@tickletickle Yes I have tried LC in SketchUp 20 and 21. Itās a very interesting new development but as I said in my other post, of limited use to me until I can work with them in imperial units. I really do think itās a cool new thing and Iām excited to see where it goesā¦ but since you asked.
Itās a step toward parametric modeling I guess, but a step away from one of the major strengths of SketchUp: the inference engine. Even once LCs become adjustable in imperial units, it still all feels very cumbersome to me. Who has time to tape measure an opening size, remember the measurement (or write it down if you have taken several, height,width,depth), wait 8 seconds for a web connection window to open, move the mouse over and double click into each parameter, type in the desired dimension, close the window, grab the LC by the relevant geometry and move it into position. Iām exhausted just writing it all up, feel like a bad dream of being stuck back in ACAD. I know, itās only 30 seconds and I sound a bit spoiled and whiney but honestly SketchUps excellence has made me spoiled, the inference engine is so good and I am accustomed to moving fast. I can fit a well made DC object in seconds without ever taking my hand off the mouse using the native move and scale tools and referencing existing geometry, it would be really nice if the LCs had the same functionally.
I still think its a shame they are so tessellated, even though the faces seem coplanar. I am able to detach and explode a definition and easily delete the hidden lines to make square faces. No doubt this is a product of the creation technology of the geometry which is beyond my understanding, but I seems to me not hard to merge coplanar faces, we certainly have extensions that accomplish that. Anyway, itās not a big deal, until you want to render them, or explode them to make truly custom adjustments not available in the configure window, then itās a problem. It does appear anecdotally that a lot of the reversed faces I saw initially have been fixed, great. Also a shame we canāt paint any surfaces without breaking configuration link.
Question: Do LCās no longer work in SketchUp 2020? I had played with them a bit before 2021 was released and was able to download the configured objects and place them into my 2020 files. Now even if I open the warehouse from inside 2020 with 2021 closed and configure there, the resulting download file is for 2021 and cannot be opened by 2020. I can find no way to get an LC into 2020 right now. That would be a real shame as Iām unlikely to use 2021 for months until there is a Twinmotion patch for it, so perhaps another reason I wonāt be using LCs.
I really do appreciate the spirit of innovation and probably two years from now I will be using LCs in my workflow every day, I just thought I would share why Iām not using them today.