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    [Plugin] Blackout

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    • K Offline
      kwistenbiebel
      last edited by

      Cool script thomthom! 👍
      Very useful. Thank you.

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      • B Offline
        bianhai
        last edited by

        👍
        Thank you thomthom.

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        • GaieusG Offline
          Gaieus
          last edited by

          Tom,

          In SU you can undo an operation after saving, too. Does it not work in this case?

          Gai...

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          • thomthomT Offline
            thomthom
            last edited by

            I suppose so. But I make the warning just in case as there isn't any built in restore in the function. Also, with V-Ray for SketchUp I've experienced that it can some times interfere with the undo operations of scripts. Especially if it manipulates materials.
            It's a better safe than sorry warning. 😉

            Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
            List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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            • S Offline
              sepo
              last edited by

              This is useful. Thanks.

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              • JClementsJ Offline
                JClements
                last edited by

                ThomThom:

                I think this might have been discussed a year or two ago.

                I make masks for postprocessing by turning all my layer colors to black and turn on Color By Layer in the Layer Manager. This eliminates messing with the material colors directly. I hardly ever organize my layers via a color scheme so this method is relatively fast to do and doesn't screw up the model. Also, SU shadows are exported with their greyscale value which can be interpreted in post processing as semi-transparent.

                I often create a style for Color by Layer in my model and assign it Scene named "MASK" which only remembers style parameters. I can then use this scene to on toggle Color by Layer for any of the other scenes.

                My workflow would be to click on any Camera view or Scene and select the "MASK" Scene, and export the current view as your mask for post processing.

                Now IF Ruby can remember and store a model's existing Layer Colors and later restore them, then a script to temporarily change the model's layer colors to black, turn on Color by Layer, queue the File > Export > 2D Graphic dialog and then restore the layer colors after printing, might be pretty quick and handy.

                John | Illustrator | Beaverton, Oregon

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                • thomthomT Offline
                  thomthom
                  last edited by

                  Interesting.
                  I made this script very very quickly. I might revise it and implement some more stuff suggested. Appears that there was more use for this than I thought. And there's some good ideas here.

                  Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                  List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                  • MALAISEM Offline
                    MALAISE
                    last edited by

                    THanks Thomthom

                    Back to the forum after a while and discovering new rubies 😄 😄

                    MALAISE

                    La Connaissance n'a de valeur que partagée

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                    • M Offline
                      me3mar
                      last edited by

                      can you please show some pics on how to use, and what for ?
                      that would be great
                      thanks in advance

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                      • S Offline
                        sepo
                        last edited by

                        Would it be possible to include transparency of .png . Give you an example. If you for instance have a .png tree in front of the material than tree should go black instead of rectangle. It would make life much easieer if possible.
                        Thanks

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                        • thomthomT Offline
                          thomthom
                          last edited by

                          Nope. Can't read transparency info. If I had access to the V-Ray maps I could have replaced the texture with the alpha texture - but I don't have access to that either.

                          Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                          List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                          • S Offline
                            sepo
                            last edited by

                            Thanks for the reply.

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                            • xiombargX Offline
                              xiombarg
                              last edited by

                              This is actually another really good plugin for character and product design and a standard feature of high end modelling programs. Animation modelling programs implement this feature to help the designer get a better idea of a characters posture and demeanor which subtly reflects their personality. Product designers also use it for similar purposes.

                              Probably is a good idea to do a quick save before using it though, just in case.

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                              • onzkiO Offline
                                onzki
                                last edited by

                                Hi I know it's an old thread. Is there a way to customize the color, instead of black maybe something else, like red or any RBG code? Thanks!


                                [/hr]Dell Alienware Area-51. SKU 2021 Pro. AutoCAD 2023. Landscape design firm

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                                • Didier BurD Offline
                                  Didier Bur
                                  last edited by

                                  Hi onzki,

                                  Go to your 'Plugins' folder and open 'blackout.rb' in a pure text editor (Notepad++ for instance).

                                  Search for lines like this one:

                                  material.color = 'Black'
                                  

                                  Replace 'Black' with the color you want, like 'red', 'green', 'blue' and so on.

                                  Lines to be modified are: 42, 69,91, if i'm not mistaken.

                                  The names of available colors can be found on this page:
                                  https://ruby.sketchup.com/Sketchup/Color.html

                                  To customize the color with RGB values will be a little longer to explain 😉
                                  Save the file blackout.rb, quit SketchUp and restart.

                                  Regards,

                                  DB

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                                  • Didier BurD Offline
                                    Didier Bur
                                    last edited by

                                    Hi, me again,

                                    Here is an enhanced version with which you can select your color in a list.
                                    Menu can still be found in the 'Extensions' menu but I've put the 3 options in a sub-menu to spare your menu space 😉
                                    Hope Thomthom won't mind if I modified his script.

                                    blackout_dialog.jpg
                                    blackout_menu.jpg

                                    Regards,


                                    blackout.rb

                                    DB

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                                    • onzkiO Offline
                                      onzki
                                      last edited by

                                      @didier bur said:

                                      Hi, me again,

                                      Here is an enhanced version with which you can select your color in a list.

                                      Regards,

                                      Amazing! Big Thanks! 😄 👍


                                      [/hr]Dell Alienware Area-51. SKU 2021 Pro. AutoCAD 2023. Landscape design firm

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