Damn it, Sketchup, why do I have to fight with you so much? I keep trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that you've simply got a learning curve and how you work as a 3D modeling program isn't like those other 3D modeling programs. I write these long, angry diatribes about how making a sphere is like summoning a demon while on the moon and with a bucket over my head, yet I wait.
Now, today, after revisiting the browser-based version, I swear you're pulling the wool over my eyes.
I was literally trying to recreate what I saw in this video in another tab and at around the 4:10 mark, I see a sleight of hand. This is the comment I left verbatim and a screenshot of exactly what I was seeing when I tried to follow along.
Okay, I hate to be "this guy" but I feel like we're either missing a step or calling a tool by the wrong name. I'm literally following this to the letter in another tab right now and my arc tool isn't working like this... at all. I didn't even see you click on the arc tool, it was just selected after you made the line.
I make the vertical line, put the circle on top, draw another line from the center of the base to the edge... and then the arc tool acts nothing like what I'm seeing on screen. I click on the arc tool and I get a compass overlay that keeps trying to draw an arc that's convex to the vertical line. After some fiddling to try and at least get the arc to be concave, it doesn't go from the edge of the base to the circle up top. It's only as tall as it is wide and trying to tweak it gets me an error message about too many segments.
I have no clue what I'm doing wrong and I feel like this happens every time I try to do anything in Sketchup.
It may be a little hard to see, but that little green circle near the edge of the base is what I somehow have to place somewhere to make an arc between the edge of the base and the circle atop the line. It's also worth repeating that we saw this tutorial first select the arc tool, then change their minds and select the line tool, draw a line from the center of the base to the edge, and next thing we know we're drawing an arc between those two points.
Let's be clear: you have to select the tools on the left hand side of the screen. His mouse cursor never ventures close to that and suddenly we go from a line tool to an arc tool. I can't find any keyboard shortcuts that would allow this, and even if I did, the arc tool doesn't work as it's being shown.
This is why I hate learning any kind of software. There's always something in the tutorial (which I've sometimes PAID for the "opportunity" to sit through) that is not accurate, it's fairly important, and whoever I learn it from gets so embarrassingly tripped up it's like watching someone try to recite the alphabet backwards and start over every time they mess up. Normally, when I've written these, I leave them in the drafts folder until I calm down a little, I read a few more tutorials, wind up feeling stupid because I missed something obvious, and then the post never goes live due to its newfound inaccuracy. Given I've also left a comment on the video, I should probably wait until I get an answer to that before I go pressing the publish button. However, I've wound back this video at least five times and whatever the instructor is doing, it's not working when I try to do exactly as he says.
Please, whatever I'm doing wrong, tell me.
I'm not trying to shame anyone. I just want the damn thing to work as advertised.
UPDATE: Okay, so about an hour after posting this, when I was still too frustrated to sit back down and give it another go, I reasoned that maybe it was the 2-point arc tool being used. This morning it turns out I'm right. So, that half of the mystery is solved, but it doesn't explain how he selected the arc tool, to say nothing of simply not specifying which of the 4 distinct arc tools he was referring to. I mean, that's kind of important. How many shapes are there?
Also, the top of the pawn is hollow now, and that's an improvement over the first time I tried using the "Follow Me" tool in order to make the upper portion.
UPDATE II: It's the mid-afternoon, and Sketchup responded to my YouTube comment, but only about halfway.
Het Matt! InSketchUp Free, the nested tools show the last tool you clicked on. In this video, Aaron is showing the default tools (the ones that are available by default when you first start Sketchup Free). In the case of the Arc tool, 3 point Arc is the default, but if you clicked on 2-point Arc previously, that will be the tool that activates when you click on the Arc icon. Your best bet is to start a totally new session of Sketchup Free and try again.
Like I said before about the 2-point arc, he selected that particular arc tool, which means that if he ever goes back to it, that's the one that's selected. Fine, except that's not my problem. Not specifying which arc tool is annoying enough, but he seems to select it without using his cursor at all. There's a keyboard shortcut for the Arc tools, which is "A" conveniently enough. What's not convenient is that he doesn't mention this in the video and I don't even think it's mentioned in another video dedicated to explaining all the different arc tools. Exactly how "Step 1" is this chess piece tutorial? Admittedly, that's on me. I'm hardly a stranger to Sketchup, and I haven't touched the software in a while, so forgetting a shortcut or two isn't Trimble's fault. Known issues, though....
A quick check on the forums also revealed that if your model is too small, Sketchup will not draw certain faces. In my case, because my pawn is small, it puts a hole in the top. Here's where this software starts to fail at justifying its 800USD full version. If I take my model, before I use the "follow me" command to make a sphere and a pillar, and scale it up, it not only makes the sphere whole, but if I then scale it back down to where it couldn't draw the full sphere, there's still no hole.
I'm not changing the number of polygons when I scale it, so why does the overall size matter?
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