Thread: KMs Sketch Up Tips

well i didn't know u could 'hide the rest of model' or x-ray so its from me so far!

TIP #2

Location. sketchup comes with some pre loaded locations but theres not a great deal of them. this can be added to like so.

hit the view tab
go down to animation
then click on settings

the model info box will open
hit location
in the country box add your country
in the location box see if your location is there.
if not
hit custom location and another box will appear.
set custom location.
leave the country as is.
under location type in the name of your town .
now you will need the long and latitude. dont worry it is easy to get i use google earth just place the curser over the town and you will get the long and lat (bottom left of main screen) but remember to covert these to decimals.

note: if you dont know how to convert the deg min" sec' to decimal this site will help http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html
if the link get removed pm me

type the numbers into the long and lat boxes
adjust the timezone hit ok and your done.

this will effect outside modeling and the shodow effects more than single pieces, it also helps with rendering. the long and lats are kept in the sketchup.tzl file in the suport directory, it can be edited direct from there but unless you know what your doing i sugest sicking to the above, should you however wish to attempt it make a backup of the file first

SU5 users.. the setting are under a differant menu but the same process will work

km

Very cool. Keep going.

TIP # 3

drawing lines

pretty easy just click and go but to make life easier we can use the axis line green = north/south red = east west and blue = up down

so if we were to draw a line 300mm north.

click on the sreen with the pencil once. and find the geen axis (once your near it will snap to it) then type in 300 and hit enter, all done.

when you type in the number it will appear in the box at the bottom right of the sreen

of course the works for all the axis

infact it works for most things you can move, copy, pushpull, evan angles with the protractor

circles click once on the page then type the radius you want

triangle/hex click once and type the radius you want the points to touch

km

TIP # 4

if you intend to render the model make sure the face of the plain is the right way round. if you use the defult clours you shold see no blue faces.

if you do right click on the face and hit reverse face

km

1 thing i was having trouble doing was drawing a spheare. I ended up using a default spheare that i then had to resize by eye.

Originally Posted by Rattrap

1 thing i was having trouble doing was drawing a spheare. I ended up using a default spheare that i then had to resize by eye.

yep thats how i would do it too. it is possible to build them with triagles but it is far quicker to do what you have done.

but heres another little trick to scale it or anything for that matter highlight the component or what ever it is your scaling and click the tape measure.

now mesure along a side (or across a spheare) and type in the distance you would like that side to be and hit enter it will come up with a box asking if you wont to resize the model hit yes and your done


note if you have a few object in your modle and only want to scale a part of it, make that part a group and from inside the group do the same thing and it will only resize the group or component

km

exellent thanks km

TIP # 5

infered referancing

ok lets say you have a cube on the top face of the cube u draw a line from a random point on the edge going toward the other side.

how you want another line the same distance toward the middle

click your start point then hang the pencil over the first lines end point your should see a green grip (the little green square) now move the pencile to were it should be you will now notice a dotted line following you and the green grip has turned black

one your second line now reaches the same point as the first a black will appear click and the second line will be the same length and easy to close

this can also be done with the shift button click on the edge and hold shift down how go straight to the end on the first line and click you will see the second line as your doing this

the shift button works for most commands. what it does is lock any of the axis directions

km

TIP # 6

selection

let say a cube again and you are on a face. click once and you will select that face, click ywo times and you select the face and the border lines, click three times and you will select the whole object

km

I just had to try that last 1 out straight away. Damn it works! So much easier than manually selecting all the pieces.

TIP # 7

gluing

you know when you bring in a component and put it on a surface then try and move it but dosnt want to go up or down.

well just right click the component and click unglue and you will be able to move to were ever you like.

to prevent this when making a component make sure the set gluing plane is set to none

you will see the set gluing plane in the dialog box after you select the items to be made into a component

km

TIP # 8

materials

when you have done your model and you are adding materials you can use any JPG file all you have. To do this just drag and drop it in the model.

but when u do this put it in an area away from the model (come back to why) it will come in with 8 green grips on it which u can use for re sizing

once u have done that right click on it and hit use as a material this will add the material to the in model materials list

you can delete the JPG you have droped in

you can now pick the new item from the in model materials list and with the bucket paint your model, this is far easier than trying to resize a JPG and trying to orinantate it

km

please ask if you want me to cover somthing, only glad to help

some exellent tips there KM, thanks.