I've tried it both ways with and without a dome light and the sun angle seems locked at an odd and unnatural angle of about 5:30 AM.... (the sun is set in vray to +/-5:30 PM in June, in Seattle so trying to shown a little light on the north side of a building) I've since tried to turn on/off GI and several other things that might affect it. Maybe its overloaded or corrupt, but I've done bigger models before. The rendered angle doesn't change if I change the time in SU. Odd. I'm now copying the model into a new environment to see if I can work around. thx. ....deadline looming.... Greg

hmmmm... .ok, I found a leftover proxy that had one of the cars in it as part. I thought I'd deleted all the cars in a test to see if I could get rid of all the ghost cars. no luck till I found this proxy and deleted it. Now they're gone. I guess I should learn more about proxies. I think I'm ok now, though now quite understanding why. I will read up. thx. Greg

Soap Skin Bubble is very funny for some instant mountains & animations! [image: WpyA_soap.jpg]

Also see here. It is older: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/sketchup/ns6bX0VqWqg Something about doing it with Dynamic Components.

ok, this has been really a great help to me. thank you everybody. I've read that other thread which is helping me understand better. The examples that best fit what I was originally thinking was pretty close to the last post (by andybot). i"m experimenting with it now. If moving towards a true glowing dusk shot, i'm guessing a different task alltogether. I need to spend more time playing with when there is no deadline looming. Thanks. If I get something worth sharing I will post it. GREG

Did you try applying the translucent texture/color to both faces? Or, is this not relevant, here?

I use soapskin & bubble to make raised beds all the time. It works great for complicated curvy bed shapes. http://www.tensile-structures.de/sb_software.html

thanks for chiming in. I was beginning to wonder if it was just off the beaten path enough that nobody had tried it or bought into it. it seemed like a worthwhile experiment to me. its also seems normal to stick with the basic set up if its working for you. but I"m glad some have tried it. I think I will. for me, I end being a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. My SU time is intermittent, but when on board, I can be doing full time for a week so any help seemed to make sense. Thanks, GREG

I was just curious about this mesh so I had a go. This is what I ended up with. [image: 5145213445_43bab0e7d9.jpg] I used the square section for the wire as suggested by andybot. I made a ring and made it a component. Then I made a single vertical wire component which I copied around the the ring in a radial array. Then I Made a nested component of those components and copied them to make a vertical linear array. The file saves out nice and small. Mesh.skp

The drooping strings suggest the plugin Catenary by the famous Remus Knowles. Look in the plugins index in this forum.

ok, all good info. thanks everybody. Love having a system that works in place. Cheers, GREG

@pbacot said: As you probably know, it is dangerous to base the work flow of an actual project on software you are not yet proficient in. That's the truth. Though, I seem to learn the most about a program while under pressure to produce. (condundrum) So I imagine there will be a lot of experimentation/learning/backtracking/etc on this. But it's not really my first effort either. All this mailing is in prep for the final which starts on monday. So I will study all weekend, then when I start I will largely work in a 'safe' file and then copy successful work into a clean file. that seems like safe way to go on this first reasonably big effort. thanks for all the advice. very helpful. - Greg

You can of course assign a texture image to a layer (see attached below - make sure to scale it properly in the material editor, too) but be prepared that you won't get too far with it as you cannot position/orient the texture in any way and it will be something like when you paint groups/components with it. [image: 3iCF_MaterialToLayer.png]