SketchUp 6.4.265 on Windows XP

I have an LED TV screen like a Jumbo-Tron on the face of a building. For the view I want, that side of the building is in shadow. I turned-off Receive Shadows, but no change. I added a white translucent face over the screen, with no shadows, but no change.

Is there a way to simulate internal illumination in SketchUp without exporting to another rendering application?

SketchUp 6.4.265 on Windows XP

Every time I print a different Scene I have to go through the repetitive process of resetting the printer for this particular layout. I haven't found any method to save the current printer settings with my Scene or Document File. In the printer itself I can save one setting as Default. But for SketchUp models I use a variety of different custom settings that are different from a Word document, for example. Has anyone made a Plug-in or Add-on to provide that time-saving function?

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

Does SketchUp do "Bump Maps" or "Embossing"?

I believe not Sketchup itself but numerous of "SU Plugins' rendering" if you don't want an external renderer

Pilou

Thanks for the link. I'll keep that in mind for future projects. For now, I gave up on the greedy Greebles, and just modified a 3D Warehouse shrub. It has an organic shape, but no surface texture. From a distance though it looks good enough.

Escape

Would you believe : Tribulations with Tribbles?

@chris fullmer said:

That is not exactly the scope of the plugin. It takes and does a puhpull on a face. Or multiple faces at the same time. You might be able to get it to do something that looks sort of like that, but you would have to start with a shape sdifferent than a box. You would need an organic shaped mesh that already in the appoximate shape of your bush. Then you could greeble the faces a little, and scale down the extrusions so they come to nearly a point. That might make it come out all spikey looking. But in general, what your wanting to do, is not what this script does.

Chris

Thanks Chris

The Googled Juniper photo is not exactly what I have in mind in form, but close in texture. This is a continuous low linear border about 12" to 16" tall, and the shape is more rectilinear than bushy. A 2-D face-me prop won't do, because the camera will be looking down at the edging. I used a highly modified version of a small low lumpy shrub by Darrell Smith in another location, but this one needs to have a little more surface variation.

I can modify the place-holder boxes to make them somewhat more organic. But I need to keep the polys down, so a mesh would be overkill. All I want is to add some irregular texturing to the boxes. I was hoping the Greebles would do triangular or pyramidal shapes instead of rectangles.

Does SketchUp do "Bump Maps" or "Embossing"? I didn't find any reference to that technique, but it may be known by another name. Greebles are more like "3D displacement mapping".

I appreciate the suggestions, but I'll keep looking for a way to extrude a long low bushy shrub without overburdening my 6 year old CPU with too many things to think about. It tends to smoke when rendering 3D.

@unknownuser said:

Can you put an image ?
or just a little schema of what you do want

You can make the gride in Protrude and go back to Greeble 2
or make all in Protrude

Pilou

Thanks for the help, but I still can't make the scripts do what I want to do.

Which is to make this :

Look like this :

I couldn't find anything like this on 3D warehouse, so I'm trying to make a simple, low-poly shrub. I don't need a realistic image, just a suggestion of a Juniper planting. Step by step instructions would be useful, if you have the time. Thanks.

SketchUp 6.4.265 on Windows XP

As a serial novice, apparently I'm missing something that a more experienced modeler would take for granted. No response on the expert Plug-in forum, so maybe it's more of a newbie thing.

I downloaded Greeble 2, along with Progress Bar and Offset. Put them in the Plug-ins folder. After a re-start, "Chris Fullmer Tools" appears in Plug-ins menu.

I select a grouped rectangular box with Juniper vegetation texture. I want to add some roughness to the surface. So I select the Greeble tool and enter some numbers. After clicking OK, nothing happens. I also trying selecting just one surface, but no go.

I was assuming the tool would draw a 2D grid with my +/- dimensions, then pull each piece up to a random height. If I could get some kind of response, I could then play with the numbers to get the look I want : pointy pyramids may do the trick.

Do I need to draw a grid before selecting the tool? Is there an auto grid tool? Should I greeble one face at a time? What do I need to do before invoking the Greeble tool?

