Newbie question

Gaieus

Monks, are those objects "inside" the terrain group groups themselves (nested in this terrain group)? What happens if you double click on the terrain and try to select these objects "inside" the terrain group?

If they are also groups (or components), you can do this:

Select them all (use the Shift key with the select tool to ad to the selection)
Cut them (Ctrl+X)
Exit the terrain groups (click somewhere outside of it)
Paste your objects "in place" (Edit menu) OR you can even assign a shortcut key for this command if you used it frequently
They will now be placed to the exact same location but outside the terrain group.

If those objects re not groups/components themselves, it is more difficult (you need to make them such first).

monks

Hi, thanks for the replies.

If I click on the terrain mesh it turns blue as do some of the models I placed on the terrain- but others do not. So this "grouping" has only happened with a few of them.

If I double click on one of the blue objects ("grouped" with the terrain), they all show their textures as normal (ie no longer blue), but the other objects that are not "grouped" with the terrain all take on a greeny flat shading. I don't know how to determine if they are nested or not- is there a way to find that info?

monks

Gaieus

Monks, please, attach your model (if it is not too big for this) below the posting area. It is hard to visualize what you are saying (although I may have some clue...)

monks

I tried selecting them, then cutting then paste in place but it didn't change it. I tried taking a pic of the problem but it doesn't show in the export, and when I double click on the terrain mesh the blue highlighting switches off after a second or tow- strange that, because it never used to do that. I've uploaded it to a ftp...I think it's something like 85 MB! Hope you can help. There are a number of the towers in the model that are grouped differently than the rest of the castle model.

http://www.skindustry.net/medem/files/Temp/AutoSave_CarnDum_castle17.skp

monks

Gaieus

Downloading... I really wonder what you managed to put in there that bloated the size to 85 Mb!

monks

Haha...well it's nothing special as you'll see- just an exercise in using Sketchup. I'm a terrain modeller, but I'm interested in learning 3D modelling more generally.

monks

Gaieus

Well, it's not hard to fix however dues to this extremely complex model (man, you have built those towers up of individual stone blocks??? ) it is hard to explain what has to be done. Also you have some serious scaling issues with those tower components but it needs some investigation. I think I will make a simple file later.

I am running a clean-up plugin ATM and will upload for you somewhere.

Gaieus

Well, uploading to DropBox. Will come back when done.

Just a couple of notes till then.

When you enter the terrain group, all the stuff that is not inside that group fades away and turns into the colour that is set as your background colour (in your case some goose-shit green). So that's what you see there.

Now inside, there is the terrain and a bunch of towers (components) that should be rather outside. You can select each one holding down the Shift key and clicking on them after each other. When done, just Ctrl+X > exit the terrain group and Edit > Paste in place.

Note however that two towers are not turned into components yet but are made of smaller groups (or components?). They need to be "extracted" a similar way but the selection is more tedious.

Gaieus

Well, here is the file. Let me know when you have downloaded.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25025526/CarnDum_castle17.skp

monks

Thanks a million! The scaling... Yes, there is a problem with the topo map reference scaling- I inherited that (the mountain is stretched way too high). The only way I can keep the building scale correct is to rescale the mountain. I'd prefer that the buildings were in correct scale. But as I said this really is an absolute noob attempt, and I figured I'd learn a lot of stuff from just assembling models and stuff (most of them are from the (warehouse). I never intended it to be anything more than a learning experience- it got a bit out of hand though heh.

I did try the cut and re-paste in place but I couldn't see any difference. But if it *is * making a difference then that's great.

I has some problem with the terrain mesh import from dem format. I use Global Mapper and it sometimes writes out of range values (or very low values) on some of the terrain edges- a product of re-projected pixels falling partially outside the export bounding box. Well I could have corrected that problem elsewhere before import but I figured I'd learn one or two basic things if I corrected it in Sketchup. I was not entirely successful in that but once I got the photo to drape I figured it was "good enough".

I just think I need to separate the models out from the terrain mesh because I need to replace the photo drape and I figure it would be projected over those buildings. But I maybe wrong about that.

monks

Gaieus

It would not be projected on the buildings but you can also replace that image in another way;

make sure that what you replace it with, has the same aspect ratio (can be bigger or smaller tho) and that the major features are in the same places.
Now go to the Material browser > In model and select the current image then the Edit tab.
Somewhere in the middle there is a "use texture image" and next to it a folder like icon - press that, pick your new image and simply reload the existing one.
And again, in SU we drape geometry but project textures.

monks

Ah Gaieus, I'm only using Sketchup 7, it won't load in mine. Sorry man. I'll try your instructions again with the objects.

monks

Gaieus

Sorry, and now I remember that it warned me. Uploading again - do not know when it finishes...

monks

The texture replacement from the materials editor is the perfect solution. Thanks Gaieus!

monks