Posts made by BSquared

I don't know if this is the right forum for this, but was hoping someone could help since there seem to be hardly any good sources online for Twinmotion users.

I have a model I built in Sketchup 2019. A couple of weeks ago I imported the model in Twinmotion 2020.1 (the original free version). At that time, the datamsmith exporter direct link to Sketchup was working pretty well, no issues.

A couple of days ago, we decided to purchase both the latest Twinmotion, and Sketchup 2022. I also switched to an upgraded computer. While both models (SU and TM) are running very fast, I have not been able to get the direct link to work. TM should be updating any changes in the SU model. Instead, it has failed to import objects that were previously already imported, substituted some of the textures (even though I unchecked substitution), and left me we an inferior model. It failed to replace most of the TM vegetation that I had placed in the model as well.

So instead, I've tried just opening the TM file, and importing missing items, but that doesn't work since it places the imported items at a different location and doesn't allow me to move them.

I also tried merging the TM model with a second TM model that only has the missing items, that didn't work either, as it permanently brought in the entire model in aother location and I cannot get rid of it, even though I saved a copy of the original.

SO my questions are:

1. Why would the direct link fail? Is it because this model was started an old version and converted to the latest version of TM?

2. Why do imported or merged models not come in at the same location?

3. Is there anyway to reverse merge a file?

It's a nightmare. This is for a client. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

@dave r said:

If you turn off Profiles in the Styles Edit tab and hide any remaining visible edges in the riprap objects, you should get that sort of thing. You'll have to open the groups/components and select just the edges to hide. Something like Selection Toys can make that easier. Not exactly riprap but I hid the edges of just the screw threads here.
[attachment=0:234o0u9e]<!-- ia0 -->Screenshot - 9_20_2022 , 5_42_01 PM.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:234o0u9e]

Excellent. Thanks again!

@dave r said:

Soften the edges, turn off Profiles or set them to 1, make sure hidden geometry is not being shown, hide the edges...

I wanted to ask you one other thing. Is it possible to turn edges off just for the riprap elements? Turning edges off helps the looks of those tremendously, but then I lose it for everything else in the model.

Thanks guys. I have used Dave's suggestion to get it to a more acceptable level. I am intrigued by Rich's method and will give that a try when I have more time. I'm guessing that would eat up far less memory than all of these boulders.

@sketch3d.de said:

for SU modeling operations, the single-thread perfomance of the CPU is relevant only:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

A mid-sized nVidia Geforce RTX is mostly sufficient, fortunately prices are dropping a little bit:

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Improving performance of high-poly count models:

https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/improving-performance
https://blog.sketchup.com/article/10-tips-for-modeling-large-design-projects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL0wYHS1HuQ

Thanks, good information.

I'm creating a shoreline with riprap. When I zoom out to a higher level, the stone edges create a dark mass. Is there anyway to lighten the black edges up so it doesn't look so harsh?

I haven't been able to find a texture to use instead that does it justice.

@rich o brien said:

@bsquared said:

Is power management less critical with Sketchup, more so with rendering programs? And with air cooling, can one just buy additional fans? Thanks for your recommendation.

Yes, any prolonged extensive use of gpu and cpu will be a power consumption goblin. More power = more heat. More heat = more air movement. So you end up with a dog chasing its tail.

If your budget has room for liquid cooling that would be a direction I would lean towards.

A quicker option would be a gaming rig as these are a good match for archviz and 3d design work.

SketchUp chokes for any number of reasons. Turn off all the visual treats and shadows and it starts to chew through bigger models.

Good to know. Thanks for your help.

@box said:

Rich has given you some good advice there.
It is also worth repeating that you can often get more major gains from model management than from hardware upgrades. People often spend money buying a more 'powerful' machine in the expectation that it will make a huge difference and their heavy models will flow well. It is often not the case. A badly bloated model will bring any computer to its knees. Even a small file size model can have millions of edges contained within a few components, and those millions of edges will make things slow. We regularly see models that can be cleaned up by more than 50% sometimes as much as 80 or 90%.
So, all I'm saying is, be sure you understand the benefits of efficient modelling practices along with good hardware.

