Hello....
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i am not new to art or modelling, but i am new to Sketch-up and 3-d in general as well as this forum. My name is tony and i am quite lost.
first problem i encountered is a problem with plug-ins in sketch-up 7.1 free edition. i downloaded a file named us_all_scripts to my desktop, then extracted it to the plug-ins folder in sketch-up as i was instructed to. the file came from the ruby site. now i get a whole host of error messages when i open sketch-up. essentially it tells me it cannot open the files because they do not exist.
i have spent weeks toying with this program and found it simple to use in many ways, but very hard to master...there are a LOT of tutorials out there but most seem WAY too advanced for a user such as myself or WAY to easy and redundant to teach me anything i havent learned already. i am just past "brand new" and not quite "beginner".
saw a vid on youtube by ely862meg modelling a super-car in sketch-up and was amazed at this person's talent. here is the link http://www.youtube.com/user/ely862meg. this is the type of modelling i would like to do, but as you can see the vid is VERY fast. links from his vids and site took me to kerkythea and i am interested in learning to use it as well.
for those that will inevitably ask: i am using free edition sketch-up version7.1 on a dell XPS420 with three gigs of ram and a quad-core processor running windows vista service pack 1 and my graphics card is an ATI radeon HD 2400 PROcan someone point me to the right place to get started?
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Hi, Tony
I remember seeing somewhere that "sketchup_all_scripts" zip. file with some 350 .rb files inside.
Now I don´t know if we are talking about the same thing, but do you really need all of them? Some of them require other scripts to run, like this one http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=17947#p144178 -
Tony, I don't think you are lost - just overwhelmed by trying to get your head around the program all at once. It is intuitive and simpler than others but has a bit of a learning curve and how you work with it I think depends on what you are doing with it - graphics, architecture, wood working etc. From what I have read over the years in the forum, there are significant differences. Plug ins are fairly advanced. I have seen many newbe discussions about starting out and most "advanced" people recommend to get the basics down first. Since you have been working at the program my suggestions are to:
If you haven't already done so, thinkout exactly how you use sketchup and pick out just those tools or techniques that are are essential and concentrate on getting them down cold. Don't worry about thew rest of them for now.
Delete the mass download of rubys. As Numbthumb mentioned, many of them need parts that may not be in the download and some of them interfer with one another. Also - not knowing when the mass download was compiled-many of them may be out of date. I recommend going to the ruby library depot - link below
http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/RUBY_Library_Depot.htm
and pickout a few that you would find usefull. Insert them a few at a time and check for errors. Add more as you master them. Good luck-keep working at it! -
Thanks for the replies Jim and Numbthumb. I guess part of my problem stems from the fact that I have NO budget for this hobby and must learn to do it all for free. I-mistakenly- thought that getting the whole ruby package would save me time in the future. I thought that if I needed the plug-in, I would have it...as opposed to getting in the middle of a project and realizing that I need this particular plug-in and have to stop and go looking for it. I didnt even stop to consider that some of them may be incompatible with others.
I have watched the training videos several times and looked up even more tutorials on youtube and visited many sites and looked through many galleries and I have seen some amazing things done with this program.
I basically started over by un-installing Sketchup and deleting all evidence of the entire google folder from my hard-drive and deleting all the plug-in zip files and totally re-installing a copy of sketchup 7.1. The error messages went away.
The kind of work I will do with the program varies ALOT because I have so many interests. I am into scale radio control aircraft--VERY detailed flying models. With today's economy, computer pixels are MUCH cheaper than balsa wood, so this program gives me the ability to build detailed models in 3-d and even convert them to plans at a later date. I am also into all automobiles as well as historic buildings and I am a BIG history buff...especially World War 2...so I could even imagine 3-d dioramas. -
@toniferous2000 said:
I guess part of my problem stems from the fact that I have NO budget for this hobby and must learn to do it all for free
Don´t worry, Tony, there´s a lot of fun with the free version of SketchUp
And I am looking forward to those dioramas... -
sure...just lemme get my brain wrapped around this program! i was reading the daily catchup last night and saw the "eye candy" posts....WOW!!!! that boat was awesome...and the water effects were spectacular.
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As has been said...
Learn to use the basic in-built toolset in SUp.
Later if you need some specialized tools download selected scripts [this is advice from the guy who writes a lot of them !!!]
The basic interface of SUp is intuitive and quite easy to learn - don't bamboozle yourself with loads of scripts at the start - leave that till later
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TIG...thanks for the advice. I guess I am trying to make the program behave in a way that I truly understand. The best example of this is in the youtube videos I mentioned in an earlier post. http://www.youtube.com/user/ely862meg. In these vids, Ely APPEARS to simply offset a section off of a ready-made wheel, then starts adding and modifying a wire-frame-style model....it SEEMS as tho he just adds and adjusts sections to suit his desires. This type of modelling makes sense to me and I believe it would be easier for me to use. But i have yet to make sketchup behave like this.....I MISTAKENLY assumed it was the advanced plug-ins he was using. Push-pull, I understand....now how do I push-pull exactly where and when I want?
You are right, I need to LEARN the program and its intricacies BEFORE I attempt to be so bold as to attempt these types of projects.
I guess I just "SEE" all the possibilities in my mind and get excited...I WANT THIS.
On another note, i DO consider it an honor to hear from a moderator...thank you for your attention....it lets me know I am NOT just another hollow voice on the netthanks again,
Tony
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You can modify a 'cross-section' Line-set's 'profile' in several ways without scripts [note that it can't be a 'Curve' as that selects as 'one' thing, so Explode Curves - there's always a plugin Weld.rb to remake a Curve if needed
].
As well as using Move on preselected Lines etc, you can use Move with NO selection and then pick a Vertex and change its location, or with one Line highlighting to relocate that - it will stretch connected Lines to suit.
You can also use Scale on preselected parts to change their 'form' - again connected Lines will adjust to suit.
You can Select in several ways adding to a Selection with Ctrl, toggle membership with Shift or removing from selection with Ctrl+Shift. Also picking by fence is very useful - making it by right>left drag selects all crossed or included, whereas a fence made left>right only things wholly included in it. You can also turn Faces off temporarily by going into Wireframe-mode so then accidental face-selection is avoided...
Move+Ctrl will copy a 'profile' that you can then relocate at the next 'node' as needed, and then perhaps Scale that in one or more axes to suit, perhaps tweaking a Vertex or two with Move, or perhaps Erasing a Line and redrawing it...
Hand stitching between Vertices to triangulate forms and auto-make Faces
Make use of the shortcut keys these will speed you work considerably [add your own extra ones as needed in Preferences]...
Group geometry into sensible sub-sets as components etc and with symmetrical parts use mirrored copies where appropriate so you only make one half and the other auto-generates to match...
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