What's your beginners tip?

mitcorb

Tip. Elegant appearance does not guarantee elegant function.

Roger

Tip. Elegant appearance does not guarantee elegant function.

And elegant function does not guarantee elegant appearance. Its best to get them both right and then the thing is truly elegant.

Dave R

I use the analogy of a sandwich when talking about groups. Something like this.

You make a sandwich of a bunch of entities; bread, cheese lettuce, tomato, meat, etc. Then you try to pick it up by a corner and it falls apart or distorts. You lay one of those great big dill pickles on top of it and the juice soaks into the bread changing the sandwich. that's loose, ungrouped geometry, Picking the sandwich up is like grabbing it by the corner with the Move tool. Putting the pickle on it is the sticky nature of entities.

Now wrap the sandwich in transparent cling wrap. You can still see the sandwich and you can pick the sandwich up by the corner and it doesn't fall apart. If you lay the pickle on top, it's juice can't soak into the bread so it doesn't change the sandwich.

Suppose you want to put a slice of onion on the sandwich. You can lay it on top but it isn't part of the sandwich. If you really want the onion to be part of the sandwich, open the cling wrap and edit the sandwich. The same goes for applying materials or other geometry to a group or component.

Of course the analogy falls apart a little when talking about components. In reality you can't just open one sandwich wrapper to put on the onion and have it appear on all the other sandwiches. It's goofy but it seems to work with my students.

I like the teflon idea, too.

Gaieus

@dave r said:

open the cling wrap and edit the sandwich

Next time I need something in my food, I will tell my wife to editit. "Would you please, edit that bowl of stew and add some pepper, please?"

jgb

@dave r said:

That's a good tip, mics_54. It is mentioned somewhere but I don't remember exactly where.

I wish I'd known a long time ago that was giving you trouble. I wouldn't have let you suffer so long.

Dave
That's commonly referred to as "Hyper-Pan" or "Hyper-Zoom" and has been a bone of contention since I started using SU years ago. Others have bitched about it too, and even John from Google-SU said he would look into it and get back to me. That was last year and no word yet.

There is a way to fix it inside SU. Simply maintain the original rate of pan/zoom when the cursor slips off the object, and only until the cursor is back on an object or any button/key or tool is activated.

At least that way you won't go off in space somewhere.

Dave R

Yes. I'm well aware of that.

david_h

@gaieus said:

@dave r said:

open the cling wrap and edit the sandwich

Next time I need something in my food, I will tell my wife to editit. "Would you please, edit that bowl of stew and add some pepper, please?"

I tell my wife all the time to Hide Unused Basil . And she tells me to go Delete Myself.

jgb

All I get from my wife for any request for anything is
Access Denied

And so begins another downward spiral of a once good and interesting thread......

rbecker

I'll add this one because it took me way too long to figure out.

If you have a component you've used throughout your model, and you realize you have several instances you need to alter in the same fashion, but you don't want that to apply to all the instances;

Select one of the instances, choose "make unique". Now, select the other components you want to alter. Go to the component browser, make sure you are viewing components "In Model". Find the new unique instance you created, right-click, and choose "replace selected". You now have a new group of components, edit one and they all get the same new treatment!

Gaieus

Ross, if you want to make a bunch of instances unique, just select them all then right click on any of them and make unique. This operation will make all selected instances of this new definition - so you spared the replace step now (which can indeed be useful though for other actions).

rbecker

Gaieus,
DOH! I thought I tried that and it made every selected component individually unique. I just tested it again and it does exactly what you say, which is what I was trying in the first place. Thanks!

Gaieus

Never mind (we have a doh thread somewhere if you want to join - many of us have posted in there about our "doh's" too).

The "Replace selected" function is indeed a good one and a useful hint for newbies in this beginners' tips topic to look at.

opal

my noob two cents.. lots of places I've seen it suggested that we start with something simple, like a box or a chair (not one of the lovely overstuffed varieties either) I disagree.. my first model was a wedding cake.. tiers, pillars and decorations (unfathomable poly count) but making a box or a square chair isn't going to teach the tools.
My tip is learn the tools. sure, make that box but do everything you possibly can to that box with each and every tool in the arsenal.. if it looks cool - do it again!

Julia198x

These are all really great beginner tips. Thank you everyone!!!

EWWinterbach

As a newby - Myself - best is to play and pracice and keep playing playing playing - its such an easy program and once youve played a bit - ask question from the guys here that know it thru and thru

by the way - do u know how to make fabric - like as in fold of fabric in random
I dunno and its doing my head in
can u help
i see it has been done in Library

if so please email me : info@in2interiors.co.za

regards from : Cape Town South Africa

Trogluddite

Learn to think more negatively!

In my first few attempts at making my own objects, I found that I was trying to make lots of little 'construction kit' parts, and then ending up with nasty overlaps and internal faces when I tried to 'build' my object.

But, it is often better to think more like like a sculptor - don't 'build' an object, rather 'carve' it from a solid block to remove the bits you don't want. The push/pull tool is your biggest friend for this.
Using 'intersect faces' (or Solid Tools if you have SU Pro) makes light work of 'carving' even the most complex 'negative shapes'.

For example, I needed to make some realistic screws with nice rounded 'mushroom' heads. But constructing the slots for a Phillps screwdriver into a curved surface isn't easy (and concave areas are always a bit awkward, even with X-ray view or wireframe).
Far easier to construct a nice easy convex 'screwdriver' component, and then use that to carve out the slots using subtraction.

This is as much about how you see the objects around you, as it is about SU technique (just as in painting or sculpture) - so it's worth training your eye to see the shapes of the 'nothingness' in objects as much as the solid matter.

mics_54

my attempt at fabricfabric.skp

EWWinterbach

@mics_54 said:

my attempt at fabric[attachment=0:1kogs4cp]fabric.skp[/attachment:1kogs4cp]

thank you so much for this example

it open up my world to the fabric thing that was holding my back
your example has helped heaps
now i am creating some awesome stuff
See it just needs one person to lead the way and the rest of us learn so much

bravo !!!!!

Daniel

Whatever your modeling, pay attention to how things are made, and model accordingly. And, pay attention to how you position your textures.

xphatjunkie

My beginner tip (in landscape practice) : always save many scenes for every match perspectives, plan, detail, and section