@alz said: How does SketchUp handle a scene with thousands of objects in it? That depends on the objects... it's a bit ambiguous question. Got some specific examples? @alz said: I'd love a reason to spend more time inside of SketchUp if I think it can deal with a variety of primitive objects that represent game logic objects and the intertwined game data they hold. You mean physics simulation? Like SketchPhysics?

That's what I just figured out. I'm working with some people that are use to having a visible grid, so I created a grid object (group). I've locked it to prevent it from "opening", but it'd be best if it wasn't even selectable (but allowed snapping to). (I wish SketchUp had a grid option like Banzai or other editors -- I know people frown on that here, but it's very handy for certain developments and quickly knowing what the current unit snap is).

That's right! I remember that plugin now (but forgot what it was called). Thanks TIG!

Awesome -- all very helpful bits of info!

Thanks for the explanation, Tig! I have a better perceptive on why things were happening the way they were.

haha -- yes -- good point! I had forgotten about the squared aspect as well

Thanks for the reply Jean! I'll try it without the length snapping to see what happens. I'm using the snapping, because I want everything "on the grid" (or a whole number). Have you heard of some way to have all points within a certain distance auto-merge? Maybe this is a question for the Ruby/Scripts forum?

@martinrinehart said: I've found materials to be so dangerous that I no longer let them near Ruby. face.material = '[Wood_Cherry_Original]' Problem: the face looks like cherry, but model.materials has no cherry. Bug Splat coming soon. face.material = model.materials['[Wood_Cherry_Original]'] If there is no material '[Wood_Cherry_Original]' then model.materials['[Wood_Cherry_Original]'] will return nil, which indirectly means Default Material. I've not experienced any problems with materials using this method.

@alz said: It takes whatever object(s) you have selected and moves them to the nearest "grid" setting. . So, if I have snapping set at 1cm and I have an object situated at 10,5cm from origin, it will be snapped to 100? (I assume that my "grid" cell is 1cm, right?)

Why not write us one...

Open the Outliner and Entity-Info windows and dock them together. Select the Component Instance in question in the Outliner and its Definition-Name AND Instance-Name appear in the Entity-Info window. Edit these as desired. Changing the Definition-Name will globally rename the Definition. Each Instance can have its own name too... However, if you want to replace parts of names within a set of several definitions' names [like "AB" with "XY"], then to do this globally you need something this: ### this does all definitions' AND instances' names; edit 'text_go=/text_in=' to suit... text_go="AB";text_in="XY";Sketchup.active_model.definitions.each{|defn|defn.name=defn.name.gsub(text_go,text_in);defn.instances.each{|inst|inst.name=inst.name.gsub(text_go,text_in)}} ### remove the defn.name... part to leave them alone OR remove the defn.instances... part to leave them alone... I'll leave you to make the app/menu etc...

that sounds awsome!! this would be really great for conducting walk throughs!

I think what you're looking for is more like a grid snap, like in AutoCAD. SU only has (that I know of) a length snap, so you can start geometry anywhere, but the length is controled at intervals, which doesn't work very well when you want all of your objects to have the same relative snapped distances between each other. I would very much like to see this too.

@alz said: Also, I thought I saw this somewhere awhile ago -- it was a Component Browser that acted like a Windows Browser (with back,forward,up,down,etc.). But I can't remember where I saw that. It isn't east with the current Component Browser to quickly navigate through several sub-directories. I typically have to pop back to the top and drill back down if I get lost. BTW, I remembered where I saw this: http://wiki.renderplus.com/index.php?title=Select_Component

I totally agree. I'm constantly closing windows on accident. Autocad has me addicted to the ESC key. Please help.

Hmmm crud. I tried to repro it from a blank slate: build brick, componentize brick, make wall, fill with component bricks, make house, fill with component walls. Add house component, then add wall to same scene. Bricks in the Wall do not show up as Brick_red#1, as expected. I need to back track and see how the current versions are different than this repro step. (Thanks for the replies!)

I might be using CryEngine right now for visualizations if it weren't for the fact that they won't spell out their licencing costs. The Architecture portion of their licencing website still says "Coming soon", it has for several years now. One thing to keep in mind is that CryEngine requires a hefty graphics processor for real time playback, meaning you usually can't just pack a file and send it to a customer. Unity Pro is becoming more and more attractive as they add features, you pay them $1500 once and your good for life, no other fees ever. It also works on WebGL, iOS, and Android. UDK has a $2500 per seat per year licence for anyone using UDK for in-direct income projects, and $99 per direct income project. +25% of any revenue related to the UDK software after $50,000 in sales. UDK also can build for iOS and Android.

What I wouldn't call a bug but a "featuer" I don't like is that when you explode something whose geometry on a certain particular layer, it will move that geometry to the layer active during exploding. This may cause things disappear when you turn the visibility of certain layers off (where now there is your geometry that has never been there).