Mac1,

thanks so far, i'm always causing confusion, don't worry Probably you got me wrong.

I could post the whole model, but to keep it simple i post this example down below.

To narrow down the problem: if you have several groups on different layer and you draw something within a group of eg. layer A but layer C is the active layer, you will draw on layer C. (sure)

If you now want to hide layer A to show elements of layer C only (because you want to sort them into layer A) all elements are hidden because elements of layer C are within a group of layer A and are therefor hidden..

(Btw, i prefer to draw on layer 0 and then sort out all elements into their corresponding layers later.)

elements on wrong layer within group problem.skp

You're welcome..

It's always good to give an example of what you want to achieve, would have saved at least 2 minutes of my time

So,

• forget greeble in this case
• draw a rectangle in the size you want your brick / tile to be
• select rectange > make component
• copy as often you need to brick to be copied (use move, enter distance, type x(number))
• change appearance acc. to your liking (offset, pushpull, bevel, paint)
  (-edit- components are instances, so if you doubleclick one and edit it, all others will be edited simultaneously)

done.

Maybe have a look at hot to use components at all and some basic SU tutorials- this will clear out many questions.
Good work so far, you should have stumbled over components on your way, probably you didn't.

Probably you just didn't insert correct values.

See attached image, everything works fine- if this is what you want to achieve.

Btw, it's always better to attach an images which show the strange, weird, unwanted, mystic results

I have a serious problem

I modeled a house, all elements are build up as groups.
After designing i put each element on a certain layer.

I ran into the problem, that nested groups / elements within these groups stayed on their former layer.

We all know that, it's quite annoying, but there's this great script "putonlayer" which does a perfect job.

But now, i did some changes to my model, eg. beveling edges which did create new geometry on the layer i was on that time..
Maybe i can solve that next time by caring that i only bevel objects while i'm on its layer.

Right now i'm stuck with this problem: i'd like to show all elements created by the bevel plugin so i can put them onto it's according layer. Right now these are on layer 0. If i show layer 0 only, i cannot see these objects because they are nested within their groups on other (hidden) layers..

In other words, is there a way to show elements of layer 0 even if they are nested within a group on a hidden layer?

I hope you get my problem, probably the one or other had similar issues.

It's really bad for e.g. exporting to Max because all elements, even if they are in one group, are threaten as seperate objects because they are in different layer within SU...

Two things to add..

First, did i get you guys right that you didn't know about the "axis by material" setting??
If your still searching for where it's to be found- it's in "Styles>Edit>Edges>(bottom)By Color/Axis/Material"

..probably i was just too "dooh" to get the point of this tread.

Second, one good thing not to get lost in space is to draw one big rectangle, group it
and give the upper side a different color (if not already by default material.
This way you will know where you are

Another benefit of doing that:
If you're drawing somewhere within space and you're pointing on a object you want to scroll to you may miss it.
Or you're pointing to some lines only (not faces) then it's hard to get where you want to.

Sometimes you don't get to the object or only slowly, sometimes you pass by the object way to quick.

(That's why i do it like this and it works pretty well.)

Btw, nice one, Chris.

Ok, here are some results:

i'm still not sure if this is the only problem / solution, but time will tell.

I made a test file in SU containing

• ungrouped objects / grouped ungrouped objects
• ungrouped groups / grouped groups
• ungrouped components / grouped components

in the first group of 3 all faces were frontfaces
in the second group of 3 some faces were backfaces
in the third group of 3 all faces were backfaces

The result in Max was, that only the objects containing some reversed faces got these faces triangulated. If all faces were reversed, no face got triangulated.

Then i tried some objects, checking what i saw in the video- and i'm quite satisfied with that, i don't see the reason for me to quad everything as long i don't work together with someone who needs quaded objects or whose program triangulates everything if it's not getting quad geometry. Btw, "removeinnerfaces.rb" works great.

One thing to mention is that some backfaces corrupt adjacent faces, as you can see in the Max file.
Some get triangulated themself, some triangulate their neighbours and show themself as a "strange material"

We'll see if there are still problems coming up not getting solved by checking for backfaces..

Anyway, it's a litte piece in the puzzle- maybe someone can take advantage from that in the future..

Thanks Brodie!

I really feel stupid if this is the reason for this strange behavior...

