So today I opened my Layout document to find that all my plans had moved off the page. Again. I moved them back, and redid all the dimensioning. That took some time. I know what I’m supposed to do to keep this from happening: Always Think about your tender self-obsessed Layout viewports when you model in sketchup, not about the modeling itself, and never update your scenes with the shortcut, always go the long route of updating in the scenes manager, and untick camera position.
My question is: How do you seasoned Layout users work to make sure this does not happen? Do you keep a Yellow Post-It sticker on your screen at all times to always remind you to not mess up your scenes panning position? Do you break the scene link in your viewports after setting them, and manually update the tag settings from there on? Or is this something that becomes second nature after a few years? Maybe managing viewports should be separate lessons already in preschool?
So maybe when I’ve run through so many projects that my template is always the same, with the scenes always the same, the tag structure always the same, the tag folder structure always the same, and my styles settings for each scene always the same, then I dont have to update my scenes so much. In a few years, Ill get there.
Some of the workflows exists, I guess, as a work around the fact that Layout will not give us the 30-some lines of code it would take to set a camera lock on the viewports, and have them still linked to the scene. That there has to be the obvious and direct workflow that you dont have to learn.
Workflows exists because they work (!)
Just simply having an order of handlings helps in understanding where it went wrong when you suddenly have a bizar outcome.
FI, I tend to have a strict order when closing a file (set up a standard topview, hit zoom extents, save the file)
I always have a scene in every model labeled “Working Model”. This scene is never connected to a Layout viewport. It’s where I do all my modeling…period. It has a dark grey background for my eyes and to distinguish it from scenes that will be in the drawing package… When it comes time to setup scenes for Layout, I’m focused entirely on the view and nothing else. Additionally, I do my best to never go back to any scene connected to a viewport because I could risk making a change to it and then updating it which will for sure blow up the Layout viewports when I run the update process.
What I have found important is that every single time I go back to Sketchup to make a change in the model that needs to be reflected in Layout, I always do that work in the “Working Model” scene and I never update that scene…ever. When I’m done with a change, I hit the “working model” scene tab and it will return to the original saved position (usually a zoomed out view of the model). Only after I have done that do I hit save. Because I haven’t touched any of the other scenes, there is nothing to update in those scenes and when I run the update in Layout to reflect a model change, all that updates is the objects. The position never changes because I didn’t touch any of the other scenes.
I do not suffer with moving viewports anymore because of this. I also update scenes thru the scene tab shortcut and never thru the scene manager and I don’t have to untick camera position. When in Layout, I never break a scene link and I always use the right click menu to update scene from Sketchup.
Short story then, If you don’t touch the scenes in Sketchup that are connected to Layout viewports, the result is that said viewports will not change.
Perhaps that is unworkable for you because of the end result you are working towards. You will have to test to see.
Thanks. I have some “work scenes” as well to help me navigate the model easier:
-The building without outer walls
-Just the outer walls and windows
-The floors
Especially in conseptual stages the whole document structure, with alternatives and variants, evolves as I go along.
I’m working my way towards a proper template to put the file into once I start to make committed drawings, so maybe that solves it. This time around I didn’t set the project axis system properly from the beginning, and had to redo it along the way, so maybe that triggered the violent viewport content shifts …
I still think every scene should ideally be a work scene. Thats feels more architecturally sound, that you actually interact with the same drawings that you present to the client
SU’s advanced camera tools (Pro version only?) have the ability to lock a view, this can prevent the scene mess ups that you have experienced.
Here is what I do:
I placed 6 cameras for all the standard viewing directions (top, bottom, front, left, back, right) and made 6 locked ‘master’ scenes. All architectural documentation scenes that I prepare for use in LO are made to match these master camera view angles. If a scene’s view angles gets accidentally overridden -say that happens to a floor plan- I can recall the camera position from the master ‘top’ view.
The other good thing is that these advanced cameras are actually real 3D objects. You can copy-paste them (or save as component) to another project. That saves setup time.
Note that the tool automatically creates a new tag for these cameras.
Give it a go, let us know how you are going with it.
I dont think I could intuitively design in Sketchup like I’m used to if most of my scenes were there just as a tunnel into Layout, and nothing more. Architectually one wants to interact with all ones views. I will experiment with advanced camera tools to set a camera lock on my scenes.
You mention unticking Save Camera Position, but this is exactly what you have to do to come back to the same view. I don’t do as you say in the first post, Usually I save everything about a scene, and my scenes for working and layout are just the same animal and don’t shift about. I just happen to want some of them for LayOut.
I do also have a couple “working scenes” that do not save the camera and some other features so that I can go into a simple mode for modeling at whatever view I am in. I also develop scenes in every project, I don’t have a template that I adhere to, and I don’t see where this is a resolution one way or the other.
