How do i add items to a car from 3d Warehouse

lewisoffroad

On sketchup 8 i have downloaded a drivable car. I have added parts to it e.g. Rollcage. But i dont know how to attach them to the car. I want it to be drivable aswell so if i just make it a group it wont drive.
Hope you can help
Thanks

Gaieus

Hi Lewis,

I believe this is indeed a SketchyPhysics question so I have moved the topic to the respective subforum.

sketchyKev

Hi Lewis,

First save your model to a new filename so you can always go back to the original model if things go wrong.

Now click on the the User Interface "UI" button which is next to the physics play button and then click on the part you want to attach the roll cage to, presumably the car body. In the UI will be a list of joints that the body is connected to. Make a note of them. Click on the joint connector tool (Next to the UI button) and then click on the car body. The location of the joints connected to the car body will be highlighted in yellow. (Make sure you have the "Physics Joints" layer turned on in the Layer window.) Also in the UI will be a list of joints grouped with the car body under the heading "Internal". Make a note of these too. Now select the car body and explode it once. Using left shift and the left mouse button un-select all the joints grouped with the car body. Now use left shift left mouse button to select the roll cage along with the car body parts. Right click on the selected parts and select "Make Group". Now select the joints that you disconnected from the car body earlier along with the car body and "Make group" again. If you are lucky the various joints should still be connected. Check in the UI list again and click on the car body with the with joint connector tool to see if all is OK. If not, select the joint connector tool and click on the car body. Now use left ctrl and left mouse button to connect the joints again. You should be back to a working model. If you have done everything correctly, the list of joints in the "Connected" list and in the "Internal" list of the "UI" should be the same as when you started when you click on the car body/roll cage group.

Let me know how you get on and if there is anything you do not get.

Cheers,

Kev.

sketchyKev

Hi again,

I have just done a test and this slightly simpler method should work (in most cases):

Right click on the car body and select "Explode" in the pop-up menu.
Hold left-shift down and left-click on the roll cage.
(All the car body parts and the roll cage should all be highlighted now.)
Right-click on one of the selected parts and select "Make group".

That should do it and the all the joints should still be functioning correctly if the model is not too complex and does not use ruby codes in the controllers.