Doesn't being bound by an NDA mean that even adding your vote here mean you have broken the NDA by acknowledging it's existence.

Thanks laudhi, thanks Box, the link to those plugins is very useful, many not available through the Sketchucation tool. And Box you are right Meshmaker is ideal for what I want, thanks so much for your time.
I would have thought this was a simple question as it seems to be something everyone needs to do, but I guess not, so thanks again for your helpful answers.

I'm simply asking for some help to find what is a good way to do what I want. I know of and as you say have mentioned several plugins that divide faces but I haven't been able to get the result I want.
I said I know how to do it manually and how to use sandbox but I wanted little push in the right direction, perhaps a hint to show me how Quadface tools can make a face into a grid. I know it must be simple but if I knew how I wouldn't be asking. Subdivide in artisan doesn't break the face into a grid unless I am doing something wrong. Splitface, splits the face but it stops at each split, handy for what it does but not what I'm wanting it for.

I'm not sure how else I could have explained it to make it clearer.

I guess I'm not explaining myself properly.
I know how to explode and clean up, in fact if that is all I wanted to do I would orient the grid above the face and drape it therefore avoiding the explode and subsequent cleanup.

I guess all I'm after is something that will "Drape" or "project" the lines from the grid onto a face from any angle. So you can drape on the faces of a cube for example without having to move everything so the drape faces are horizontal.
I don't "Want" to use sandbox, it's a way of producing the result I want. I would rather click on a face and select divide, type 10x9 or 50mm or some other version of how to grid it and it does it. Or even draw a grid in the same way as sandbox does, picking the three points, but it places the lines only on the face you selected.

Thanks Dave I do understand how sandbox works for a grid, but what I'm looking at is if there is something to make that same grid but on a shaped face.

Simple example below, I know I can make a sandbox and intersect it with the face or explode it and clean up etc but thought there might be a tool that lets you select the face and grid it. I often find when I use a sandbox grid in this way and combine it with a face you get some strange holes and double faces that need to be cleaned up before you can start pulling the face about. It doesn't seem to be size related either as I normally use a 50mm grid.

Perhaps quad face tools or split faces or some other plugin does it but I'm too girly to work out how. There may be a better workflow than I'm using.

I know there are many ways to manually divide faces and even some split face tools, but is there something that will divide a face like a grid. I've seen many times where people have a nice even mesh of squares that they can then manipulate much like sandbox but on an object rather than a ground plane. Am I missing something simple, is there a way to split a simple face into a neat mesh without arraying or drawing lines?

There is a phrase that springs to mind but I can't quite get the words in order, it's on the tip of my tongue and I'm sure it involves grand parents, eggs and some sort of content extraction..

You have a rather complex and creative work around that isn't needed if you create the geometry at a larger scale. If you have never seen a solid component, you need to look harder at your construction methods. Why is creating a component difficult, why isn't it one already? If you are having to soften your work to get the result you want then there are things wrong too. All those lines suggest you don't use welded curves, which makes for difficult geometry, things like missing triangles for example.

And why are you putting that profile in there anyway, personally I get more questions from your images and description than I do answers.

Compo spray should do this for you if you change the settings. You say you are using it one by one but you can set it to do multiple random ones using different spray patterns and density.

Do you have the faces orientated the right way?
Are you painting the actual face only or have you mistakenly painted the group/component as well and the materials are fighting?

It's quite amazing to see the subtle progression of the modelling you do. The rough push pulls and blocky layouts changing to sculpted forms is fascinating. Someone mentioned above about seeing it animated, personally I would love to see the modelling process animated, to see the increments of change would be fun. It's nice too that you have shown it in a variety of ways, it makes it fun rather than a serious job.

If you make your tube components along an axis you can easily move, copy, rotate, flip etc, but you seem to have created that one at an angle and it will always be awkward to move.

It may be that the images are stored within the component file structure of SU8, which is slightly different to SU13.
So perhaps you need to move a folder of images to the new SU location, or edit the properties of the components to look in the other place.

@pherim said:

Ok I don't know why exactly CL answered to this question that was directed to me, but it doesn't matter.

I'm sorry, I didn't realise I wasn't suppose to add information if I had the same issue.

I may be wrong, but it looks like you have the faces reversed. The grayblue ones should be on the inside.

I think it is because the software thinks in 3d so a face on it's own would be seen as the beginnings of a 3d shape, if that is the case it would expect to be pulled up into a shape so the side facing you would be the inside. Whereas if the face is draw on another face it could go either way, so it doesn't assume or guesses wrong.

@gábor said:

Could you please explain in more detail what is happening?

When you change the dropdown to "My Plugins", you should see a list of all plugins what you installed or downloaded from the pluginstore. Is that the case? In my case yes, I see all my downloaded plugins.

When you check the checkbox "Check for updates", you should see a filtered version of this list. Only those plugins should show up, what have an update since you downloaded them. If none of the downloaded plugins have an update, you get an empty list (a blank page). Is that what is happening? When I filter, I get an empty list and I know Fredos plugins need updating.

If there are updates in this list, when you click on the install update button near the plugin entry, the new version of the plugin should be installed. Is that what is happening? Can't say, as nothing ever appears.

I have chosen not to activate IE on my system. I don't use it. I could activate it and possibly remove the issue, but I'm happy enough to keep it as a test bed if you want it. Surely it should be possible to use the sketchucation plugin without full subjugation to microsoft, but if not I'm not too bothered.

As your profile shows you as a free user, doesn't that suggest there is no reason not to upgrade to 2013. It costs you nothing and it's the only version that will be updated. Staying on an older version just means a bigger jump perhaps later.

From what I have read, the only complaints apart from a few fixed bugs have been that 2013 wasn't a whole new bunch of bells and whistles, surely that is a bonus to those that don't like change.

My tip would be to make sure you know what scale you are working in. If you start with something downloaded from the warehouse that is a random size, everything else can go pearshaped. You start adjusting things by eye to look right and then find there is nothing you can actually put a tapemeasure on, no known dimensions.