Workflow questions

DTG

I am obviously 'newer' than the 'newbie' forum ... sorry for stupid question.

I come from 2D art, mainly Illustrator and Photoshop, and am having problems dealing with workflow as in best practices in creating objects.

For instance, if making "walls" around a floor plan, (large rectangle) should they be "grouped" immediately after creation?

or... should individual elements be generated in a separate file? (Frustrating when trying to detail an object in front of other objects -- keep selecting the wrong things.)

Thanks ... I'm sure there will be more 'stupid questions' but I couldn't find a more newbie forum elsewhere -- and the tutorials seem to assume you already know about things in Sketchup that I don't know.

fefillo

DTG, here's a thread you might want to read:

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=12706

@edson said:

the three pillars of modelling well (IMHO, of course):

work ALWAYS on layer 0;

GROUP whatever geometry you are creating (in case there should be more than one copy of it, make it a COMPONENT);

place it on another LAYER whose name makes sense (essential for controlling the model's visualization).

IMO and using your floor plan example... If you are still changing the floor/room size along with your walls, it might be easier to keep wall+floor unseparated since you'll be able to resize both at in the same operation. As your design starts to take shape, it's often more helpful to keep everything separated into individual groups. You can then assign different groups to particular layers to further help organization.

Also, when you edit geometry inside a group, you can go to View> Component Edit> Hide Rest of Model to hide everything outside the group or component you are currently editing.

Fefo

Simon B

Welcome!

In 3D, one good practice is to work on detail elements to the side of the model and then re-combine. I only use separate files for exceptionally detailed work.

Use groups in the same way as 2D, ie: to ease placement and duplication. Components are extremely useful, if not essential, because any change made in one component will propogate to every component of the same name.

Taking your question as an example, I would:

Create floor plan
Extend Walls vertically (push/pull tool) to create first storey
Create Window frame rectangle on wall
Copy Window frame rectangle to side of model (use move + Ctrl)
Make Window a component (use G key)
Create Window detail, frames, panes, sash, whatever
Place component in wall, duplicate as desired
When happy with placement, explode each window component and delete the intersecting walls to see the window structure (right-click- explode component, right-click again- choose intersect with model/context, delete intersecting geometry)
Add translucent materials to make the window panes transparent.

You can also right-click on a component and 'make unique' to make unique adjustments to that component.

Layers are very useful, but as a beginner not so intuitive to use as 2D layers. Concentrate on modeling first and then try presenting different views of your work using the Scenes tool.

Hope that helps.

Jean Lemire

Hi DTG, hi folks.

A trick I learned while reading an SU forum is the following:

When you are modeling something that is inside an object like a table in a room in a house, try using a component for the table. Place a copy of the component outside the house where it is visible and easily accessible. Make all your change on this outside instance. Of course, the inside one will be automatically updated. When done, delete the outside component or hide it if you think you may need it again. You may assign it to a layer that you make invisible. This layer can hold many such components

In such cases, I also make a scene when I have navigated inside the room in question and have a nice view of the part I am working on. This gives me a quick way to access the inside exactly where I was before going elsewhere in the model. So my workflow is to make a scene or update an existing one if I think I may need to come back to where I am.

Of course, make as many scenes as you need and, remember, you can rename these with names like "living room", "kitchen", "basement", etc. instead of "Scene 1", "Scene 2", etc.

With this scenes ideas, one can question the usefullness of making an outside component. To this I will simply write that, even if you can easily come back quickly to an inside spot, while modeleing details on an object, like a piece of furniture, you may find yourself in a wall or behind it, inside the floor, above the ceiling, inside another piece of furniture, etc. Working outside, on a lone component, gives you more freedom. Dont forget that you may hide the whole model except this component, giving you even better access without any chance of something blocking your view or generating unwanted inferences.

Just ideas.

DTG

Thank you all!

This is far more information than I had anticipated.
On most of the other forums I go to for help, you get a one or two
word response -- obscure -- or no response at all.

Thank you all

Fred