Newbie first question
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Howdy. Rick is my name but my friends call me fitz. My close friends call me fitZ..like fitzee...hence my my username. I am a CAD designerdetailer, with a long work history in Autocad 2d detailing(Store Fixturing and lots of other stuff)
I started using Sketchup about 6 months ago, but was slow getting a handle on it. But now...WOW am I impressed. Although there are still some things in Autocad I wish Sketchup had. Maybe i just haven't found them yet. I haven't even scratched the surface of Ruby yet so maybe I'll find them there. Like STRETCH. I've had a few SCALING attemps that approximates Autocads stretch command, but still haven't grasp it yet. Anyway, finally joined the forum and am looking forward to meeting a few of you and learning from all of you. BTW, for the most part, I am using my recording studio as the basis for experimenting with Sketchup. Below is a few files that I have some questions on. Thanks for any help.For my first post, I have a few questions
Can you point me to somewhere that can illustrate or define strategies for setting up models in Sketchup in preperation for rendering in Kerkythea? For instance, in the first pic, this is a model of my console,(the REAL console is finished, the model is not finished) as I want to use Kerkythea spot lights to BACKLIGHT the LED's in certain audio hardware model renderings. Is this possible? If so, is there a strategy for doing this?
2. Are there parameter settings for PERSPECTIVE camera views. Maybe because I am inexperienced I haven't found them, but the Perspective sure seems wierd to me. Is there some kind of "normal" setting somewhere? Especially when I am trying to view the interior of a room. Yikes...
The image is totally out of scale for the dimensions.
3. When viewing a file, like when ORBITING, SOMETIMES, some kind of "imaginary" filter or something removes things in the overall image, almost like the SECTION PLANE, but with no visable Plane, and it moves as I orbit. Then other times its not there. I don't even know how to explain it comprehensivly...it just happens sometimes and other times it doesn't. But I sure would LIKE to have it as a command, especially from inside of a room to remove walls behind the viewing plane so they don't intrude on my view as I orbit the room. Any ideas?Well, I guesa thats enough for a first post.
Anyway, heres some UNFINISHED files to illustrate the "LED" question. I don't want to finish these untill I have a grasp on a strategy to accomplish my intended task. The first is the over all console(which is actually a model that will be a component in the Studio Model when finished. I'll post the whole studio for other questions later. Anyway, the next are simply "zooms" down to the "led" cover" which I've assigned a "transparency" to the material so a Kerkythea spot light "might" show through. Which would be very cool, IF that is indeed the strategy one would use to accomplish this. Anyway, nice to be here. Thanks
fitZ
Ohhh...one final question There are NO shadows in these images? The "component" entity info dialog box has a "shadow" thingy, which is on. Are there other considerations? Thanks
fitZ -
OOOPS....since this IS the Sketchup forums, maybe I should have uploaded the WHOLE real file so you could ZOOM yourself and see things?
I exported to .jpg, as thats what I have to do for other forums. What is the norm here? Thanks
fitZ -
If you go over to the kerkythea forum theres a good beginners guide for it. I think its in the downloads section.
As for the perspective looking weird, it looks like your field of view has gone a bit awry, you can easily reset it by selecting the zoom tool and then typing in 35 and then pressing enter.
The imaginary plane thing your describing is caled clipping. It happens when your model has some geometry thats very large or a long way from the origin. Basically all you need ot do is keep your model as clean as possible. Probably the easest wya to clean up any stray stuff in your model would be to select everything (ctrl A) then deselect everythin you want to keep (ctrl-shift-select tool), once youve deselected everything jsut hit delete and itll remove all the uneccesary stuff.
A lot of the time jpgs are fine, but for some things posting the skp file can be useful.
For the shadows, have you turned the SU sun on? there should be a little toolbar with an orange slider and a blue slider, to the left of these sliders is a little button that turns on the sun. if you havent got this toolbar, you can open it up by going view->toolbars. Theres probably a way of gettign to the shadows dialogue through menus, but i cant remember it
And finally, this is probably as good a place as nay to post this.
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As Remus said there's a good beginner's guide on the Kerkythea site, and you might well ask in the SketchUp forum there too. Here are a few thoughts from my experiences with KT.
Probably the most important is that Kerkythea knows nothing about shapes - it only understands materials (actually material names). If you want to have control over your model in KT then you must think through the material names in SketchUp and make sure that you distinguish them. If you use 'black' on a slider control and on a door-handle KT will treat them as being connected and you will be unable to move them or change the materials independently. Instead name one 'black_slider' and the other 'black_handle' and all will be well.
Kerkythea only sees the front-face of SketchUp materials so make sure that all your materials have the 'white' face exposed.
If you have truly identical objects then use Components in SketchUp and export them to Kerkythea as instances. This will make the export quicker and lighter. The downside is that instances are a little fiddlier to work with in KT untilyou get used to them.
Think through your lighting strategy - particularly for the LEDs. You may be better off using small light emitting surfaces behind the led lenses rather than many point lights. Depending on the location one rectangular emitter mesh may be able to illuminate many leds.
Start small. Select and export a small section of your model and play with that in Kerkythea while you get used to the exporter and the KT controls. Run several 'Quick' renders to see the effect before committing to a major run.
Good luck
Bob
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Wow!
Thanks so much gents. Ok, I'll try these things you've mentioned. I appreciate you taking the time to help. I've got more, but I'll try to find the answers within the forum first.
fitZ
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@fitz said:
- When viewing a file, like when ORBITING, SOMETIMES, some kind of "imaginary" filter or something removes things in the overall image, almost like the SECTION PLANE, but with no visable Plane, and it moves as I orbit. Then other times its not there. I don't even know how to explain it comprehensivly...it just happens sometimes and other times it doesn't. But I sure would LIKE to have it as a command, especially from inside of a room to remove walls behind the viewing plane so they don't intrude on my view as I orbit the room. Any ideas?
Hey fitz,
Edit: in addition to Remus' reply:
This is due to working in Parallel Projection mode. Most likely this will happen when you are working in Perspective and zoomed in on a detailed part of the model and then you switch to Parallel Projection. To correct it, I always hit shift-z for Zoom Extents. Take it easy!Zach
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I played around with backlit leds today. Here's a little array. The visible part is a transparent cylindrical component with a plexiglass material. The lighting is from five small rectangles that are coloured emitters hidden just behind the cylinders inside the 'work surface'. Just an idea, not to scale.
Bob
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