OMG it takes a message from 10 years ago to finally answer my question LOL. Been struggling with face me people spinning off the place I put them as the camera rotates. Trying to get someone to stay put on a sidewalk or sitting on a bench. Thanks SO much! This sorted it in 5 seconds work.

@tig said:

Choose a Front view. Select an instance and right-click context-menu 'Change Axes' - pick a new 'origin' [axes] for it [you'll need to Orbit for the green axis = green-axis].
It should now rotate around the new point.
Ensure that the green axis is the right way so that it 'faces' you as expected...

@driven said:

I can also recreate on export even without the transparent walls [which thought may be causing an openGL glitch][attachment=0:1mbcevkl]<!-- ia0 -->test-less-scenes0004.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1mbcevkl]

Thanks driven! So it is not just me Yes, I got rid of the invisible wall as well, and made all my scenes take place within the courtyard area (not looking through anything), and still got the z-fighting. I have been out all day, so have not had the chance to check my graphics card. I know I have two more projects coming up that I will be using sketchup on, so need to sort this out... when I do, I will post solution here.

Thanks everyone for suggestions, and keep them coming if you think of something no one else has mentioned.

@driven said:

where do you see the z-fighting. I see none if I run the animation or move through manually?

it may be graphic card related...

john

Thanks John - I do not see it when navigating the model, only when it is rendering as an animation.

You are right, it may indeed be a problem with my graphic card, this is a rather old laptop that has the OS reinstalled several times. Will try looking into that...

I redesigned the scenes so that I no longer needed any transparency, and I am still getting the same z-fighting.

@kaas said:

maybe try changing your window-style-face settings to 'nicer' instead of 'faster'. That can improve quality of transparent objects.

Thanks kaas I will try that.

Okay I chopped out lots of stuff and got this file down to the basic problem. A quick render shows that the z-fighting happens when the view is through a transparent wall. The wall is there so that it can cast a shadow on the scene. If I take it away, the shadow is gone, but if it is not transparent, then I cannot view the scene the way I want...
Any suggestions appreciated!

Chopped down file, z-fighting when seen through transparent wall.

Nope - my current file is way too big to upload. Will create a smaller version and upload that. Stay tuned...

@cotty said:

Can you share one model with this behaviour?
You know that you can replace all instances of a component at once?

Yes, thank goodness it is possible to replace all instances!
I will have a quick look at how to share my model, and make sure the file size isn't too huge. I am wondering if the problem is that I am looking through a transparent surface at one point during the animation...

Has anyone else run into this problem?

I am using standard sketchup 2-D figures and downloaded 2-D components from the 3-D Warehouse. When I try to render my scenes as animations, all the 2-D figures are flickering - ie z-fighting. The only way around this is to explode each component, create a new component from the resulting object, then replace any other instances in the scene. The only reason I am posting here in the forum is because at first I thought it was just the components I downloaded from the warehouse, but it is even happening with sketchup standard figures like "Susan" and "Steve". WTF? I am using Sketchup Make 2015

Any suggestions appreciated. I am working to replace all the figures with new components, but it is a pain and I don't want to have to do this every time in the future...