Please can some one check that the process I am following and my understanding allows me to set up groups / layers properly so that my edges and faces stay on layer 0
Edges are the lines that I input, faces are created between those edges as long as they are coplanar
The edges and faces must stay on layer0 at all times
To stop ‘stickiness’ or for ability to change visibility I need to group similar objects
To group I have been selecting on the faces, colouring them with a unique colour, then choosing option select, select by material
I have then been assigning them to layer
This is the process that was shown on tutorials here
To check that everything is still ok
I click on an object in a group which has been assigned a layer, the entity window should say which layer the group has been assigned to (have I understood this right?)
and if I go into the group and double click on an edge of a face the entity window should say that entity is on layer0
Supposing that is all correct and all I am doing is adding more lines and adding to the groups in the same fashion why am I getting edges and faces attached to a layer other than 0 - could I be making some rookie mistakes.
Your understanding seems to (mostly) correct: the key is to group raw geometry as soon as you’ve finished drawing it. You can context click and choose ‘Select’ > ‘All Connected’ (or triple-click), then ‘Make Group’ or ‘Make Component’. Always leave Layer0 as the active layer and only assign other layers to already-built groups/components through the Entity Info dialogue.
The reason that edges might be assigned to other layers is that you’ve inadvertently changed the active layer. (or as John has said, by exploding a group that had an assigned layer).
One thing: there is no necessity to add material to your faces before selecting and grouping them. It’s not wrong, but you may want to apply materials at the group/component level and leave the raw faces with the default material. There are good tutorials on how and why to paint faces vs. groups.
Thanks both of you, it was the exploding groups thing that seems to have caused my problems, it has also has nearly caused my blood pressure to explode.
I thought using sketchup was going to be the key, i have to submit my model as part of my degree on Monday and I haven’t even got to the push /pull bit let alone how to do the rendering
onwards and upwards
Help here has been invaluable
Karen
Even though I’ve been a SU user for almost 15 years, I still run into this problem (if I’m not thinking) when I explode a group. I’ve lodged a Feature Request to change the default behaviour so that Explode always assigns exploded raw geometry to Layer0, here: https://forums.sketchup.com/t/explode-to-layer0/96864
Good luck with your remaining work: Push/Pull is very intuitive and you can easily apply an appropriate style to your final render to make it look nice… so you might not be in as deep s__t as it feels like!
Usage: Extension: With background Observer processes etc and Context-Menu items…
Questions resetting Current-Layer away from “Layer0” - but it is still allowed.
Assigns “Layer0” to all manually added Geometry [Edges and Faces] - irrespective of the Current-Layer setting.
If there’s a suitable Selection…
Context-Menu = ‘Explode-To-Layer0’ [the newly exploded groups/instances geometry has Layer0 assigned to it - ignoring the original container’s layers - unlike the annoying native-tool]
Context-Menu = ‘Selected-Geometry-To-Layer0’ [Layer0 is assigned to selected geometry, the process can also include all geometry nested inside selected groups/instances - useful to fix messy explodes and thoughtless modelling disasters].
simple process for groups. triple click or marque select and make group, then its geometry won’t stick/get tangled to anything else. Assign to a specific layer if needed. Once exploded, its parts are still on that layer, so after exploding and while the geometry is still selected you can reassign it to layer 0. No need to assign color for this to work.
dont explose to edit, just click into group (or component) or context click edit group and make changes. Once group is closed after editing it will remain as part of that group as well as the layer assignment.
( note: in view/component edit, you can select whether to hide the rest of the model or not while editing. Sometimes its good to get everything else out of the way, but sometimes you may need the context for reference and inference.
Yep, i LIKE Default Layer Geometry add-on.
