I’m attempting to replicate the exterior model of my house plan (image below) in 3D and I see now that I am pretty stupid to be attempting something so difficult for my first time. But I’m too far in now to quit! I could not figure out how to create the front roof line with the little missing chunk on the lower right corner on the front of the house, so as you can see I tried to just paste an overhang on (which looks stupid, but I doubt it can be fixed at this stage of design).
Also somehow my front A line angled roof above the front patio is not a perfect triangle, so the window cannot be placed in the proper center of the triangle. IS THERE ANY WAY TO FIX THIS? Thanx for looking. R~
I would start by breaking your model into separate, non-nested groups. Break up your roof up into separate groups. Each plane could be a group and then roof fascia and other details separated also. This will make the roof much easier to understand and edit. Your “point of no return” moments will come much less frequently if you organize you model as you go; you wont have to fix or abandon the entire roof, just the area that is giving you trouble.
Well, I did a bit of a down and dirty repair on the uneven triangle to allow the front most window to be centered. If you dissect the new geometry I added you will find the added roofline and porch overhang are now separate components. Which leads us to the main thing holding you back from performing easy repairs to this model, the lack of separation in the geometry. The entire roof is one big group which makes it tricky to perform repairs or alterations. It’s good practice to be creating new components for every section of roof. Think of it like saving your model to the hard drive, you save often in case something happens so you loose the least amount of work possible, right? By creating components for each new section you draw you are insulating previous geometry from potential mistakes, as any mistake you might discover is confined to the new component and can be repaired or erased without affecting previous work.
I don’t think this is too hard for you to do, you are clearly progressing quickly and having a challenge is the best way to learn so forge ahead!
Thanks for this. This is the sort of information that is buried somewhere in books or one of the 10,000 youtube videos out there!
Hey there EF ~ thanx for this!!! I will attempt to implement this strategy going forward. While I have you, since this is a single wall model, I seem to be having trouble cutting the windows into the walls, especially since I have to dissect the A- Frame into two parts to have a textured area and a flat area and the window has to straddle both sides of the two textures. I’ve gotten it done in a couple windows, but it is taking me a long time, and I’m not certain I’m doing it correctly.
If I’m creating a component for the A-Frame do I include all parts roofing, side panels, front face and windows as one component? Sorry to be so dense. And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
I would say not. Look at how it is made in real life, and make one component (use components, not groups, almost always) for each separate piece you can see, except for small items like screws that will be irrelevant for your purposes. Use symmetry to minimize how much you have to draw. Either use a Mirror plugin (I like TIG’s from the Sketchucation plugin store), or Move then flip, or Move then Scale -1.
You can either build half a triangle roof, then mirror it all, or mirror whole pieces as you go, into a whole roof section.
How to cut up your model into components is a little bit arbitrary, the general idea is to make discreet sections that include all ‘parts’ of a given area, but where to draw the line so to speak is up to you who understands the model best and how it will be used. I tend to think in terms of construction and make a component out of every piece that would be used to build the object. Other factors that might affect your grouping would be how complicated sections are, then need to use repeated version of the same, if they are likely to change in the future, and/or the need to hide sections using layers to work on things underneath. In general too many components is better than not enough so go wild!
On the windows: How are you cutting the hole? Is the window set up as a cutting component, or are you cutting the holes manually using the placed window as a guide, or are you intersecting the wall with the window?
Well since I only understood, “…or are you cutting the holes manually using the placed window as a guide” out of that sentence THAT would be the way I’m doing it @endlessfix . LOL
@john_mcclenahan, I haven’t graduated to using plug-ins yet. It was once recommended to me to use TIG’s plug-in to notify you when you weren’t on the 0 Layer, by TIG himself, but he made the comment you’ll have to register with Sketchucation and “be sure to read the fine print.” Since I didn’t know what that meant, I just try to be careful to be on the 0 Layer!
Find the free registration link at the top centre of the page, click it, then, supply the (minimal) required information, and complete the registration process.
Then go to Plugin Store Download | SketchUcation
and do what it suggests - download the SketchUcation Tools plugin manager. Once you have it (normally in your Downloads folder), install it from within SU - go to Sketchup/Extension Manager/Install Extension (you are on a Mac, but it’s Windows/Extension Manager on Windows), browse to the file you just downloaded from the Plugin Store, and click Open to install it. Follow the prompts. Done.
That gets you a new menu entry in SU - Extensions (SketchUcation) with sub menus to access the plugin store from within SU to get new plugins, and to manage any plugins or extensions you already have installed.
Use the first menu item to open a dialog within SU, with the option to search for plugins. Search for ‘mirror’ or ‘TIG mirror’ and follow the prompts to install it.
The reason I suggested that you carefully read what your are agreeing to, is that you can easily get a ‘free’ account at SketchUcation - if you click on the correct links…
This membership gives you many advantages - like taking part in most of the SCF forums and downloading RBZs from the PluginStore, and of course getting the SketchUcationToolset, which automates many SketchUp Plugin/Extension processes… and of course the warm feeling that in a small way you are supporting a forum that can’t exist without your support - just taking is not giving…
If you choose to get a modestly paid ‘premium account’ you will get extra advantages - like free utilities, downloads of styles/components/materials/etc, and SCF sponsors’ and SCF shop discounts on purchases etc…
But that’s your choice.
I mentioned it because some would-be-new-members fail to read what’s on offer and then moan that it’s a site that demands payment - it is not.
As always @john_mcclenahan you are so helpful. Thank you for taking the time to explain all this with links none-the-less!!!
You are so right @TIG. But using the free trial at least lets you try-before-you-buy. As much as I like learning this program I was not gifted with techno-nerdness (not a real word I know) and will never be a computer genius, but if I try John’s suggestions who knows maybe I’ll like it and start making my life easier. LOL Thanks for weighing-in on this.
OK, so your placing the window unit (as a component you made?) against the wall then tracing lines in the “wall” around it that are the same size then erasing the wall within the lines and imbedding the window. It’s the slow and complicated way but it is a way and should be working, Where are you getting hung up mostly?
I can’t seem to cut a hole so the windows look transparent. When I draw a rectangle on the face the size of the window it appears reverse faced, since I do not have double walls I cannot push the rectangle out to make a hole for the window component. All I can do is reverse face the rectangle and float the window on the face. Not that it has to be see through, but the WHY or WHY NOT is good to know.
It’s working now. it turns out sometimes you really have to do a lot of orbiting to be certain your line is actually ON the face and not just hovering out into outer space. LOL. Thanks John!
Good news! You already have it! The inference engine is the part of sketchup programming working in the background to help you model. When your curser snaps to a midpoint and turns green, or when you align one corner to another and see them snap together, that’s inferencing. It’s constantly working in the background and the better you understand it the more useful it becomes. It’s looking at where your mouse goes (without clicking) and guessing at what you want to do all the time.
Example. Make a square, the hover over the midpoint of one side. It should turn green to show you center of the side. Now hover over the center of a perpendicular side till it finds center. Now head your mouse to the center of the square, the engine remembers the last few moves and helps you find the center of the shape.
Sometimes you will see little messages popping up by your curser sayin “on face” or the like, that’s the engine letting you know where’re your at.
Ha-ha…I knew about inferencing, I use it a lot, but when he referred to it as a “inferencing engine” I thought it was some sort of plug-in. I’ll catch on to your language eventually. Thank you for your patience!
And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!