Solar North tool - settings for one scene only!!

Wo3Dan

...but when I set the north anlge in one scene, update and go to another it is set to zero north. I set that one too, update scene and move onto anther and that one is zero north as well...... not good!

Well Andrew, indeed not good! at all. And very strange. For if I do the same, north is never "set" to zero in other scenes. They change with the one I set last. So I only have one north in the entire model, as it has always been for me. The only thing that is not updated is displaying that "orange to green" angle. Orange is not visible if not updated.

I just tried two workflows.

In a fresh model createted several scenes. Only then I changed north in one and checked the others. Same north direction without updating them.
started with one scene. Set north. Added several extra scenes. They have the same north direction as the first one.
Changed north in one arbitrary scene. checked the others. They followed the change to result in the same direction.

Although I doubt that it matters (it shouldn't), how is your Scenes Manager set up. And is it the same for all scenes?

TIG

Because each SKP is now firmly connected to GE et al the more recent versions of Sketchup only allow you to have one 'location' and therefore by extension only one 'north'.
The work round is to make your model and then insert it as a component into an empty SKP that has a different north.
One version for each 'north'.
You will have to reload the inserted SKP if you change the original model file.

Another work round is to make the entire model into a component and use layers for various "north's" with instances inserted and rotated. You don't change 'north' but rather rotate the instance to be aligned to north differently in each version on a layer and only have one of these layers 'on' in each scene. If you edit the model [i.e. change the 'original component'] then all versions will match in each of the instances on their own layers in each scene...

utiler

Thanks TIG, If we have to find a 'work around' then it's a real shame.... north worked fine up til V8.0...

George

Before setting up your scenes...
Window > Model Info > Animation > Disable Scene Transitions
Each scene will then retain its individual North setting.

-Geo

utiler

Really? I won't have thought disabling transitions would have any relationship to the orientation to North... I have to try this.

beginner

George,
You are right
You can have any North position if the Animation Scene Transition is OFF
I used to disable the Transition to produce some simple slideshow but, I didn't notice that it would retain the North position for each Scene as well

Something new every day

utiler

Actually, this contradicts the reason why each scene needs manual setting of orientation:

SU to LO allows the user to preset their scenes in both so that when exporting the model to LO the preset scenes are created automatically. So it seems pointless if each preset scene requires manual editing in every file to correctly align north.

If the orientation of north was global the whole process through to layout would be much easier.....

beginner

Hi utiler
I think the orientation of North is global

99.9999% of my work would have one single North position
The Transition would be ON by default.
The Animation would go from 'Scene to Scene' and animate the shadow at the same time...
(if required)

Gaieus

@utiler said:

So it seems pointless if each preset scene requires manual editing in every file to correctly align north.

When you create a new scene, it will always "inherit" all the settings (including north) of the previous one. Now you can make changes (style. as per above, north - thanks Geo, I did not know it either; "doh" - etc.) in any, already created scene of course.

So if your design is about a single building and you (obviously) need to keep north, I guess you need to do nothing but keep it.

utiler

Thanks Csaba, It seems like a totally unrelated fix to the function of orientation.. Glad I know it though; Ditto, Geo!!

valerostudio

BOOM! Mind blown! I have been trying to figure this out for months. Guess I should have checked SketchUcation before! This is very handy for those of us that 'cheat' the shadows to achieve the lighting we want in a model. Awesome hidden trick.

Rudhamstile

Update from this old thread. ENABLE scene transistiions seems to work