Thanks for covering my ignorance with your intelligence.

PS---Please pardon the old Star Trek reference to Tribbles.

SketchUp 6.4.265 on Windows XP

As a newbie, apparently I'm missing something that a more experienced modeler would take for granted.

I downloaded Greeble 2, along with Progress Bar and Offset. Put them in the Plug-ins folder. After a re-start, "Chris Fullmer Tools" appears in Plug-ins menu.

I select a grouped rectangular box with Juniper vegetation texture. I want to add some roughness to the surface. So I select the Greeble tool and enter some numbers. After clicking OK, nothing happens. I also trying selecting just one surface, but no go.

I was assuming the tool would draw a 2D grid with my +/- dimensions, then pull each piece up to a random height. If I could get some kind of response, I could then play with the numbers to get the look I want : pointy pyramids may do the trick.

Do I need to draw a grid before selecting the tool? Is there an auto grid tool? Should I greeble one face at a time? What do I need to do before invoking the Greeble tool?

Thanks for covering my ignorance with your intelligence.

SketchUp 6.4.265; Layout 1.4.268 beta; Windows XP

After sending an SU model to Layout, I made some minor position and material changes, but not to the in-model Style, and then re-sent the file. Before those changes the Layout (1pt profile edges only) style matched the model. After the changes, the Layout style seems to have reverted to the default, with 3pt Edges and Profiles. Those line weights are too heavy for the small size of the image in the Layout.

I'd appreciate any suggestions to force Layout to match the model style. The selected Style name is correct, but the edges and profiles are visually wrong. I have open/closed, and re-sent, and updated several times. Any ideas?

Since I can't have Gray Edges unless all edges are By Material, maybe there's a way to force the white edges of white materials to receive shadows. Bright white profile lines on a shadowed surface just don't look right. Shadow Settings has an option for From Edges, but not for On Edges.

Does anyone know how to set white material edges to receive shadows?

@wind-borne said:

Watch the videos?

In the earlier image I posted there were 5 shades of gray within the black rectangle

Here's a simple block with some colored edges.

What videos are you referring to?

For a simple box, I could use this plug-in to apply multiple colors . . . as long as the Edge setting is on By Material. But I want the By Material setting to apply only to the colored lines, and leave the Profiles as All Same (black). In other words, I want to have my cake and eat it too. Is that too much to ask?

If I could somehow select all Profile lines, and change their material to Black instead of matching the associated material, that would get closer to what I want. But apparently that's not possible either. None of the Selection Plug-ins seem to work that way.

Oh well, back to the salt mines.

@wind-borne said:

Do you see the toolbar anywhere?
Might be the only access.
Doesn't show as plugin or tool in menus on my computer.

I finally found ColorEdge in the Views/Toolbar menu. When selected, a new toolbar appears. So far so good. But after trying every combination I can think of, I still can't get the look I want.

When I click a free edge the color changes to the current material selection, in this case a gray color. But that single edit automatically changes all edges in the drawing, including Profiles, to By Material.

I want Profiles in black and only selected lines in gray. But apparently there is no way to distinguish between Edges and Profiles in color. It's all or nothing. In my CAD application any object can be given it's own edge and face color. Why is that so hard in SU?

I have looked for a plug-in that will allow me to select objects by type and edit them separately from all other objects. But the universal edge color seems to override any custom edits. I tried Color By Layer, but that colors everything on each layer the same. Again, no way to edit each layer separately.

Does anyone have any more suggestions????

@escapeartist said:

Something I've had happen a couple of times where the select tool quits working is that there are actually 2 faces on the surface. There's no Z-fighting visible, so you can't tell there are coplanar surfaces there at all. Usually happens on complex surfaces that have been edited a lot when it happens to me. Anyway, turn on "view hidden geometry", get rid of a few edges on the surface you are working on (it will obviously disappear), and then rebuild it. See if that doesn't take care of it.

Coplanar surfaces may have something to do with the disabled Select tool. But my current problem, at this moment, is that I have a component selected, and I can't deselect it. I used it to Intersect With Context, then moved it away so I could select the outline left behind. But the component remains selected and highlighted no matter what else I do. I used Close Component in the right click menu, and it was deselected. But I still can't select anything else. Maybe I'm not holding my mouth right when I click????

