Posts made by Masta Squidge

That worked wonders, thank you.

And sorry for coming in here 5 times a day with questions, i pretty much just use SU and Kerky and you guys know both of them alot better than i do.

Since im in here and have your guy's attention, is there a way to do custom render sizes in kerkythea? If i could do a 500x150 render for example, that would speed things up a bit when it comes to making renders for people.

I imagine in 99% of cases this doesnt matter though, I was working on a sig for the Playstation Forums and In the end you cant even tell to begin with:

hmmm, what i dont get is why it doesnt work when the arc being extruded and the arc being followed are the same, but when they are different it works perfectly.

Here is another image of the same problem. I can make it work if i drag the curved face around a corner with a smaller radius, but i want the very top of the curved face im pulling to line up at the very edge of the corner.

For example, it works if i make a 6 inch arc and pull it around a corner with a 5 inch radius. but then the 6in curve clips through its self, leading to alot of clean up. I need to pull a 6 inch curve around a 6 inch corner for a clean edge, but it messes up on the very inside corner which im assuming has to do with the last two segments in the curve.

here is a couple images of my problem, which i just realized im still having.

Using the arc tool creates angles that are equal on either end, but the problem is the end segments are not parallel to the lines they are connecting. The makes for a troublesome corner when trying to use follow me to pull a curved face around a curved corner.

this leaves me with a inside corner that isnt exactly 90 degrees.

Is there an easy way to make sure these end segments are parallel to the lines they connect?
An odd number of segments gives me an arc where one end meets up parallel. but using a number that is divisible by 2 or 4 as someone else pointed out gives me two angles. I dont know how to best explain it.

Using the method above i now get accurate 90 degree rounds, thanks!

Oh, and that was using the arc tool, the angles on either side would be equal, but it would always be lightly more or less than a perfect 1/4 circle. I dont know why it doesnt make them properly, but ill just stick to cutting a half circle, since its fast enough for my liking.

@tomsdesk:

I was just attempting to make a perfect 90 rounded edge on all edge of a box for example, but they would always be slightly more or slightly less than 90 degrees, meaning they wouldnt flow smoothly into the faces. but, i learned another trick, so problem solved. Thanks for your concern though.

well they arent guidelines as far as SU is concerned but they are actual lines drawn using the line tool. But even if i make two lines exactly 1 inch long and along the red and green axis, i STILL dont get an accurate 90 degree angle out the tangent... oh well, ill give that method posted above a shot.

ive noticed that when trying to make a 90 degree curve using a guideline on each of two axis that its almost impossible to get a perfect 90 degree angle, even the tangent snapping doesnt quite get it right, and it shows once you start using the follow me or push pull around edges, then try drawing other objects off of the 1/4 rounds. the angles always seem to be just a little bit bigger around than 90 degrees of a circle. leaving one prt of it actually slightly higher than the line it connects to.

there is a way around this in that I would make a half circle (since it does snap to that) and then divide it at the midpoint of the top segment, but thats a whole bunch of extra work.
Is there any way to make a 100% accurate 90 degree curve other than the long way i described? Because it seems like i wind up using them alot.

It might be easier to do, say, 4 buildings at a time than to try and do all of them in one model.

I need to repeat something around in a circle 6 or so times, and i cant find the tutorial that i used to know of that shows me how. Can i get a hand on finding it, or, a quick how to about it?

yeah ive seen them, and hey fellow guy from wisconsin.
Its not that often that I find someone online from here.

So... Ummm... How the crap am I going to roof this thing?

Current model:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=8643a87ef564d14f285663b602a605b9

I daresay this is a rather complicated roofing situation.

Oh and feel free to comment on how it looks. Just dont worry about anything thats missing, because i got a list already.
Doh! I just noticed the extra line over the doors in the foyer... Stupid me forgot to delete that when i fixed the "roof" over that area.

