Hello,
I recently used Hover.to to create a 3D model of my house. They were able to send me a .skp file. I used Sketchup to convert the file to .obj to upload into xLights, a Christmas Light Show software.
When I open the .obj I am missing 3 walls on the front of my 3D model of my house. I have tried to Reverse the sections I am missing, saving a new .skp file and converting it based on other community comments. Still didn’t work.
Is there a way to copy textures of the areas of the house model that are coming through to the areas that are missing? Or is there another way I am not aware of as I am new to Sketchup?
Thank you,
Nick
20100143.skp (96.8 KB)
xLights3D_New.skp (92.8 KB)
yes. no. maybe.
If you share your file with us, one of us can give you a better answer than I did 
either directly here in the answer box (if it’s less than 16mb) or using a drive / cloud / wetransfer or else.
Without looking at it, most answers will be either theoretical or wrong, probably both
edit : you’re on the free plan, so first, download your file on your computer as a skp file.
if you still have the faulty obj file, give it too, it won’t hurt your chances.
out of curiosity, why do you need a .obj file ? asking because maybe another format can answer your needs, who knows.
Yeah, hard to give you a proper solution without seeing the file. What comes to my mind right now is that some back faces are exposed, sometimes it causes them to become invisible on other softwares. Also if you modeled it on other software and got it converted to .skp, probably the model isn’t well organized, and you could have a bunch of loose geometry or groups that make no sense, I’ve seen that before.
Thank you both for replying. I have uploaded two files - the first - 20100143.skp is the file I got from Hover.to and the second is the file I saved from Sketchup after I added some colors to my model.
I have downloaded Sketchup Pro but am doing the 30 day trial at this time, yes.
Francis was right
yeah, a lot of reversed faces. I changed the style to see the reversed ones in red.
the model should be white.
simply right click on one of the correct wall (the white one on the right of my picture maybe) ans choose “orient faces”
it should make all the faces correctly oriented.
and now, at least on my end, you’ll get a correctly oriented obj file.
xLights3D_New.skp (116.8 KB)
(here is the “fixed” version, just a right click really.)
ateliernab - Thank you so much for your reply and support. I did try the Orient feature before I reached out to this group and still was seeing the invisible walls. Sadly, I am getting the same issue even after using your “fixed” file and converting to .obj in Sketchup and uploading it to xLights. Maybe it is an xLights thing which I am going to reach out to their tech support.
Would you be able to export to .obj and send so I can try to see if it is something on my end?
Archive.zip (147.0 KB)
here
here is what it looks like in mac os’s preview and in meshlab (meshlab is a free tool, really nice to check what’s in a 3d file)
Why do you need to use xlights? If you want to create a rendered image of your house you can use plug-ins like vray or enscape to add lights,textures and assets, both rendering engines have 30 days free trial period. Enscape is very intuitive and easy to learn but it won’t run on your machine cause it needs a dedicated gpu or an M series SOC, vray uses the processor so you could use it, there are also other rendering engines like Thea, and free ones like twilight, this one can deliver good results with few configurations.
Thank you so much nab! The .obj file you sent works. Don’t know why it didn’t work on my end after I tried Orienting.
I truly appreciate your help.
Francis - I am still new to the Christmas Light Show scene and xLights was what I was introduced to by the person that got me into the hobby. I use xLights for my sequences and wanted to have a 3D model of my house instead of 2D because I am starting to have over lapping props.
I will definitely check into the software you mentioned, thanks for the suggestions.
1 Like
xlights is a tool to create lights hows / light displays.
besides, most of the renderers you mentions are extensions to SU pro.
edit :
oh yeah. or as we call it in the biz, THE scene 
He’s using the free trial of sketchup pro.
Francis - Even though I am using the free trial of Pro, why wouldn’t it let me to Orient those three walls?
I do appreciate all the help you and Nab have given me.
I don’t know why, but ateliernab said that because your profile says you’re using sketchup free which doesn’t allow the installation of plug-ins like the ones I suggested.
