing options on furniture all the time. It helps to keep the model tidy. Make separate scenes for each proposal and change the scene visibility as appropriate for each one. All should be just fine then.

It's a very nice toolset. I have it myself.

I did export from 3DStudioMax and tryed to use the exported file in Unity3D and had the same problem as in ZBrush, but this time the files where exported from 3DMax...

Oh, sorry. I was logged in with an old account (that I didn't remember I had) on my home computer.

There are certain operations you can perform (simply saying) "From outside" of a component. You can rotate, move etc. (obviously) you can scale you can paint... When doing these things "from outside" (i.e. you do not enter the editing context), they will not affect the component definition, just that instance. Make another test: insert a (non textured) component into the model then paint it with a colour. Either when you insert another instance or you save as... the colour will not be repeated on the other components. All in all, in your case, you should have edited the component (double click), select all "inside" and scale the geometry itself in order to transform the definition itself.

Thanks. Perfect.

@tpstigers said: Sometimes, though, I just want to render a part of the landscape (a house, for instance). Well, Thea has a really cool feature: region rendering. Combined with the Interactive render feature (where you navigate; orbit, pan, whatever to get the view you want and it is interactively rendering the "final" image - sort of) then make a rectangle selection and there you go; it will render you that part. If you build the main features of your landscape in SU, you can add pretty high poly plants inside Thea (and later, when the exporting plugin supports it, you can place "dummy" proxies in SU and turn them into full fledged 3D plants in Thea). Hm. Still selling at 45% pre-release price until the 21st of February (RC2 has just been released).

@oneturboneeded said: Ok now i have my 4 groups extruded by rails how do i combine into one group eliminate the lines between groups and smooth? Im just getting lazy now that you are all so helpful and guide me strait to the right operation but im learning lots thanks. Select the 4 groups [hold down Ctrl to add to a selection, Ctrl+Shift to remove from selection and Shift to toggle in/out of selection!] Self right-click context-menu 'Explode'. Everything remains selected, immediately right-click context-menu 'Group'. Everything is now in one group. Select that group and right-click context-menu 'Smooth' - adjust the settings in the dialog that opens so it's smoothed. If there are an edges that won't edit the group and smooth using Erase+Ctrl OR if that fails hide them using Erase+Shift... As you have only made a 'half' you can them copy the group to one side ans Scale it -1 about Y/green so it flips. Move the two groups so they snap together correctly, when you are happy Select both groups and Explode, re-Group, and re-Smooth as before.......

YouTube would be quite handy however. When you make annotations to the video, you can also define a "pause" time the video should stop playing (look at the top left corner to see that small "clock" counting down during the video). So by carefully considering how much time isneeded to read the instructions, you can create quite well understandable tutorials even when taking the screen capture, you work at the pace as you usually do. YouTube - Creating a Face-me component in SketchUp [flash=480,385:flsxlydr]http://www.youtube.com/v/VvI6A7Njw4k?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:flsxlydr]

@draffter said: Question: Can the sandbox tools be used for modeling an automobile? If yes, please list an example. No easily... BUT there are several plugins and even 'vanilla' SUp methods to help you - do a search for "car modeling tutorial Sketchup" on the net... there are several - there are even some here on the forums if you do a trawl......

@driven said: I'm not sure GC still works with skps, it stopped for a while at least, so I wrote a plugin... I'll PM you this 'beta' plugin that lets you add icons to your skps that Finder/QuickLook can see, if you want? [attachment=0:a5t9bzkz]<!-- ia0 -->2014-11-04 07.55.41 pm.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:a5t9bzkz] I use it to add an icon from the 'File Menu' or a tool button any time I want, i.e. not auto on close. It does do batches as well, but I need to do a little more on that before I release it to public... I've had no horror stories from the dozen or more users who are 'testing' it. john Hello John, I too would be very grateful to get a copy of your OSX thumbnail/icon plugin please. Luds

I think that this might be what you are looking for http://www.drawmetal.com/gallery Also, don't forget to check out http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=railings&styp=m&btnG=Search and http://www.exchange3d.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=14039 Hope this helps. Regards, Bob

As you probably know, SketchUp is designed to locate the model accurately on the planet, and cast shadows according to any selected date time. If for purposes of presentation, the shadows are not as you might desire, you can rotate your model, or use the script located here to move the shadow around the model by large increments. Once a approximate setting is achieved, SketchUp date time is used to finalize the shadow positions.

Yup, I believe that works I guess...

I have tried different techniques to construct an aseptic T-piece as it is used in pharmaceutical pipelines. This example is done by Fredos Tool on Surfaces and EEbyRails. [image: Z2Tu_AsepticT-piece.jpg]

Tony, Welcome to SCF. In what format are the drawings of the parts now? If they are just line drawings, you can import the images and trace over them or use them as reference for drawing the parts. SketchUp won't turn lines in an image file (PNG, JPG, etc.) into line entities though. If you have them in a CAD file format, you can import them with SU8 Pro or if you have a DXF file you can use Honoluludesktop's DXF_In plugin.

@gareth said: If you are a Twilight Render user, you can download some skp files of some of the Xfrog trees still waiting for a mac version...

@gaieus said: Edson, Was the texture not applied to a back face (and on the front face inside the wrong one)? That would explain also (and probably explain why your workaround worked). csaba, it surely could. I was using this and other context elements from several older projects thus I do not remember when I modeled that. one of the things I did was to reverse the face before trying the other steps.