Thanks, model management is something I need to get better at. I try to separate things as much as possible with groups and tags, turning off what I don't need as I'm working. And not using ultra detailed items from warehouse. Do you know of any good resources for learning this aspect of Sketchup?

@rich o brien said:

Every app has its limits. SketchUp is primarily a conceptual design tool that allows users to go from 3D to 2D design docs fairly rapidly.

SketchUp's not geared towards handling truck loads of polys efficiently because by nature it is intertwined with parametric objects. Much the same how 3DS or Maya is not geared toward dimensioning and layout.

But if I was in the market for a device that was SketchUp and TwinMotion compliant I would be leaning towards 2080 TI or above for GPU, < 32 GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and a good CPU like an i9 12900 or i7 12700

AMD Ryzen 59xx have better power management if that something you need to consider.

Spend the remainder of your budget on air flow and cooling to keep it from turning into a sauna.

Your render software is where you see the gains. Maybe slights gains in SketchUp too but nothing drastic.

Is power management less critical with Sketchup, more so with rendering programs? And with air cooling, can one just buy additional fans? Thanks for your recommendation.

I'm looking to build a new PC for my office computer, and I'm looking for advice on key system requirements needed for working on large Sketchup models. It seems as though every company I've worked for they've had problems with Sketchup models lagging, freezing once the model reaches a certain size.

I realize there are things you can do minimize the size of your model, but since I'm getting a new computer, I'm curious to know what the experienced users on this forum would recommend in terms of hardware (graphics card, processor, memory, etc.)?

I'll also be using Twin Motion and possibly Lumion, Vray or Rhino.

Thanks!

Fair enough. Does anyone know what the difference is between the Vray tools incorporated into the Sketchup Studio version vs. just buying Vray separately?

I'm looking to purchase a new Sketchup license and I see that they now offer a higher tiered package called Studio that inlcudes Vray. I'm not sure if it's worth it or if I'm better off going with another program for rendering. Lumion is used a lot in my industry, but it's very expensive. Enscape looks like a nice option as well.

I was hoping some of you might be able to shed some light on the pro's and con's of each. It seems like just having Sketchup Pro would give me more flexibility. We mainly produce exterior, Landscape scenes and walk-throughs.

Thanks in advance for any help.

@rich o brien said:

Soften it with Entity Info or CTRL+Erase

Thanks! That helps a lot. I didn't think it would be that easy. Do you think I'm approaching this whole slope situation the best way?

I have a parking lot that has two conditions. In some areas the asphalt driveway/parking spaces abut a six inch curb. In other areas of the parking lot, the asphalt driveway/parking spaces are adjacent to a flush walkway. Where the driveway/parking spaces are adjacent to a flush walkway, I'm trying to slope the asphalt to the walkway so that the transition looks relatively seamless.

I've attached a screenshot of the model to better explain.

So far, I've tried drawing a line/arc down each curb and using the Sandbox 'From Contours' tool to create the effect. In doing so though, it leaves a line where the parking meets the drive aisle. Is there any way to get rid of this line? Or more importantly, is there a better way to do this so that the overall transition from drive aisle-to parking-to walkway looks more seamless and realistic?

@dave r said:

This is my opinion based on what I've seen with CAD files I've been given to work with. It's also based on years of helping other SketchUp users. More often than not the geometry in those imported files has enough problems that starting over usually takes less time than trying to repair the imported geometry. That's not always the case and if you are creating the CAD files with the intent to use them in SketchUp you can probably do things to make sure the geometry is correct before you import it. If the files are coming from another source, at the very least take some time to examine the import closely before you commit to using that geometry directly. Maybe it'll be useful, maybe not. You need to be the judge of that. Personally I would rather create fresh, clean geometry that I know is not going to cause me problems later than spend time searching for and fixing issues in an import.

Fair enough, I'm learning as I go so just trying to make sure I'm doing things the right way. Appreciate your help.

@dave r said:

@bsquared said:

Just to make sure were on the same page, you would draw the new raw geometry 'on the outside' of the base component (without going 'inside' the component to redraw the linework).

Yes. Creating your new geometry outside of the imported component will prevent the new from merging with the old.

@bsquared said:

And then once you have everything drawn, you'd just delete the original base component.

Yes. And purge the unused componets from the In Model components.

