In work, need help..

Chris Fullmer

Yes, when you delete the line between 2 faces, it becomes a single face. SU can only assign one material per face. So one of the 2 materials will disappear. I don't know how SU decides which material will stay and which goes.

If you want the line to be gone, but still have both faces, you can hide the line instead of delete. Use the eraser tool on the line and hold down shift. That will make the line disappear instead of actually delete. If you turn on hidden geometry you will be able to see that there is in fact still a hidden line there.

Hope that helps,

Chris

glad no Thaksin

hi folks, not totally following...her's a pic of the scene. Those small circles on the ground are lighting so will be dead level with the surrounding material. Also they will become square lights so i will be drawing a new object to be placed on the stone material.
So how do i colour them idependently? i tried grouping but didn't seem to work..
while i'm on i have another ask...those square shapes on the stone surface are benches which resemble sofas as in the pic. Now, i need to model these, but as this is my first sketch up model i'm struggling. I think i have to use the follow-me tool..?
thanks

Gaieus

If you select the circles and the face they are sitting on, right click on the selection and from the context menu choose Intersect > Intersect selected. This will make those little circles part of the mesh and independently selectable i.e. paintable.

I would however keep them separate somehow (grouping seems to be a good idea but even better if you make one component and place it all around). You can even create a component which cuts a hole into the ground automatically so there won't be more faces on top of each other. See some details about the components here.

For your benches, my advice is the same - make a component and you can vary it as you wish. The shape is not an easy one for sure but it can be made in SU (maybe you can use some plugins for it).

glad no Thaksin

Hiya and thanks for the help. The attached images show the 'sofa' bench i've been modelling. I am having some difficulty though adding a new face to the end and front of the bench. I've tried the pencil tool but it doesn't always work and i can't figure out why is does add a face sometimes.
After i've done that I'd also like to see the ends of the bench bulge out a little (you may be able to see what i mean from the previous image - the sofa photo). Any tips greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris Fullmer

It would be helpful if you could also upload the model. Sometimes its easier to understand whats going wrong when we can get our hands on the problem. Thanks!

Chris

glad no Thaksin

Chris, cheers mate, here it is..

sofa1.skp

solo

Not sure if this will help, I did a quick mock-up of the chair using 'sub-divide' and 'FFD'
Feel free to use it and edit it as you please. Not sure how accurate the shape is as the image in photo is hard to guage.

Model may be a little heavier than hoped as I used 3 iriterations to create organic form.

thaksin chair.skp

Gaieus

Don't try to hand stitch all those curved faces because they are not coplanar and it would take a while. Delete everything except for the group (the sitting part) and the only face on the sideof the back of the sofa (in the picture above it is the far end) and use the Push/Pull tool to extrude it into 3D. You can soften the appearing lines with the Ctrl+Eraser tool. Read somewhere at the bottom about Push/Pulling a curved face here:
http://download.sketchup.com/sketchuphelp/gsu6_win/gsuwin.html

Then use the Follow me tool to make the edges curved:
http://download.sketchup.com/sketchuphelp/gsu6_win/gsuwin.html

Pete's sofa is nice but you also need to learn to use these tools.

glad no Thaksin

Hi, thanks for the feedback fellas. And cheers for that model solo. Looks good. I'll attempt to learn the technique but have no idea what
'sub-divide' and 'FFD' are.
Another model i'd like to have a go at is this parasol. I started by using this funnel shape:

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(sketchup.google.com)

and then doctoring to suit, don't know how to go about it though.

Any help appreciated.
Thanks

Gaieus

Although those shapes are not exactly like Taff's gravity well (which could be made by using the follow me tool to lathe the shape), they could easily be made with certain plugins.

Have a look at Soap Skin and Bubbles and Bezier Patch.
They are perfect for kind of regolar, still organic shapes.