..i guess it may be a problem with backfaces / frontfaces
if that's the reason i get myself into the next corner and fell ashamed for an hour..

I will give it a try after i finished watching the videos from that link (Mr.P, thanks for that!)

Btw, it's not completely necessary to quad everything as far as Max handles SU files really well and i don't want to do all that extra extra work.
The guy in the video is working his .. off to get rid of the inner faces which may probably be handled very well with the ruby "removeinnerfaces.rb" (search google)

I will try several kinds of objects (group, groups in groups, components etc) and see if the problem does come up if there's no backface exposed.
Even if i think i already checked that before as i my some test files- and i always try to keep backfaces where they belong to- inside.

I post the results very soon.

Sure,

here's the shot.

That's the problem with e.g. the unwrap modifier.

In this case there's a wall of wooden boards.
The smaller ones (only the upper ones, not the lower) are triangulated, the other objects -even if the same kind (polycount, chamfered edges..), only shorter- are not.

(It does look a bit strange, this is the backside, the frontside of the short boards came in untriangulated, which is again REALLY strange, "normally" it does triangulate every or no part of each object..)

If it's still unclear please tell me

PS: I just love textures like these, very time consuming to achieve this by hand..

Brodie,

thanks for your reply.

I don't know how far these maybe were issues of older Max versions- Max does import SU-files really nice.
There are quite a few people out there modeling with SU and further process it in Max.
E.g. Ramy Hanna, Peter Guthrie etc.

So there has to be a way (at least i hope )

The strange thing (for me) now is, that i import a model with some objects and convert them to polys-
and than i get this strange, unreproducable result that some simple objects are triangulated, some are not..

Btw, i'm really new to Max but i'm slowly (slowly!) getting used to it. As far as "poly modeling" is concerned,
SU is way better, faster, more intuitive, (for me and you and all here )that's why i keep it!
I changed my type of organizing in SU, i'm modeling each single part of the model as a group or component,
so it's easy to texture, merge, replace etc. everything in Max. That's my basic workflow for now..

PS: You're right about the quads-thing, but even polygons not consisting of only 4 edges work fine.
And you can easily use the "cut" tool to add more "lines" to the object making quads. (Even from unquaded SU objects)

Hi all,

i actually posted this issue at cgsociety a month ago but got no answer to my question (..yet)

When i import a SU-file into Max, all objects are regarded as mesh objects.
(Btw. all groups with groups inside are ungrouped, so only objects are left in the scene, but this probably has to be like this)

If i turn them to poly objects (for better texturing) some objects are triangulated, some are not..
(It's necessary to have untriangulated objects to apply a uvw unwrap modifier to e.g. achieve a good, random and therefor realistic texture)

Is anyone used to this workaround or has an idea how to solve this?

Hey,

here's the skp-file. I could't reproduce the problem i mentioned above when SU has a problem with substracting a solid
made by "outer shell" from another solid saying it's not a solid.. (and, not showing a volume in entity info as well)

But here's the problem attached concerning disappearing groups when using outer shell on tubes created with "cylinder along line" plug.
Problem is explained inside of the file.

Thanks

Outer shell makes no solid problem.skp

Exactly.

It has a great potential!

I'm like a bull facing a mountain (german saying for "standing there understanding nothing, too stupid")
I never used "outer shell" before, i don't know why, it's great.

But it doesn't work correctly for me, somehow:
if i select a bunch of groups (created e.g. with convert to arc.. ("precision 4", "each tube is a group")
SU sometimes deletes some groups when using "outer shell" on them.

Second, when i want to substract this solid (created with "outer shell") from e.g. a box it's saying "selection is not a solid"..
I tried it a couple of times but just couldn't get it to work..

Any ideas what i may be doing wrong?

Happy new year 2012 to all of you!

Exactly-

that's the point. Sure i could follow your explanations (thanks for that "doubleclick repeats action" hint, that's great! Didn't know that..!) and it works for this example.
I don't want to be seen as just too lazy here it will just be problematic with complex structures, as mentioned.

Concerning tiles: yes, your right that it's way better to use components to tile a floor,
but if the tiles are not regular (some different sizes of rectangles or a slate floor) it's a different story.

Gilles method is a good one too. Didn't work for me right now saying the group created by "convert lines to tubes" plugin is not a solid, whyever.

