[Aardwolf]

Why is sketchup so popular? It can't even export to anything unless you register/pirate it.

[Hellstryker]

Because its easy.

[Warp Shadow]

'Cuz it's easy

EDIT: Damn, beat me to it!

[Unknown Target]

Because it's easy. And you can export to ASE and Lightwave formats via a couple free plugins.

[Retsof]

Or you can post the file and nicely ask someone to convert it for you. 

[Aardwolf]

I suppose. So how come I couldn't learn it as easily as I learned Wings3D?

[Man-Whore]

I suppose. So how come I couldn't learn it as easily as I learned Wings3D?

Probably your creative thought process. It's easy for me because I think geometrically, but perhaps you think in terms of assembly. Just a theory.

[Aardwolf]

Maybe I just adapted to Wings3D and learned to think about it that way for so long that it made it hard to learn anything different...

like...

if you had been taught all your life that the earth is flat, and then somebody told you the earth is flat...

[Man-Whore]

Maybe I just adapted to Wings3D and learned to think about it that way for so long that it made it hard to learn anything different...

like...

if you had been taught all your life that the earth is flat, and then somebody told you the earth is flat...

Heh, it's religion! Sorry, don't need to be like that.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Converting geometrically stable SU models appears to be exceedingly difficult, at least using the methods myself and UT have been experimenting with over the past few days. We've seen crashes at just about every stage in all programs that touch the exported model. This is mostly because of the way SU exports geometry, and it's complete lack of support for good object grouping. :\

It also appears to export all sketch lines you draw as separate subobjects too - edge and vert groups that have no faces in them, and as such will crash all kinds of things. If anyone has done more than one successful SU->POF conversion, what process did you use? Please post it, because otherwise a lot of people are going to be stranded once they finish their model.

I'd very much like to recommend SU to new FS modelers, but at the moment I can't because of that crappy export process.

[blowfish]

Converting geometrically stable SU models appears to be exceedingly difficult, at least using the methods myself and UT have been experimenting with over the past few days. We've seen crashes at just about every stage in all programs that touch the exported model. This is mostly because of the way SU exports geometry, and it's complete lack of support for good object grouping. :\

It also appears to export all sketch lines you draw as separate subobjects too - edge and vert groups that have no faces in them, and as such will crash all kinds of things. If anyone has done more than one successful SU->POF conversion, what process did you use? Please post it, because otherwise a lot of people are going to be stranded once they finish their model.

I'd very much like to recommend SU to new FS modelers, but at the moment I can't because of that crappy export process.

I have been successful when I export to 3ds, import into TrueSpace to group all of the meshes correctly, then import into PCS2.  If everything is done correctly, I have no geometry errors.  (This includes texturing everything in SketchUp).  Its worth noting that this is a very delicate process though, if you do something wrong, the end result will be messed up.

Make sure to disable exporting standalone edges in the export options dialogue.

I have had very few crashes, and those could be attributed to other issues with TS/PCS2 (Sketchup occasionally fails to export also).

EDIT: This method does not preserve smoothing.

[Unknown Target]

Which basically makes it useless for regular exporting, unfortunately.

[blowfish]

Is there a way to redo the smoothing in *shudder* TrueSpace?

[Unknown Target]

No, Truespace doesn't support smoothing groups.

[blowfish]

No, Truespace doesn't support smoothing groups.

Hmm ... thats a problem then.

Weird thing though, I was converting a model a little while back, and it did end up with some smoothing, though it smoothed some things I would have preferred to have left unsmoothed, and I don't know where the smoothing came from.

[Water]

I'd very much like to recommend SU to new FS modelers, but at the moment I can't because of that crappy export process.

I don't suppose they want Blender as part of the pipeline?
http://alexvaqp.googlepages.com/sketchupblender

[blowfish]

I'd very much like to recommend SU to new FS modelers, but at the moment I can't because of that crappy export process.

I don't suppose they want Blender as part of the pipeline?
http://alexvaqp.googlepages.com/sketchupblender

This process seems to show promise, but it hasn't been tested, so we don't really know if it works well for getting models into POF.  I have had Blender crash several times on COB export, but I think someone should try this out and see how it works.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Water: That was actually the primary export method I was trying to work out with UT. If it were to work, the models would need a lot of fixing up in blender before they would work correctly.
It's not just the empty objects that's the problem - (those are the bits that crash the cob exporter straight away BTW - so they need to be killed off in blender). The problem is that SU exports geometry that constantly does stupid things like section off certain volumes inside the model. I ran blenders auto normal reorientation on one of UTs ships and it came up with a different result each time. Complex meshes are just fundamentally unstable, and will crash somewhere along the line. Note that you CAN do simple models in SU and convert them in PCS2 via blender, but in the HTL age that isn't much use.

It sounds to me like the only way to export even remotely successfully is to get it into 3ds max, and if you have max you should be using that to model anyway.

[bizzybody]

It's not just the empty objects that's the problem - (those are the bits that crash the cob exporter straight away BTW - so they need to be killed off in blender). The problem is that SU exports geometry that constantly does stupid things like section off certain volumes inside the model.

Hit the Decompose button in tS then the down arrow button until the interior chunk is highlighted, then delete it. Another problem I've run into with models exported from Sketchup is verts and edges occupying the same space but not joined- like a pair of playing cards touching without being glued together.

[Unknown Target]

You have to do that if you want to keep the smoothing at all, and if you do any actual advanced texturing (not just tiling), it'll screw it up if you don't.