Posts made by chippwalters

Here's a box, which is off axis and tapered. Not a few right angles. I'm wondering how best to remove the chamfer from all sides. Here's my best thinking on how to do this. I'd like to know if others have a better way?

FILE:
https://altuit.cloud/web/3Dnew/chamfer.skp

https://youtu.be/3ChZ087uLgY

I'm not saying this is best, but it's what I've figured out over the years. I'm really interested in how others tackle the funky orbiting behavior in SketchUp. In particular, how to orbit around a specific point or a selection. Sometimes it works, other times, not so much. Argh!

Here's how I do it currently. Hoping for ideas and discussion!

https://youtu.be/BDgAA4OAVE0

@box said:

Just like to point out that the default for Move is M, not T.
And you don't need to use ctrl with follow me.

I set my default to T so it will match some of my other programs. Thanks for the tip on follow me...I seem to remember in previous versions you had to press the CTRL key in order for Follow-Me to work if you previously had selected the path.

A quick video on how I use some of my favorite Fredo (and others) plugins to create a simple spiral doric column.

https://youtu.be/lJx4k26JQwA

Plugins used:

FredoScale
Curviloft
CleanUp
Set Center Point
Ambient Occlusion
FDD

Thanks guys for your help! Much appreciated. I'll report back on my eventual workflow...

Hey guys,

I'm trying to recreate the Alamo circa 1836 and would really like to find high resolution terrain data for the city of San Antonio (current day is fine). Textures are not important.

The existing SU Pro Geo-Location feature has pretty crappy resolution and I really need better.

I've viewed some older tutes out there and frankly I'm pretty lost in how to go about this. Any links or threads which can help would be greatly appreciated!

Focuses on using two models...one a very low poly model (48 vertices) the other a much higher quality model (over 4K vertices). Bake the details from the high poly model, including different parts and textures, onto the low poly model. This is an EXTREME case, but it does show what can be done.

Uses Rich O'Brien's WrapR UV plugin.

HTH.

https://youtu.be/BCd1XiPLza8

Please review occlusion culling:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/OcclusionCulling.html

Might want to check out the AMS Soften Edges plugin:
https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/ams-soften-edges

@box said:

Chipp, it's worth pointing out that Click Drag sets the axis of rotation. So you can use it to be very specific about how things rotate, not just on axis. Drag between the diagonals of a cube and it will rotate around those corners, between to endpoints on a circle, up the side of a cylinder etc etc or to fold some faces.

Wow. I'm learning a lot today about rotating! Thanks for that tip. Really good stuff. I wonder where one can access all of this? I looked long and hard on the web and then 'stumbled' across the drag axis mode. The corner trick happened when I was recording the video. I also learned from a YouTube comment that you can hover over the vertex and then type the arrow keys to choose an axis. All good tips!

You are way too smart for your own good!

After all these years, I didn't know these two different ways of rotating using the rotate tool.

https://youtu.be/6PI4K2RsjMI

Hi Frenchy,

Those DECAL machine groove lines are parallax corrected normal maps (you of course know this) and as such do not create real geometry. DECAL machine is not made by Masterxeon1001, he is only demo'ing it here. His Boxcutter and Hardops products do create "real" geometry and it was those I was referring to when I mentioned C-Sharp.

Yes, boxcutter. I think the groove lines are automatic when you C-Sharp

Been hanging out lately with blender guru MasterXeon1001, author of Blender addons Hardops and Boccutter to try and learn more about this product.

Couple of points I'd like to share, but first...

I recently spent a week in Pasadena teaching some Art Center faculty the ins and outs of immersive VR using HTC Vive, SketchUp and Unity. I chose SketchUp because it is the easiest software to learn, or so I thought. I was amazed on actually how difficult SU actually is for first timers.

Navigation differs from any other program (other than one which I'll come back to). Everything "sticks" together and you can't "unstick" polys easily after the fact. Grouping is just a bizarre way of fixing this. Push-pull, and drawing on surfaces, while great features, are not typical ways of modeling if you're coming from other 3d apps. We're all so used to it because it's now second nature.

It just takes a different mindset to model using SU. New strategies and different thinking.

On to Blender:

1. It's the only program I know of which has the exact same mouse navigation model as SU.
2. If you haven't seen it in years, the interface has changed substantially. Much easier today, especially if you configure the left mouse button to switch with the right mouse button so that it selects. Furthermore, customize the keys so they match all the same shortcuts for move, rotate and scale.
3. Take time to view some of the great getting started videos. See below for one. Speaking of videos, I don't know of any 3d app, other than perhaps SU, that has as much online support for it.
4. It has an amazing built-in renderer called cycles, and now this new EEVEE, not to mention wicked fast modeling workflows such as hardops and decal machine to name a few.
5. SU users complain of numbers of buttons? LOL! Most blender users do everything by keyboard shortcuts. In fact MasterXeon1001 prefers working with a screen with zero windows and palettes.
6. And of course Blender can do so much more than SU. UVunwrap, animate, bones, bake normals, subd, proper bevelling, cloth draping, physics and the list goes on.

Not saying one should switch, but it is a good time to take a look.

https://youtu.be/lZe3tGWSy6s

Yes, I forgot you shared that previously. Great find. Wish it allowed for scaling of the templates.

Yeah, I tried su4 Slice and it works great, but only with a line. Nothing compound.
Perhaps you've heard of Blender's boxcutter:

https://youtu.be/n8tIqa-Qapw

That would be one sweet SU plugin!

@rich o brien said:

https://www.fluidinteractive.com/products/sketchup-extensions/bool/

Try this yet?

I looked at it before but I don't think it works with surfaces. I wonder if it's Boolean tools are as good as Booltools 2?

@pilou said:

More classic and in place!

Surface is a Group
Select the Cube / Intersect with Model
Mask Surface
Keep only a lateral face of Cube
Push Pull one Part / Group
Double click on the second part / Group
Seems you have your 2 "solids" in place!

[attachment=0:1za2qz90]<!-- ia0 -->GIF_lateral.gif<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1za2qz90]

PS I have not Bootlools2 maybe it can make that automatically ?

Thanks Frenchy,

The cube and curved surface are only props-- I expect real world examples to be more complex. So, the extrude example won't work. I did however eventually use the intersect command combined with double-clicks + grouping to separate things. Then copy+paste to create the second interior surface.

Still would be nice to be able to do this.

PS Booltools 2 can't do it.

A couple more...