as everyones said, lokks really cool. i cant help but woder how it works, though. ponder

this is definetly a soap skin job. all you have to do is draw in the outline of the shape you want and it will do the rest. although im sure it can be done with the bezier tool, i think it would be a lot easier with soapskin, maybe thats just me though!

@unknownuser said:

sketchup is just a tool that craftspersons uses in the process of completing their craft. in that regard being good at sketchup is not the end goal being good at your craft is the end goal.

i see what your saying, and thats sort of what i was trying to get at by saying 'proficient' instead of good. a good point none the less.

i think the autosave fature is only there to cover your back if SU crashes or your PC crashes. Although it deletes it to the recycle bin, so go through your recycle bin and it should be there!

rem

google turned up this: http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/

i'd iamgine its the link that says 'unfold tool', i havent tried it myself yet jsut to warn you.

EDIT:ignore that please, that just links to jims ruby.

you might be able to do a cylinder and then intersect it, followed by another intersection to get the shape across the top. would need a fair bit of cleaning up afterwards, but should give you the general shape.

thanks for the in depth replies, it's all jolly interesting. Before i'd just assumed that you'd moved purely because the old forum software was getting a bit old!

Just to add a bit, i prefer this forum to the google groups 'forum', its a lot easier to use and it never feels as swamped down as the groups, basically, good job on the forum!

i wouldnt worry too much about it this time, as long as you don't go around advertising the fact that you 'borrowed' them

like gai said, very nice! Any chance of seeing some more pics/the model?

i hadn't thought of speed as being part of the benchmark, but i suppose it should be.

Would you consider yourself proficient at sketchup? And if not, when will you? is there a certain benchmark you'd be able to achieve when your 'good'? or a certain modelyou'll be able to make?

me, when i can model a person to the extent that you can see the folds in their skin and the whites in their eyes!

rem

im not sure about firefox, but in opera (internet browser) you can make your own searches by just right clicking in the search box in question.

http://www.rollyo.com/firefoxsearch.html

Looks like it might do a similar thing.

it is definetly possible to do drawings in SU that incroporae structural detail, like the layers of dry wall you mention, but it does take some preactice.

As for the 2x4s, i'd recommend making a generic one and turning it into a group (select the faces you want to group>right click>group) You can then copy it around your model and then scale it to fit (scale tool.)

Layers do work, although in my experience i've found them harder to use than in programs that are more layer orientated, such as ps. It just takes some getting used to really.

I think what you really need to do is start a bit smaller and work your way up, it is pretty hard to learn the finer details of sketchup on a big model, as your too busy concentrating on the model as a whole. Try and have fun as well!

oh and welcome to the forum, and good luck with your model.

jvh: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=723

this is pretty of topic, but hopefully there is a quick answer.

How come you moved to a new forum?

not sure why the above link is broken, but here it is: http://groups.google.com/group/Ruby-API/browse_thread/thread/982c56fae94d3537/fececa1a9d219f24?lnk=gst#fececa1a9d219f24

thanks for the link, i'll have to give it a go at some point, coens looks a lot better than mine!

any ideas anyone?

heres my rather weak attempt made by using skin.rb to create a TIN of sorts which i then moved into a banana like shape.

banana.skp

glad they might be of use to someone.

On the subject of the file size, i didnt really think about it to be honest. as i dont usually work with large models it isnt usually an issue. i'll bear it in mind next time i do something like this though, as it's obviously important if you are doing soemthing big with lots of components etc.

Oh and nice one dave, i was tryign to think of a way to make the the length more easily adjustable but couldnt think of anything off of the top of my head.

Someone might find these useful, i just knocked 'em up because i was bored really.

They're modular, so you just copy the midsection across as many times as you need to.

blinds.skp