I don't know if it would be possible to change the bevel plugin's code to achieve sth. like an "inner bevel".

Thanks for all your answers!

Great to see these different approaches!

The problems with offsetting are:

• if only one continuous line is selected the offset is shorter or longer than the original line, related to the angle (image 1)
• if all surrounding lines (or easier only the face) is offsetted, the edge-line of the solid gets a offset, too (image 3)
• if there are many faces this method won't work because you'd have to select each face individually
• if there are sharp angles the offset will not be correct

If there are just a few faces (lets say which you could count) you would doubleclick the face and deselect the outer lines.
This is alright if you have a straight edge line, but it's not practical if the edge lines consist of many lines. (image 2)

@Dave, you got exactly what i am looking for. I doesn't matter if you pull out the faces or push in the lines.

I just want to know how to achieve that basically. Could be used for importing any spline (e.g. an ornament) and pushing it into a face 3dimensionally.

Or e.g. if you want to model tiles, just draw a face, place a grid on it and bevel..

Yes, that'd be a way- i was thinking of that as well..

Good option for sure.

First, is there any better place to post this question- for example a section "how to model this" or "modeling"?
I think i know that there is none, but would it make sense?

If you just want to refer to the title of the topic please skip until the next bold line.

Just for your information, i'm on my way to archviz and i'm trying to figure out which way works best for me to produce a very good result in the end.
Therefor i probably will come up with several questions in the future- so you're warned hereby Maybe one or the other will get out sth. from it as well.

I'm still not sure, but as far as i've seen so many tutorials about e.g. 3dsmax and everybody refers to the "holy grail" of poly modeling in there-
i just can't get familiar with it because i'm a sketchup-er and this is so much more efficient.

So i think i will try to find a good way of model in skp, import in max,texture and render there and do compositing somewhere later.
But that's another topic.

This topic, inner bevel:

One thing i really found impressing is the very good chamfer and beveling ability of max.
For sure i can do this with sketchup and bevel plugin (even not so fast and effective, another story)
But i can't make an inner bevel with that plugin.
So the question is, how would you effectively make this inner bevel, just to get some detail into the model.

Refering to the attached images:

image 1 shows only lines
image 2 shows inner bevel of these lines (handmade, easy)
image 3 shows a more complex example of lines (there it's not easy anymore achieve this result.

I know i could e.g. offset the faces, select the lines inbetween and move them inwards- doesn't give a proper result though..

They are everywhere, obviously some followers even here

But why hacking sketchucation this way??

As you probably heard in the news they're blackmailing the mexican drug mafia (who kidnapped a Anonymous member) to free their member, otherwise they would hand out tons of informations about corrupt policemen and so on- informations which would definitely be a hard attack to the mafia. Not too bad in my eyes..!
So the mafia declared to employ hackers themself to get Anonymous- which is probably impossible..

Anyway, Anonymous declared if their member is not freed by Nov 5th the will take actions... We'll see it then- tomorrow...

@tig said:

There is already Recall_Last_Tool http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=132509#p132509

Great, i obviously missed that. Searched for sth. like this before- i'll give it a try, if it works fine it'll directly hop onto a shortcut.

@tig said:

The complications of recording actions within the API should not be underestimated.
Have you thought about a 3rd party external tool that remembers keystrokes/mouse moves etc...
There are several freely available...

Yes, i read that in the other related threads as well. Maybe one day.
I'll try out some of these free tools, maybe they can do some job-
i did't know they could track my actions within sketchup, eg. select certain face > offset > pull > bevel.
And maybe they can't

But good to know about what's possible and what's not.

Thanks, TIG!

_h

Guys,

just digging out these threads

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=18014

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=18094&p=145931&hilit=photoshop+actions#p145931

to see if within the last 2,5 years anything has changed towards a solution- which i maybe had overseen..

Would be great to push a record button, do several actions, press stop, maybe save it and reuse this macro again when needed- wouldn't it? No new invention, i know..

Oj just a "recall last tool" option which you can put on a shortcut would be a great timesaver as well (oh man, i'm getting so lazy..)

Thanks in advance

_h

This is how reality punches in badly..

Another good gone.

Really feeling sorry about hearing these news.

He'll look down here from above every now and then and i think, smiling about us

RIP