Thank-you for the reply -- I already understood the work-around... my question was really "why?" .

I'm not sure I get why polygons and circles will allow direct editing and other shapes do not -- they are all built of the same stuff and the specialized edibility of the shapes (eg- up/down arrow, etc.) does not persist so why the counter-intuitive difference in the way some shapes are handled? (which BTW is not documented, which is why I thought it might be a bug)

The one that puzzles me the most is the ellipse... the others I can see there is some sort of recalculation of the rounded corners taking place during scale operations (or something).

The reason I ask is I have to explain it to others and "just because" isn't an answer I like to give.

Also, it might be a feature request to have some sort of explode context click command for these special shapes as the split thing is less than ideal -- you end up with extra points that aren't easy to get rid of or heal... best case scenario it takes 6 clicks to get to an clean editable state.

Best,
Jason.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it is intended but I am unable to enter point editing mode for some of the shape primitives via double click.

If this isn't a bug could someone explain to me the logic of why?

Best,
Jason.

Sketchup was created to look like a vector illustration (eg Adobe Illustrator)-- this is not even remotely near "Realism"... any realistic effects you can achieve in Sketchup are diversions. It is designed to be graphic in its visual effect on purpose.

To say this is what Sketchup should have been is to ignore the very specific intentions of the creators. Sketchup will never be this and if this is what you want then you are able to use this product to get it.

For my industry there is a great deal of value in the graphic vector style of Sketchup and it would not be nearly as useful to us if it were "realistic".

Best,
Jason.

Sure, here's an example I used in a training video for comics where I have laid out all the "copy" in Illustrator. The logo in particular was started from regular text as a font and converted to shapes and modified like one would modify any shapes in Layout:

This is the layout of a page in a book I worked on a while ago which shows the typical vector graphics that would go over the art on any given page... the sound effect in particular is another example of what I'm talking about:

Obviously the panels and art are missing, but this book was done before Sketchup was in use and all the art is raster -- the idea of course is now we can (and do) use Sketchup for a large portion of our work and being able to just layout the panels on the page with the Sketchup model(s) scenes finished in each panel and all this layout/design stuff on top keeping it all in vectors and "live" would be a huge timesaver for many comics artists.

Best,
Jason.

I guess it's also worth pointing out that Adobe Illustrator is currently the industry standard for the comics biz for this type of work -- the reason I think Layout could be a better fit is because of the ability to keep the Sketchup models "live" and truthfully Layout is 95% of the way to what we need.

The truth is Illustrator is overkill for what we need. And when you consider being able to work fluidly with the Sketchup model is much more vital and comics artists don't get paid very well (comparatively) -- Choosing where to spend our money would definitely go more in the direction of Sketchup Pro if we could use Layout instead.

Best,
Jason.

No actually because you need to be able to move, rotate, and scale each letter individually, fill and stroke them and stack them (and control the stacked objects fill and stroke etc.) to be able to create sound effects and logos for in-page layout in comics.

Best,
Jason.

First off I'd like to give some background to these requests -- there are alot of comicbook artists who use Sketchup for backgrounds and props and I think Layout could be a really useful tool for laying out pages and books for us with some simple additions:

1. The ability to convert/explode text to shapes objects.

2. The ability to use shapes as text containers similar to the bounded method but constrained to the shape.

3. Boolean functions or compound paths -- to have the ability to create holes in shapes.

4. Gradient Fills for shapes.

In addition some things that would be really cool but are not critical:

1. Calligraphic strokes for shapes

2. The ability to hide objects from the inferencing engine but still see them visually.

3. CYMK support and color picker.

4. Blending modes for strokes and fills (eg: multiply, screen, etc)

Best,
Jason.

Thank-you.

In Layout 3 the rendering quality settings (in the Document setup) only have low, medium, and high values which are more or less meaningless -- what is the actual pixel resolutions these values represent.

If I had to guess I'd say 72ppi, 150ppi, and 300ppi respectively... but I need to confirm this and it is not in the Layout documentation.

Best,
Jason.