After shut-down and restart, everything is back to normal. But I'd like to know what the hang-up is.

@unknownuser said:

It's possible that you're editing inside a component/group and trying to select something outside.
.. Or not

Not.

SketchUp 6.4.265 on Windows XP; file size 1.8MB; Edges 848; Faces 257; Components 16.

Does anybody know what causes the Selection Tool to stop working from time to time? I searched the forum, but nothing found.

Usually after I've been working on the drawing for a couple of hours it will occasionally stop responding to that one tool. Often after editing a Group or Component, I try to deselect it and select something else. But a left click with the tool doesn't select anything. I tried min-maxing the window to no effect. Usually after a minute or so I regain control of the Selection Tool. But sometimes it takes several minutes. Besides annoying, it's a time waster.

@wind-borne said:

With ChrisP_ColorEdge plugin you can color your edges in a variety of ways.

Thanks WB

I downloaded the script and unzipped it in the Plug-ins folder. It didn't show-up in the Plug-ins or Tools menu. So I moved a copy of sketchup.rb into the folder. Still SU doesn't automatically import it into the Plug-ins menu. Am I doing something wrong?

SketchUp 6.4.265 on Windows XP

@anssi said:

One thing that might be worth a try would be to import the old file as a component in a new, clean file.

Anssi

Even after I found an earlier backup that was stable enough to work with, it also began locking up after a couple of hours. So I tried your suggestion, and made a component of the model, then imported it into a clean file. So far, knock on wood, it seems to be back to normal. Thanks for the tip.

Jeff

I'm afraid the old Mac magic just ain't working for this cursed file. The latest re-save lasted a few moments longer before the screen started to tremble and lock-up. I appreciate your help, but I suppose we both need to get back to something more productive.

As for the file size, I probably need to learn how to make leaner drawings. But I'm deliberately using photo quality plants and such, because the presentation will need as much curb appeal as possible . . . for potential donors and benefactors.

I've never tried it before, but I plan to insert a site photograph into the background. So that will be a learning experience. And may add even more to the file size. When it's not not-responding though, SU seems to work reasonably fast on my old system with as much memory as it will hold.

Jeff

The gargoyle file opened without any drama, so you have saved me several hours of trying to figure out how to sculpt a fire-breathing dragon. The real thing will be done by a sculptor, but for now the extruded version will serve the purpose. BTW the UAB football and basketball teams are called the Blazers, get it?

I tried to <<Purge>> and <<Fix Problems>> before the newly opened file locked-up, but it seems to p-o the OS during the loading process. The <<Invalid Handle>> must be specific to Windows. I suppose in order to make a component of the file, I'd have to be able to open it first, and that ain't working.

Thanks for all your help, guys. I'll just back-up and start over again with the old file. At least I don't have to redo the dragon. The sad part is that I was finally becoming productive on this project when the crashing started. Since I only use SU about once a year, it takes me a while to relearn how it works. It's like Groundhog Day (the movie) for me, I keep doing the same things, over & over, until I finally get it right.

Apparently in my hasty attempt to download, the <<Open With>> box was checked instead of <<Save>>. So it seems that the <<Invalid Handle>> message was generated by SketchUp.

I have now successfully downloaded the file. But when I open it in SU6 or SU7, it immediately stops responding. Sounds like a minor code error in the script header. Can that be fixed with Ruby or another code editor?

@honoluludesktop said:

Jeff, If your Mac can save the day, any chance of it being a OpenGl problem? I was even thinking that if the problem were mind, I would even try turning off "file checking on opening".

Hono

I tried turning off the <<Use Hardware Acceleration>> option under OpenGL, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Where can I find the <<File Checking on Opening>> option? In System Preferences I see under <<General>> a check box to <<Automatically check models for problems>>. Is that what you are referring to? BUG-SPLAT saved a couple of backups due to "minor messups". Why should I turn it off when I'm having corruption problems?