Sci-fi modeling in SU Pro

You said you were interested in one piece circled in red, I did this with Make 2017. I modelled it in the red axis (required by the extension) and used Truebend to achieve what I think is a good smooth result.

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After a rotation array and a couple of circles I ended up with this, a reasonable model I thought!

Before

After

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This looks like fun! @lt72884 are you OK if we tackle this model on the official SketchUp YouTube weekly livestream?

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Gets my vote!

Go for it :slight_smile:

The game was designed by fat dragon games and this is one of the pieces to the game.

This is called yhe asteroid eater.

I purchased the game a few months back. Great game

True bend eh? Ill go find that extension now.

Thanks

Personally I would use a parametric modeler like Fusion or Solid works for game pieces if you have experience with that type of modeling. That would allow you to easily create multiple iterations and varieties of the piece with simple changes to the parameters of any given step. This also allows you to easily make changes and correct mistakes created at any part of the design process.

Additionally, those platforms can perform much more accurate circles, curves and radiuses.

Sketchup is a ā€œdirect editā€ software and as a result fixing a mistake you made 30 steps ago means fixing or updating everything after that as well. There are no ā€œconstraintā€ functions in SketchUp or the ability to design based on parameters. (they did sort of have a semi-functional parametric attempt called dynamic components but it was full of limitations and bugs and generally abandoned by their development years ago)

For example, applying and chamfer or radius to edges is simple (and native) to parametric modeling and you can change the amount at any given time without changing the underlying structure. This allows for more exploration into the level of detail you want or don’t want. Doing this in SketchUp is painful, slow, and often requires searching through third party extensions.

On the flip side, if you are just getting started, SketchUp is probably easier to learn.

Hey @lt72884, given the projects you and I have interacted on in the past I’m sure you can do this. Totally do able in SketchUp. Remember that the OD of the ship is faceted so if you turn on hidden geometry you can push pull a single facet or part of a facet relative to its normal which will be radial to the circle center. Look into joint push pull to push pull multiple facets.

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(off topic) @lt72884 if you ever feel like you’re not going anywhere with SU, or that it’s not good for it, check @Arcwalde gallery.
he’s been here giving you a hand in all modesty, and then…

SCI-FI sketchup is a thing. it works :wink:

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Moving a copy of a curved face is good but the sides will be parallel. If these parts are to be distributed around a circle, the sides shall be radial to the axis of the model.

See this SU file.

Sides restriction.skp (208.3 KB)

Click in sequence on the scenes tabs of this SU file for ideas.

Sci-Fi object.skp (431.6 KB)

When I do drawings for mechanical projects I borrow a process DaveR talks about.

Use the Solids tools in Sketchup. A solid can be added or subtracted from another solid. DaveR calls it making a cutter. To cut a hex hole through a curved cylinder; draw the curved cylinder, then draw another solid the shape of the hole, push/pull to a length long enough to extend the ends beyond the cylinder diameter. place the hex ā€œcutter partā€ to intersect the cylinder where the hole is to be. Then with solid tools subtract the hex from the cylinder.

Added benefit using solids is it forces one to keep you drawings free of bits and pieces of unneeded geometry. Solid tools has many different ways to work wit solids.

Search on ā€œcutterā€ to find some of DaveR’s posts.

This process has worked well for me.

You will struggle extruding the smaller circles off any curved surface, the geometry will probably break and you will suddenly loose the smooth surface see edges on the geometry. I would normally tackle this by modeling the smaller circles, then group them, then copy and paste the larger curved surface into the smaller circle,(past to location) intersect faces, and delete what not required, keeping it grouped so as not to screw up the geometry of the main curve.. Sketchup is sticky, if faces or edges touch they weld together, it’s really annoying when you first start using it, especially if you come from a 3DSMax background or something.. You have to create lots of groups.

what ?

simpler to just scale up the part 1000x or even better, model in a m file as if you were in a mm file.

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I don’t know that any of this needs to be true… I would model with a little bit of grouping… but not very much… if you do the true bend method (explained above), I don’t think you would need any groups, really.

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Yeah, i agree haha, its just been a hot minute since i have used su pro. I know i can do, just need a reminder of how things work

Lol, yeah, i would not want to model this in sw, fusion or other parametric modeling software. That would drive me crazy haha. For certain things like game pieces and sci-fi modeling, I’d rather do direct modeling than parametric. Just how my brain works.

I do agree that a mistake can be an issue and i have to go all the way back.

I always model 1000 times bigger then scale down. Prevents tiny face ossue

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