4 1/2 is right. I just went with 6 so it would all be one nice thickness all the way around. Bear in mind that this is my second model that is bigger than a car and 6 inches makes it easy on doing the measurements in my head. It makes it really simple to take off half a foot (or add half a foot) to layout the rooms. 4 1/2 takes a few seconds of extra thinking

Plus now ill be able to use the same door components for everything, as im going back through right now and making sure im only using two (left and right side for the knobs)

If i manage to find some detailed blueprints for a house I will make sure to have everything from the corner moulding to the wall thickness correct, but for the purpose of this model, I dont think it matters. Once the roof is on you wont notice it.

Here it is currently:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=8643a87ef564d14f285663b602a605b9

Also, do I group them, or do I make them components? And when they are grouped, would I then just copy and paste or what?

I dont exactly know how to stash stuff away to be used repeatedly in the model.

@gaieus said:

Masta,

I found both links (in the WareHouse) pointing to the WIP house you're still working on. It's nice, clean modelling - I hope you won't have any difficulties with it if you keep it this way.

I also checked your account in the WH and found this model which (from the description field) seems to be the one you meant to refer to with your first link.

Just some comments, if you don't mind...

while it is modelled just fine (like the above one), it is extremely huge! I mean 7 megs for a single house like this is really big (sure it can be due to the car and the trees and the materials...) but I have a whole Gothic town with about 6 churches (modelled with ribbed vaultings from inside and window tracery and plants etc) which is still smaller - "file-size-wise" (of course the poly count is so big that it is rather hard to work with the whole model at once).

As for openings - they are all individual geometry not grouped, no components etc. One way of reducing your file size is to use components for those things that are repeated in your model.

anyway use grouping (or components eventually) more extensively so that you have better control of the model. Also layers - I found a "Layer 1" that does not seem to contain anything - layers are great to control visibility (but only for that - they will not separate your geometry in SU).

Finally if you turn monochrome rendering on, you will see that the faces of your building are almost exclusively reversed (blue - that is the back face). No problem seems to be in SU but there can be times when you run into some problems - like with external renderers or placing things in GE - so try to get used to modelling in a way that only front faces (the white ones) are visible.

Well I sound to be criticizing only but as I started, apart from these little things, it is nice and clean modelling!

Thanks for sharing!

Yeah with the first model i had no idea what i was doing, and i have several textures in there which arent exactly optimized for web with photoshop. The reason its so huge is because they are bitmap images, and we all know that .bmp images are too big! Plus, there is probably stuff in there that i would do away with. The hose in the front yard was only a "hey look what i can do" and i realize that could be modeled with 1/10 as many polygons.

Anyways, thanks for the comments, and the tip about grouping, I didnt know that, and while it would take alot of work to group all the doors that i have in my current model on the first floor, I'll give that a shot with the second floor.

Thanks!

So, I've been lurking here for a little while, and after playing with SU enough to where i know all the shortcut keys and what will be a problem before it becomes one, I'm starting on my first serious project.

My first house was made for a "City" project on the Playstation forums and can be found here (Please comment this one also):
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=e1c19ee20dfea938285663b602a605b9

My current project is a house I found on the internet, the drawings aren't complete as far as measurements go, so im just making it as close as I can get while changing it to how I like.

My source can be found here:
http://www.houseplans.com/plan_details.asp?id=17630

While my current progress can be found here:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=8643a87ef564d14f285663b602a605b9

Note that the Red colored area is where the stairs to the second level will be (as you can see on the floor plan) and I have already figured out how many treads there will be based on 6" rise and 10" run. Yes that makes for very shallow steps, I know.

The open areas leading outside will be filled in with sliding glass doors, and there will be a basement modeled eventually also.

The walls are 6" thick, though they should be 5" interior to account for a 2x4 and two sheets of drywall. I made them 6" all around to simplify modeling, which I don't think will affect the model's look once finished.

Hopefully my high school architecture class paid off a bit Laughing
Finally here is a screenshot of the plan I found, and the model with a section plane at floor level.

@rodentpete said:

If the ceiling gets in the way of the camera why not hide it it sketchup before exporting the file?

Because Im too slow to think of something like that at 2 AM
Thanks

Thanks, ill do that as soon as this render is done, now is there a way to check exactly what part of the image will show in the render? Because as far as i can see it doesnt exactly show everything that the camera in the main window shows.

EDIT**

Ok, i meant how do you change the FOV in Kerkythea, not sketchup.