Thank-you Sahi, that is very generous -- If you'd like me to mention anything in particular or send them to this thread (or anyplace else) I will do so.

Best,
Jason.

I am teaching some video lessons on the Dynamic Component functions of Sketchup Pro and I would like to utilize a modified version of this plugin and give it to the students as I think it could simplify the DC creation process... what is the proper protocol for passing this on to others?

Best,
Jason.

Wow... a picture really is worth a thousand words. I can't wait to try that plugin

Best,
Jason.

Works great so far -- very intuitive.

Best,
Jason.

For those who don't know the answers and discussion about ideas/votes are happening here:

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(www.google.com)

Best,
Jason.

This is free and pretty good:

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(www.frecle.net)

Best,
Jason.

I'm seeing alot of great ideas in the voting area -- and also some submissions that are already covered somewhere in Sketchup.

I love Sketchup and I love the ruby plugins that are available that make Sketchup much more powerful... I'm pretty sure I don't want the Sketchup team wasting dev time on reproducing the work already done by the ruby developers. I'd rather see them focus on giving the ruby developers the most robust and stable environment they can have to design in. Really the people who should get the strongest vote as to what gets included in future releases is them...

As far as the UV editing issue goes, I guess my reasoning for wanting this as a stand alone component for Pro (like style builder) is it is just so annoying to get things into and out of Sketchup that if I can keep the project within the borders of "Sketchup land" then I feel it would be much more productive and faster to work with textures.

It doesn't have to be really all that complicated -- but based on my personal experience poor control over UV's is the thing that really undermines the NPR render engine in Sketchup the most... that NPR engine is the reason why I use Sketchup for illustration. However I (like many others) use Maxwell Render to also produce realistic renders and the UV issue becomes even more of a problem in that arena. This of course really become a issue on curving/organic surfaces that are becoming more and more prominent on everything from buildings to cars to toasters.

I've got some ideas for names too -- I like MapUp, WrapUp, or TextureUp.

Best,
Jason.

Hey John,

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you are working with textures you are working with UV's -- all else is semantics.

If you are selling a pro version of your software then you cannot afford to underestimate the intelligence of the professional user base -- if they are not hip to the lingo of the larger 3D world then it is the responsibility of the manual and educators like myself to clarify the issue... which is exactly what I did in my training approach and will continue to do.

It is possible to cover complex topics in a simplistic way and bring users to a more personally powerful place professionally... by catering to ignorance all you do is reinforce competitive weakness that will ultimately remove them from the playing field.

Best,
Jason.

@fountainhead said:

I love SketchUp, and Layout too for that matter... but currently I love the Ruby developers more.

Too true -- and I suppose the best thing the Sketchup development team could do to improve Sketchup is give the ruby developers any tools they need.

Best,
Jason.

It's easy to forget that when you are working in Sketchup you are working within a (more-or-less) real-time render engine... which, as a by product of how the developers see the market they are serving, is geared to use "lowest common denominator" hardware.

Sketchup is for the masses -- and the more power you give it the more powerful hardware is required to run it... thus excluding the very people they are trying to include.

Also, in my experience you can do very high poly models if you disable most of the features of the render engine in Sketchup... which will make the interface look very much like most other "pro" modeling packages.

That said, I think it would be wise for the Sketchup team to put a larger gap in the performance of the free version to the pro version... so that hobbyist and students can use the free version with low end hardware and professionals can have access to all the power inherent with high-end hardware.

Best,
Jason.

Man, all the whining going on you'd think that Sketchup costs money... In my mind the only people who have a right to gripe is the Sketchup Pro users and Ruby Plugin developers.

For all you users who want to gripe about the normal FREE version of Sketchup not being whatever you think it should be: Why don't you create something so useful and extensible as Sketchup(very unlikely) and then give it away for free, and see how magnanimous you feel when the unwashed masses come to your door bearing pitchforks demanding your head.

It's FREE! how ungrateful can you be?

Sketchup Pro users please disregard this message as it is not aimed at you.

Best,
Jason.