[NeoTifa]

Okay, I didn't know where exactly to put this, so here it goes.

As some of you may know, I'm a CAD geek, especially when it comes to Inventor. Given that this software is like.... ~$3k, I opted for the free Google alternative for my personal projects. Now, seeing as how my experience is biased towards AutoDesk Inventor, I seem to be a bit clueless with Sketchup. A lot of the controls work and look the same, yet I notice a lack (or I just can't find it) of a certain, VERY IMPORTANT, feature: constraints.

When it comes to 3D modeling, constraints are a blessing, so why wouldn't Google put them in here? Is there an alternative? Or am I just missing it?

[modi123_1]

Constraints like these mentioned here or something else?

http://www.google.co...9afe311dc&hl=en

[NeoTifa]

Something like that.... ffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu it's not in the free version?! Omg....

So, basically you have to free hand everything?! Holy shit... I just want to make things fit together.... ;__; Like, say, having 2 circles on a sketch be parallel by center points, even though they're different sizes...

[modi123_1]

Yup.. it sucks.

[Choscura]

still beats the hell out of using pencil and paper. What exactly are you designing that needs center aligned pins, anyway?

[no2pencil]

Choscura, on 24 May 2010 - 11:30 PM, said:

beats the hell out of using pencil

Hey hey hey hey.... you watch your mouth!

[NeoTifa]

Lol I was trying to make some designs of my game area. I'm too cool to use that lego software BG was haha. I was creating a throne room and wanted to line up pillars.

[Choscura]

I'm sorry, is this for a scale model, or a gaming table (like they use for warhammer or the grid-lined DND combat system)?

[modi123_1]

Choscura, on 26 May 2010 - 04:24 AM, said:

I'm sorry, is this for a scale model, or a gaming table (like they use for warhammer or the grid-lined DND combat system)?

Back in the day I did this.. Something akin to the Dwarven Forge items... though I haven't done that in a long time.. maybe I should start up the resin casting again...

[Choscura]

I did a lot of this back in the day too, I used to supply terrain to a lot of the big gaming events where I lived. Didn't have a real job and so I did that, it was great, a creative outlet with no overhead that people were willing to shell out money for on a pretty regular basis, although nothing you could live off of without doing things on an industrial scale. I wasn't even as much into the games as I was into making the gameplay look cool... kind of like what my big goals are in programming, come to think of it.

[NeoTifa]

Yea, making scale models I suppose. You can also make L4D maps in Sketchup too. ^__^ I think it'd be sweet to make a replica of my university and use it as a map. I can have a C-5 take us away in the finale from WPAFB.

On a side note: WPAFB was featured on Ghost Hunters last night. o__o My base is haunted....


http://www.wpafb.af....sp?id=123081947

This post has been edited by NeoTifa: 27 May 2010 - 09:36 AM

[Choscura]

Hey Neo, if you're doing the scale models/wargames/RPG table thing, I highly recommend looking into hirstarts, they do molds for plaster casting, and it's exactly for this kind of thing. Like legos for nerdy big kids.

[modi123_1]

@Cho - yeah that's the crap I did.. except I created my tiles out of sculpty... made my own silicon rubber molds and started mass producing resin casts like crazy. Oh them were the days.

[Choscura]

Sounds very familiar, I remember buying big bricks of sculpy and wasting them doing all sorts of frivolous things, I never learned to sculpt in scale that well but I could do skeletons and whatever. I tried casting a few times but I didn't know how to do anything exact enough to get good results regularly, and so I gave up on it and just started 'winging it' with the scenery, which I found more satisfying because I used junk- absolute garbage- and created some really cool stuff with it. I remember one of my early pieces I made out of an old pizza box, a 2 liter bottle, a toilet paper tube, and the bottom of a can. sold that thing for 15 bucks, if memory serves.

[NeoTifa]

I'll just stick with Autodesk Inventor and just print screen it lol.