Wait, why can't you use follow-me?

I have a model with a lot of scenes. For each scene, I have to save an animation from camera position 1 to camera position 2 (about a 30 second transition). This is easy enough to do manually, but I have to be there the entire time.
My question is: is it is possible to Export Animation via the ruby API? Is it possible to monitor when the export is complete? And can I therefore write a script that will loop through each of the relevant scenes, exporting animation on each one?

I did have a look through the API, but I'm afraid I'm not super familiar with it and couldn't find what I was looking for.

Can't replicate here, using 2018.

My process for terrain:

1. Create base/existing from contours with Toposhaper
2. Create new forms
3. Intersect and delete excess

Honestly the best thing is just to keep it simple. Hell, if it's just a flat slope or something to that effect, you needn't even bother with toposhaper.

So I'm using export animation with no scene transitions to quickly save out the images in a project which has about 100 scenes across 15 models.

I'd like to give the images transparent backgrounds, but export animation doesn't have the option. Going through and exporting 2D one-by-one isn't worth the the time it takes, especially when I may have to revise models. Has anybody found a good way to get around this?

There was recently a windows update that affects every intel processor for the past decade, to fix a major security flaw. In certain situations, you could even see a performance reduction of up to 30%. I'm not sure to what degree that this is affecting SketchUp performance, but I have my suspicions that it's caused a little bit of slowness.

The inferencing system is a feisty beast, but if you can learn to work without fighting it then you'll find it a lot easier. Personally, I'd solve this problem by drawing the line to a random point in space, then using the move tool to drag the endpoint to where it needs to be.

Sounds like a good idea. Now to think of an idea that I don't want to selfishly save for myself...

Brief:
Create a well-stocked and inviting bar area
The bar should draw from a 40s aesthetic, oozing class but hinting at the effects of war and a troubled society
Textures are not required, but colour values should at least be indicated, either in block colour or monochrome. Polygon density should not be unnecessarily high, but nor should you sacrifice the look of the piece for the sake of saving polygons.

Have fun if you decide to take the brief

Oh this is a common issue. You need to sacrifice something to appease the Six Sovereign Sorcerers of SketchUp. Usually just something small like a sandwich or USB stick, but depending on how long since your last sacrifice, you may have to acquire a used furniture item or spare tire.

Seriously though, that's a weird issue. Only thing I can think of is that you could be shift-locking to an inference by accident, in which case hit shift again to unlock.

I like to use Maya in conjunction with mentalray. If Fredo's Animator works with Thea and Vray as Pilou says, then that's pretty cool - although personally I don't find Animator that useful(sorry Fredo, it's a work of genius but it's not quite a fully featured animation program).

Lumion is great, but might not have the stylistic flexibility you're looking for.

I've recently been exploring Unity as a visualisation tool, and while there's a bit of a learning curve with regards to the more complex elements (it is built for making games, after all), it definitely has a lot of potential.

I used Lumion 3 for work years ago. It produces great results, but is the user interface still a nonstandard pos? It wasn't the worst I've ever come across (looking at you, Zbrush), but UI design is one of the few things that makes me rage about softwares.

Looks like the plugins that scale all have icons in .svg and .pdf(???) as well as .png

I don't know enough about the Sketchup API to comment on how the icons are being loaded

Blue is everything in your context, white with blue highlights shows the parent groups back up to world, red is everything matching the search term in the "filter" box

From the rest of the geo, it seems unlikely but...

Are the edges connecting to a third face behind? Like this:

Very cool! Why not follow me for the entire shape of the head though?

Sketchup.active_model.selection.each{|i|;
r1 = rand(100)/50.0;
r2 = rand(100)/50.0;
r3 = rand(100)/50.0;
tr = i.transformation;
p = Geom;;Point3d.new(r1,r2,r3);
tr2 = Geom;;Transformation.new(p);
tr3 = tr * tr2;
i.transformation = tr3}

Select what you want to randomise, then run this from the ruby console. Quick and dirty but it'll do the trick...

On another note, does anybody know why rand(2.0) isn't giving me floats?

A little late , but I've recently been experimenting with post-processing sketchup output for a screentoned comic strip effect, and it's definitely possible to convert sketchup shading into hatched shading in photoshop or GIMP. If you separately export

1. hidden line shading with edges of your choice
   and
2. monochrome shading with no edges

Put the hidden line shading on a layer in your image editor of choice, then put a hatched texture on a layer above it. Now use the monochrome shading (inverted) as a mask for the hatched texture. Play with the levels on the mask to change how dark an area has to be to get shading.

Et Voila!

Quick and dirty, but I did a sphere with two layers of hatching, one for only the darker areas by levelling its mask accordingly

And here's a spaceship that I used this method to screentone (starting with a few more outputs - sun shading, flat colour, etc):

Run this in the ruby console to set all layers to default behavior

Sketchup.active_model.layers.each{|layer| layer.page_behavior=0}

edit:

if you only want to change the behavior of one layer, run this and substitute NAME for your layer name

Sketchup.active_model.layers.each {|layer| if layer.name=="NAME";layer.page_behavior=0;end}

@fredo6 said:

@cuttingedge said:

...My dream is one day be able to do all this within sketchup. Yes indeed it's a lot of work...coz I got a whole lot of vintage furniture to do..

Did you have a look at WrapR?

I haven't looked at UV mapping within sketchup in a long time, it always used to be a bit unwieldy. Would you recommend using this over exporting and doing it in another program?

UV unwrap (there are some plugins for it, but I'd suggest just taking it to blender to do it), take the UV mapped model into xnormal (another free tool) to generate an ambient occlusion map, then take a bronze texture into an image editing program (GIMP is a good one - also free), put the ambient occlusion map on a multiply layer above the bronze texture and adjust the opacity to your liking. Finally, reimport the UV mapped chair into sketchup, create a material with the new ambient occlusion/bronze texture, and apply it to the group.

Basically it's quite a lot of work. Anybody got a less convoluted idea?