@bsquared said:

The advantages being that you can then make all the new linework it's own group and seperate from any other linework in the base that could potentially merge and cause problems with the parking lot?

That's one benefit. The other benefit is that the new geometry you create should be clean. No broken edges, gaps, or overruns that are common in .dxf and .dwg files. Also consistent numbers of segments in arcs which makes things easier to work with.

Note that as Gus indicated, you can use larger number of sides for arcs if you want. Be careful with that. There is a point of diminishing returns as you increase the number of sides. Large numbers can create performance and other issues while not really improving the model. As you work with circles and arcs, I think it makes sense to use some multiple of 12 segments. That way they are divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.

I did want to ask you though, if one has a very large site, such as a campus with multiple buildings, huge parking lots, sidewalks, etc. Do you think redrawing everything is still the best approach (with more of a long term benefit) or is there a point where a project is just too large that's it's just not practical to think about retracing everything in sketchup? And if that is the case, what do you think is the "next best" approach? I've been reading a book called 'Sketchup for Site Design', by Daniel Tal. His approach seems to lean more towards healing (as he puts it) the imperfections of the imported cad geometry in sketchup using a variety of extensions, and cleaning up the CAD file as much as possible before importing everything.

Another source I found prefers to import systems of the model from autocad individually, getting each one set, making it a group, and then importing the next system. (Example, importing the roads, then the sidewalks, then the buildings, etc) as apposed to importing the entire cad file at one time.

I was just curious to know your thoughts. Thank you.

@pbacot said:

Another advantage of creating new geometry is that some objects may be identical--so instead of drawing everything in place from imported parts, you may make one component and place it in multiple locations, using the imported drawing as guide in placement. In a parking lot even things like the planters or whole rows of parking hardscape may be identical, or mirrored--so redrawing each from the import would make no sense.

Makes sense, I'm definitely trying to learn to be more efficient with it.

@rv1974 said:

Always place your project close to 0,0! Your linework is 10 parsec from file's origin and it causes jaginess. you must relocate it close to 0. Also check all options in Import options except 'import materials'
And finally, to change default segmentation if imported arcs:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=352084#p593781
you could set 96 for instance.
P.S. work wisely - build curbs with profile builder.

Thanks!

@dave r said:

@bsquared said:

is that typically how one would model a parking lot? By keeping the base a component? Or is it better to explode it if the linework looks good, and just make the arcs continuous?

Most experienced users would use the imported CAD drawing as a reference for making clean geometry in SketchUp and then discard the imported geometry. How you divide the cleanup geometry is up to you. It might make sense to group all of the geometry for the parking lot after you've made it 3D or maybe you want to group the islands and the surrounding curbs separately. Depends on what you need to show and how you need to show it.

Perhaps the islands are optional or maybe there are different arrangements of the islands being considered. If that's the case, grouping them separately would make it easier to show the different options. You could have tags for Island Option A and Island Option B and show one set of islands or the other. Or show no islands. Lots of possibilities.

Thanks, I appreciate your help. Just to make sure were on the same page, you would draw the new raw geometry 'on the outside' of the base component (without going 'inside' the component to redraw the linework). And then once you have everything drawn, you'd just delete the original base component. The advantages being that you can then make all the new linework it's own group and seperate from any other linework in the base that could potentially merge and cause problems with the parking lot?

@gus r said:

@bsquared said:

@gus r said:

This is the import settings. It's rather basic.

[attachment=0:3ukwnwe5]<!-- ia0 -->Dwg Import Settings.PNG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3ukwnwe5]

Thanks for checking it out. My new model this morning looked as good as yours, I'm thinking the origin setting might have been the culprit. I'd read on other threads about sketchup not behaving properly when the model is placed really from from the origin. The last import I did, I checked all of those boxes except 'preserve drawing origin'. Perhaps 'merge coplanar faces' and 'orient faces consistently' should remain unchecked?

I got the origin warning too which I ignored. The only setting I have checked is "import materials."

Maybe try exploding some polylines?

Sketchup doesn't use an infinite line for curves. They're always going to be comprised of segments. The more segments or edges the smoother the curve. Draw back is that will eventually create a larger skp and slow down SU.

Thank you I'll give that a try.