Paul, that looks great. One of the challenges I have had/have is in rendering metals. I agree that if you are rendering a product the context is indeed important. I still feel I have a lot to learn. One of the thinks I struggle with is the vocabulary and most of the tutorials I try to read assume you have full comprehension of it.

Why I am using a laptop exclusively is a kind of long story but the bottom line is that I am a retired guy who does some part time modeling (less than 10hrs/month) for a company that builds car washes. It is their laptop which is a gaming machine with plenty of memory and a 17" screen. I do most of the work sitting in the kitchen and do not have an external monitor sitting in here for me to work with. If I had a dedicated work environment I would definitely use an external monitor. They recruited me and got me started using SketchUp. I do not have an engineering background and although I like computer graphics, I do not consider myself an artist in any stretch of anyone's imagination. However, all of that said, I am enjoying learning how to use SketchUp and am trying to expand my knowledge base. I like the concept of the trays because they allow me to at least semi organize my work environment the way it is most convenient for me. I tried having the trays docked on the right but the constant flying in and out and having to try to catch the tray sometimes and having it disappear at the wrong time because of mouse movement kind of gets to me. I organized them as follows: Objects - this try combines Entity Info, Materials, and Soften Edges since these are the most used facilities when developing components or working on model layouts. I also use the Entity Info to assign items in the layout to a Layer for later controlling what is visible in a given scene. Components - I put this try by itself because I have build around 200 components (pieces of car wash equipment) that I then use in the layout for a car wash. Scenes/Layers- I combined these two because I use scenes in every layout to show different views of the car wash layout. A couple of those scenes show dimensions and text that tells what each piece of equipment is and is location in feet along the conveyor. By combining the Scenes/Layers into a single tray can easily manage which layers are visible in a scene without jumping back and forth to different trays. Outliner - The only thing in this tray is the outliner. This gives me quick access to the outliner and managing the organization of the layout. I do not use this tray very often but it does give me access to the facility. Styles - I have a pretty standard style that I use for all of my car wash layouts so I do not mess with them very often. I have also added things like shadows, fog, & match photo combined on this tray because I rarely these function. Help - Again, I rarely use this tray but it is there if I need it. Here is an image of my current tray configuration: [image: yxwM_SU-Trays.PNG] I do have this one docked on the right side of the screen and is always there. I have found this to be more convenient for me and the way I work.

At the end in theory you must have something like this! [image: jrCd_split.jpg]

Thanks Rich I am on SketchUcation a lot everyday. If nothing more, just trying to learn from the posts. My initial point was that I think this is confusing for users. I should have captured the URL's before. I want to be a contributor when possible. I think SketchUcation is a great site for anyone who uses SketchUp.

@Box - Can you see the bright red glow on my face....that short video is what I needed to get me started. I really appreciate it............... OK - Here is a start...... [image: wcQJ_QFT-Glass.png] Wow, the file size it huge. Need to make sure you always have the low poly version available

There's something to learn here.

@jql said: Nope, nothing's changed. But you might have been using a different style or there might be something you're not aware of and so you're not telling us. Well interesting.......... I just took the 2015 file and opened it again in 2016. I noticed that the style icon had the round arrows on it so I updated the style and WaaaLaaa, it worked. So it was a styles issue all along. Do not know why I did not see that yesterday. Now a couple more interesting things: I do not have any layers or section names associated with the section plane I added the SectionCutFace and was able to set the color of various portions of the section cut.One interesting showed up that I had not seen before when using the SectionCutFace. Of course it showed all of the cuts to the walls and applied a face which I was able to color to match the texture of the walls and floor. Then a new one showed up in that it applied a face with the default color to the entire rest of the building. I then colored that face white and set the opacity to 0. Now a couple of questions: When trying the SectionCutFace plugin before I had not seen that happen. I did do the update of the plugin yesterday. Is this a bug? Even though I got the section cut to work properly today, is this the wrong way to do it? I have seen several other examples and tutorials before where the author (and some of them very advanced authors) did not add a section name and put it on a layer to control the visibility. I suppose (and looking at the parameters of the SectionCutFace plugin) that the best organization is to name the section cut and put it on a layer and control the visibility via the layer. Just trying to understand the best/correct way because I will be using this for some later endeavors.

