The "Duh!" thread (aka the Doh! thread)

[thomthom]

One for me was when Gaieus was from Gaieus' talk at the Basecamp (I saw the video) and using the rotate tool.

Yes! So did I. I've always built these extra constructs of faces and lines to align the rotate tool first. When I saw the video I thought he did some dark voodoo magic.

[david_h]

I think the Rotate/Drag thing was new to V5. Could be wrong tho. Anyway. . . I"ve been using SU since V2 and didn't learn of that til then anyway.

EDIT. . .oh! oh! my duh moment this week! (yes they come that often. . .)

I discovered a "filter" in the Shortcuts box to search for the particular command.

[Ecuadorian]

That method of rotation is in the introductory videos for V6 and were posted in 2007. This means one should never dismiss learning materials aimed at newbies, as there could be a trick or two one doesn't know yet. Kind of when I learned that the word "people" is plural and not singular... just before graduating from College .

[Gaieus]

Kind of when I learned that the word "people" is plural and not singular... just before graduating from College .

That's good (me as a foreign speaker of English fully understanding thet).

But all in all,I know what you mean. There's still a lot - if not other than little tricks of workflow at least - of this program!

(And I love this topic - maybe it should be made sticky in the Newbie forum!)

[thomthom]

I just had a vision of the planet where you hear "Duh!" shouted across the globe, with little speech bubbles to accompany, as people read this thread...

[Gaieus]

And they also keep banging their heads to the walls...

[david_h]

did you know that if you expand the component window with the little + sign and drag your custom component to the window below it saves it in the component directory for future use????? D'UH!

[Daniel]

I can remember two "duh" moments for myself. I had always known to make multiple copies in a row, to just type in the number of copies wanted followed by an "x". But it wasn't until reading the SU for Dummies book last year that you could make multiple copies evenly spaced in a given length by typing in the number followed by a slash. I felt stupid for not figuring that out.

My second moment was embarrassing. I gave a short seminar to the local community design center on using sketchup, and I was explaining how SU will not cast shadows below the point of origin (default ground plane), and open a model to illustrate it, only to discover that SU had apparently fixed that (with version 7?).

[xrok1]

Ive had so many Duh Moments I don't know where to start . . .or rather D'oh!
I have still so many yet to experience I am sure. Maybe you can help me add to my D'uh Collection

I have never gotten into the OUtliner but the one thing I wish I knew how to do with it. . .if it can be done is in working with Nexted blocks and components in "Hide rest of Model" mode that you could have the group in which a component is nested visible but still have the rest of the model invisible? comprenez-vous? Or maybe there is a Ruby for this??? please oh please oh please!Also. . .. we need a little smilie that says "D'UH! and D'OH!"

it would probably be better for your outer group to be a component instead of a group, with the other groups inside. that way it would work the way you want with all the internal groups visible when editing them through this outer component.

[Gaieus]

...My second moment was embarrassing. I gave a short seminar to the local community design center on using sketchup, and I was explaining how SU will not cast shadows below the point of origin (default ground plane), and open a model to illustrate it, only to discover that SU had apparently fixed that (with veersion 7?).

Thanks Daniel, you saved me from another embarrassing "Duh"!

[broomstick]

A more recent Duh I had:

Being able to select only a few edges from a face and offset them instead of the whole face.

I had this one today!!

[pmiller]

Probably the best SU duh!:

viewtopic.php?f=153&t=1545

[Daniel]

Your welcome, Gaieus. I don't remember anybody mentioning it. Perhaps we've all become accustomed to modeling above the origin. Maybe I was distracted by Remus' bike porn thread (for the record, it is NOT what the title implies, and I was VERY disappointed).

[sintra]

i still don't know how to type in more than one dimension when using the tape measure tool

So can anybody put me out of my missery please

[xrok1]

how many dimensions do you expect from a tape measure? lets see there's length... ... and ... ...

[paulside]

Come on, Own up, how many of us have tried to orbit a jpg !

[xrok1]

specially if its a jpg of a 3D model

[sintra]

hmmm sorry thought you could type in several figures to set out many dimensions

[xrok1]

the duh moment that turned out to just be a der! moment.

but seriously you can copy your construction lines with (ctrl) copy, and then say *10 or whatever so you get 10 equally spaced. if that helps?

[david_h]

Come on, Own up, how many of us have tried to orbit a jpg !

Not being able to orbit in JPGS only illustrates their limitions. If we were an advanced society at all we would be able to this.

[thomthom]

Come on, Own up, how many of us have tried to orbit a jpg !

Ever tried to undo a wrong stroke with the pen..?

[Ecuadorian]

Still happens to me a lot... I press Ctrl+Z in the middle of an operation and end up losing some work done.

And I often find myself trying to "mirror" things with Ctrl+M, as in ArchiCAD, only to remember that I should have clicked on the mirror button of the SCF Powerbar instead.

EDIT: Now I understand what thomthom was talking about... a REAL pen. A big Duh! for me.

[david_h]

Ive had so many Duh Moments I don't know where to start . . .or rather D'oh!
I have still so many yet to experience I am sure. Maybe you can help me add to my D'uh Collection

I have never gotten into the OUtliner but the one thing I wish I knew how to do with it. . .if it can be done is in working with Nexted blocks and components in "Hide rest of Model" mode that you could have the group in which a component is nested visible but still have the rest of the model invisible? comprenez-vous? Or maybe there is a Ruby for this??? please oh please oh please!Also. . .. we need a little smilie that says "D'UH! and D'OH!"

it would probably be better for your outer group to be a component instead of a group, with the other groups inside. that way it would work the way you want with all the internal groups visible when editing them through this outer component.

Thanks for the feedback, but I dont think that helps me, and I realize I probablyI didn't explain myself very well. I would want to able to keep the geometry of the component visible while I am working on an internal nested block/component but the main model is kept hidden? Better?

[jeff hammond]

Come on, Own up, how many of us have tried to orbit a jpg !

i try to orbit everything on my computer after a long SU session.. web pages etc...

it's like jumping on a trampoline for a while.. once you get back on solid ground, it takes a few minutes to readjust..

[NewOne]

And I often find myself trying to "mirror" things with Ctrl+M, as in ArchiCAD, only to remember that I should have clicked on the mirror button of the SCF Powerbar instead.

What mirror button are you talking about? I olny use for mirroring Mirror_31.rb plugin. Is there something else? (and this one sometime crashes sketchup, i could not figure when yet)

[Ecuadorian]

viewtopic.php?f=180&t=14770&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=powertoolbar

[Chris Fullmer]

Also. . .. we need a little smilie that says "D'UH! and D'OH!"

Well, its not a smily on the forum, but Jim did make a plugin:

http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... utton.html

EDIT: Oops, Paul already beat me to this last page....

[ely862me]

i did find myself zoom ing out or orbit on a recorded desktop video taken while working in sketchup
a big d*oh when i discovered the scale tool(at the beginning i made a house and i tried to insert some components and my house was too small ..i abandoned the project )
another one when i discovered the smooth operation
another when i discovered the components(working just at one half of a car)
and the biggest when i discovered the render engines...

They are lot more wich i don t remember now!

[Gaieus]

...
Ever tried to undo a wrong stroke with the pen..?

Or with a girlfriend?

[Chris Fullmer]

My second moment was embarrassing. I gave a short seminar to the local community design center on using sketchup, and I was explaining how SU will not cast shadows below the point of origin (default ground plane), and open a model to illustrate it, only to discover that SU had apparently fixed that (with version 7?).

Version 6 also let you cast shadows below the ground plane. At least the copy I'm running does?

Chris