Is this what u re looking for? [image: nknv_spring.jpg] [image: leaV_springs.jpg]

Ok, good to see what we can do with SU...

A quite different use of SketchUp. I suppose you spend a lot of time arranging theses video, very refreshing , go on..! MALAISE

Hey - I just thought of something... Instead of making the image transparent for sketchy edges, I could cut it away. I'd have to cut the image around the solid shape. Here's what I mean: I am putting images of 2D people into a 3D model. The area in the image that's around the person is transparent. The sketchy edges do not show through. How about if I cut away all the transparent areas? Is there a way to follow the outline of an object in an image and cut around it? (A way that does not make me want to pull out my hair. And quick, too. I have lots of images.) By the way, this is for a scene from the movie I'm making. I am creating a series of short movies using SU animation. You can see the first one, Plain Sight, at TreasureInside.net The next movie has a party scene with many images of people. --- Joel

I posted this message many months ago. Since then I've been working a lot on this series of movies and I have 3 completed. The 4th will be finished in a week or two. They are mostly created with SketchUp. I also use a video editor and overlay drawings onto the SU backgrounds (Corel VideoStudio and Photoshop). All these movies are at TreasureInside.net All moving characters are done with drawings, with frames about 1 or 2 per second. This gives it a rough look and a very unique style in our world of hi-tech 3d animation. Animation nowadays is often 25 or 30 fps with a full range of colors and details. I hated Antics and stopped using it (uninstalled it!) as soon as I was finished with that first movie, Plain Sight. Content is very hard to work with. Motion is difficult to control. Camera and timeline options are not at all intuitive. I tried other animation software and had big difficulties with all of them. (Of course, someone else may be very successful with a system that I could not learn.) I ended up going back to SU, which I know well and use a lot for my work. The only good thing about Antics (for me) was that I could create elaborate sets and props with SU and then import them into Antics. You can see this in Plain Sight. I created the sets and props for my other movies with SU, just the same. SU has excellent camera animation control. I only had to find a way to animate things on camera. I do this with the overlayed drawings. (And, as you can see, I'm no great artist. I end up with a funky childish doodle that makes a great style.) Joel

an example file would be very helpful Intersecting grouped geometry will behave differently from simply intersecting ungrouped geometry. Try experimenting. The behavior of lines "just being on top" usually happens when you deal with grouped geometry.

@xrok1 said: toxicvoxel, just to clarify, you painted the metal face inside the component and everything else on the outside. is this correct? Affirmative.

Ahh, you changed Conan and got rid of Courtney. He isn't sinister now. Much better!