Not 100% sure yet but it appears that it may be the Extrude Tools extension. I can reproduce it every time I use that extension.

Rich, I can fully understand your position. I was just struggling to try to find some way to make it easier to find the tips and tricks that people post. Sometimes I remember seeing something but cannot find it. The search facility is OK but many times it does not get me to what I am looking for. The other thing is that many times the search engine will point to a thread but what you are looing for is buried in the middle of a big string of posts. I know there is no perfect solution but I was trying to find a way to organize the many great pieces of information people share in this forum. My original post was trying to find a mechanism, like a flag, that would maybe provide a more efficient way to find/retrieve information. I do not know how the backend of the forum engine works but I assume it is a database. Again, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about a facility that would allow someone (moderator or poster) to add the flag which would popup a dropdown list of categories (SU Tools and Plugin names) that could be associated with the post. Then the search engine would allow you to select by those flags so the individual post could be retrieved without having to find it buried in the middle of a long thread. I like your thought of putting together some way (like a vote) to get feedback on whether people would be interested in a facility like that.

@srx said: You need to be more patient in reading. You missed this : @srx said: Today I found out that plugin has time limit. How to continue using it? @dimitri972 said: I fixed time expired problem. Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/download/brjzmnqzbcv38fp/RichSectionv0.5.8FULLByDimitri.zip Author was't answering question for months. I tried to fixing expired issue and fixed. If this isn't wanting thing in this forum, you can delete my post. I don't know forum rules. I did see the link but did not understand that is was a fix for the plugin. The fix needs to be made to the version that is in the Plugin Store in SketchUcation (which is where I got the plugin). This means that everyone who downloads if from SketchUcation is getting a version that does not work. According to the info on the SketchUcation web site, it was updated 03-01 of 2015. There also is no mention of licensing, time out period, or cost for the plugin. Just trying to clarify so that others do not have the same problem although I saw that it has been downloaded over 12000 times. I would like some clarification on what is going on.

Thanks so much Pilou. I've checked out the tuts & Blender looks exactly what I need and more. About to download it... I'll let you know how I get on... still a bit of a learning curve to climb!

Make sure to save the file. If your license expires just email info@simlab-soft.com and we will send you an extended trial.

@pilou said: From the site last update seems for SU 2013 ! So try if that yet work with newer SU versions Free version allows you to make 10 seconds animation! Of course sufficient for test functions but not if you want more directly! (you can also make some past of different animations if you are tricky! Prices was 50 to 200 € following versions All docs Having problems with installation. I have sent them a note. Will see if I get any reply. Might be a problem because I am running SU 2015 on Win10. I have printed off and read some of the documentation. I agree that it looks like it could be kind of complicated but powerful if I can get it going. The 10 second limit for the trial version might make it difficult to properly evaluate. @bob james said: I would recommend you take a look at SimLab Soft http://www.simlab-soft.com/index.aspx I will give it a look............

See this new videos made by Twinmotion 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAiW9ew-4oM

Yep, I use inferencing a lot. Do not use the locking mechanism other than moving though. Will practice it more though. I appreciate your information though. I promise I will use it more often.

this will read the kind of underwear you have on... give it a go. http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download/standard

Well, if you are patient enough, it finally worked. I think it is just the size of the model that made it run so long. I found the offending part and am in the process of fixing it..........

@krisidious said: But do you get the lag in a small simple su file? No.....and it only started on the larger files recently.

@mrossk said: I wonder if this is the video you thought you saw? From Aidan's tutorials from some years back : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzOSwaUp_gc No, this was not the video but it was interesting. I liked the thought of the Jigs. If you do something like that on a regular basis it was a good idea.