I just found out what I was doing wrong, and where the confusion was. When I create a material initially, there is no option to sample the colors! Once it's created, I go back to edit it and viola! There they are. GOOD TO KNOW! 
Now I feel less crazy.
How did I overlook those color pickers. I'm using Windows at the moment, and low and behold, there is a "Match color on screen" button. Wow.
Thank you all very much! Now, when this happens again in the future, it will be easy to find.
Hello everyone,
Is there a way to create a new material (color) based on an existing material? For instance, I have photo-matched a model, but want to create a few material colors to fill in particular areas that are based on the photomatched material. Being able to create a material, then have the eye-dropper to pick a color from the model (ideally 4x4 averaged) to create a new simple color would be perfect. I can't seem to find a way to do this, and I can't find any extension to do this either.
The best alternative I've found is to open the image in Photoshop, and determine a good average color. That's a bit of work when I just want a quick color sample.
Ideas?
Cheers!
@cotty said:
With the plugin vertex tools ($, Thomthom) you get a gizmo which can be orientated to the view direction.
BUT:
I think, if you use all the possibilities of the inference system (with locking, forcing, ...), you will not need a plugin for precise movements...
I found the option to lock vertex tools gizmo to the view. Exactly what I needed. Unless there's a free way to do this, I consider this the only real answer. The power of the vertex tools seems to be very quickly winning over my $20.
Cheers!
Well, I have installed the trial version of Vertex Tools. Looks like those tools don't work on the lattice that I'm using to transform the object I'm trying to work with. However, it appears that the soft selection of vertex tools really does a good job allowing 'nudging' of vertices. That was a feature that's definitely missing in SU. (I know Blender, and the 'falloff' feature is the equivalent) Nice!
I'm not finding the movement I'm after (parallel to the camera view), but the tools are making it easier to get my desired results. Loving the lasso select, too!
@techdave02 said:
What about adjusting the point of origin and the axis??
just a though.
I guess my reply from the other post crossed with this. 
Yep, that's one way to solve it, but it's on a point by point basis. In my case, I adjust one point, move my view, move another point, etc. Each time I re-position the view, I would need to reset the axis. Again, that's not very practical when I'm trying to focus on adjusting many points or objects.
Cheers!
@techdave02 said:
Draw a line in the direction that you want to move select the item lock on to line hold shift down and the selecter will follow the line.
protractor tool
line tool
rotate tool
use to get the right direction.
That's a good idea, and I've used this technique before with great success (although it's always felt like a hack). The problem with this approach is that it requires creating helper geometry. When I'm manipulating a bunch of vertices or objects, this becomes a real pain, and time consuming. I have set the axis of the cage object in this case to basically achieve the same effect (allowing locking to 'red' inference line), but it's far from ideal.
Thanks though!!
Below is an image that might help explain what I'm trying to do. I want to move the points of the FFD (this is just one example) in the direction of the arrow, parallel to the screen. I can't 'Hide Everything Else' in this case, because of the grouping I have. It's a unique group. Besides, I'd like a method to do this that will work when there's background geometry.
I might have to shell out the $$$ for the vertex tools. This is the second time that ThomThom's extension might solve my issue!
@box said:
Are you aware that you can constrain things by using the arrow keys? and that you can turn snapping off.
Yeah, I know about locking inference, and using the arrow keys to specify an axis to lock to, however, in this case, the movement I want does not fall on the XYZ directions. Regarding turning off snapping, unless I'm missing something, I've already disabled length and angle snapping in the model info window.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Good afternoon,
I've been working with SketchUp for a couple of months now and have had great success in working with the builtin tools for modeling. I've explored a variety of extensions to add some powerful features. There is still one thing I keep having trouble with. Moving points precisely in 3D space without them snapping to objects behind them. I have some techniques I've used, such as creating a working plane (such as to draw some splines or lines), hiding "other" objects, and the inference engine. The inference engine just seems to aggressive at times.
Two ways I would be happy to work would be:
Being able to click a point, move it to the right, and have it maintain the Z-depth of the camera would solve a lot of my problems. Constraining movement along two axes at a time also is a great solution!
In this case, I'm trying to move arbitrary vertices along a path (or FFD box), rotating and zooming my view accordingly, nudging them into position. This is an almost impossible feat. The only thing that gets me close is moving along the X, then Y, then Z.. leveraging the snapping on all axis (hoping I didn't nudge it and snap to some background face)
Are there any extensions that can help with this, or features I'm missing? I was looking for something like "axis from view", but I'd have to re-set it every time I moved my view, and that's not a great workflow.
Best regards,