Style Stroke Width (Sketchy Edges)

Charlie__V

@dave r said:

Charlie,

I get the results you show in your second screen shot with certain OpenGL settings. On my PC, the line styles behave themselves with Hardware Acceleration turned off.

Hey Dave,
Well.......maybe it is a graphics card issue after all?

Seems strange to me though that the sketchy edge styles (tied to image files) act up only when "use maximum texture size" is selected. (Hardware Acceleration off on my machine exhibits even more anomolies)

Would be nice to know what.......if anything......is amiss.
(Reminder..I think the viewports in LO ignore this anomolie...discussed earlier in this thread)

Until then.......I will try my best to remember to disable/manipulate the "use max tex size" when this occurs.

Best,
Charlie

Dave R

I always have Max Texture selected and have never seen it influence the way the lines render but maybe it's different on different computers.

Charlie__V

So......I prefer to have max tex size ticked.(imported image clarity)

This has been (really) bugging me........and so for anyone following this...this workaround helped me:

If you (temporarily) un-tick use max tex size and create scenes with your desired sketchy style(s) you can then turn use max tex size back on..... with no ill effects to the scenes with sketchy styles.

You may have to repeat the untick/re-tick if selecting a new sketchy style...but know that if it is not saved to a scene it will not (reliably) display correctly.

Note:
Really makes me wonder why use max tex size causes this...almost like there is a bad connection to the sketchy style (stroke) image file(s).

IOW...one would not think use max tex size would cause blurred/heavy/pixelated sketchy linestyles (strokes).....I would think the opposite.....the linestyles would be more refined.........no?

Heck.......the more I think about it.......the imported images (max tex) in my file react accordingly to the use max tex size......untick....and the images blur......re-tick and they clear up.
Regardless of scene attributes/settings.

Yet the sketchy styles "hold on" to the blurred/heavy/pixelated linestyles.....ignoring the un-ticking/re-ticking of the use max tex size.

Okay.....rambling now.........thinking for sure this is a bug....not so much graphics card/other.

Best.
C

Dave R

I don't know, Charlie. I have never seen the sketchy line styles impacted by having Max Texture Size checked on either my PC or my Mac.

Charlie__V

@dave r said:

I don't know, Charlie. I have never seen the sketchy line styles impacted by having Max Texture Size checked on either my PC or my Mac.

Dave,
Yeah....thanks....It's weird...this machine was fine and all of a sudden it mis behaves like this.
When I say Bug....I mean it's like something gets corruped within SU (some sort of cache?)....I see talk about some having trouble with P lists and how that can be repaired...think that's Mac though.....any way...I'm getting into the weeds.

I am glad I can overcome it and use the max tex size now. (hopefully it helps others)

Thanks for your help.

Charlie

maxhouserocks

i have the exact same problem in SU2014 and SU2015 on two different machines, 1 is an Origin PC with a NVIDIA TITAN BLACK, the other is an MSI laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX880M . I had always kept the max texture setting check marked, now i will have to keep toggling as you suggest.

So strange that these edges suddenly lose their definition and appear to be fat, wide, blurry lines...makes no sense.

your work around works for me, but boy is it a pain.

I had trouble even finding a reference to this issue but certainly glad i found this post.
Thanks guys!
Bob

Sketchup Style problem.JPG

Dave R

Robert, was it the max Texture Size of Hardware Acceleration change that fixed it for you?

I guess I haven't seen this for a long time and had kind of forgotten about it.

maxhouserocks

yes. max texture, not acceleration. i uncheck max texture only, purge styles in model, then select the ones i want to use and turn max texture back on. very very strange. i like to use max textures all the time.

has anyone ever submitted this as a bug to Trimble? or is that useless??

thanks,
bob

this works. the style i tried to use HAS to be purged as you mentioned though. Then i can load it after the purge.

Sketchup Style problem2.JPG

Dave R

I don't know if anyone has submitted it as a bug. I'm not entirely sure it is a bug. As I said, I haven't seen this in a long time. Certainly never on my current PC or MacBook Pro. I put it down to an issue with the GPU or the graphics driver.

I've created a lot of sketchy styles and it hasn't been a problem.

By the way, what style is that?

maxhouserocks

its called SCRATCH. i dl'd from this site:
http://www.sketchupartists.org/2012/05/styles-collection-2013/
(towards bottom of page)
But the watermarks didnt seem to come witht he style for me for some reason. was initially what i was interested in.

Interesting that you dont have the problem anymore. i have never run into it until now. Maybe i should try updating drivers, etc and report back.

thanks,
bob

Dave R

I thought that looked like one of my line styles.

As for the watermark, I'll check when I get home from work and see what the deal is. If there is a watermark it should show up unless it's disabled in the watermark settings.

Years ago, I had a big problem with it on a style I made for a client's projects. I haven't used that style for more than 5 years now. None of the other sketchy styles have shown that.

It is weird that it just reared its ugly head now for you.

maxhouserocks

hahaha! i didnt put the two together...you are THE David R!

Nothing came in for watermarks at all. there are none attached when i look through the edit settings.

Great work btw. Very cool. I have some cool ones i made years ago with some nice watercolor backgrounds, texture overlays, etc that i should probably share. Is that site the best place to share styles and things like that?

thanks,
bob

maxhouserocks

i cant help but notice that your squirrel seems to frequent the same Haberdashery as ThomThom. Coincidence?

Dave R

Thanks.

It may be that there wasn't a watermark with that style and the image was doctored after export. I'll see if I can find the original file when I get home from work.

Squirrel? That ain't no squirrel! That there's a prairie dog. And it's no coincidence that he shops in the same fine stores as ThomThom.

Dave R

Robert,

I had to hunt to find the style. You're right. There's no watermark. I honestly don't know if I created the image shown for the style or if someone else did. Around the time I made that style I did use watermark images to create textured backgrounds but I don't do that anymore. I prefer the better results I get by combining in an image editor the paper background image with the lines export.

By the way, here's the results I got using the Scratch style with Large Textures enabled. It seems to work fine on my computer.
Screenshot - 7_23_2015 , 4_57_30 PM.png

maxhouserocks

thanks for looking. was just curious. i am creating some standard sketchy styles for the firm and was looking for some interesting watermarks to try.

Duh...silly me. Of course its a Prairie Dog!! It was late in the day yesterday. No offense to your barking buddy in repose.

That is a nice edge effect. Ill see if i can get to the bottom of this issue soon.
thanks,
Bob

Dave R

Good luck with the watermarks. I decided they didn't work so well for me in most cases if I want to give the impression the drawing is on paper or another surface. If the watermark image is a background, the model masks it and if the watermark is in the foreground, it sort of dilutes the lines.

Here's an example in which I used a chalkboard image as a watermark overlay. The lines are masked by the image.

For the next image, I combined a hidden line export with the image of the blackboard in an image editor. I didn't need to do anything fancy so the combination of the two images is very quick.