14.30. Started looking through the self-paced tutorials just now, due to the videos were taking forever to load. Things seem alright so far. I'm learning what various tools do, starting with "Orbit." Luckily, they seem to be self-evidently named, as of yet.

The pushpull tool is exceedingly cool. It makes shapes three dimensional. Well, rectangles, anyway. You can make them wider, taller, shorter ... all things. A handy tool, I'd say!

I had a bit of trouble with getting it to let me carve into a box I'd made, but I'm supposed to be fiddling, and fiddling seems to be effective. I suceeded in slicing triangle out of the cube so now half of it is higher than the other. It told me offset limited to 2.5", and I'm not sure what that means, exactly, except that it won't let me push one plane past the corner. I discovered quite on accident that I can delete faces by selecting with the arrow tool and then hitting delete. I spent about an hour making various shapes and building spaces. The self paced tutorial ran out and I will play with the video ones later. For now, I will explore what the tools it didn't talk about do.

The circle, much like the rectangle makes cubes, makes cylinders. I was hoping it might make spheres, but perhaps there is another way to achieve this. You cannot push/pull a curved surface. Maybe with the clever addition of arcs?

Measuring tool. Handy thing. I will have to acquire plans and measurements from David of the theater in order to build it, but it can be done! I'm not sure what exactly the scale is, here, as it could very well be that the little model guy gets bigger if you have a bigger screen.

Not helpful to making the theater, but I discovered that you can twist things with the 'Rotate' tool. Not that it rotates them, but it distorts them, like twisting a bit of paper (but neater, of course). Upon further study: It actually rotates whatever you have selected. In that instance, I had just the top plane of the cylinder selected, hence the twisting.

Also, you can copy a thing and move the copy hither and yon. The copy of my cylinder is hollow without top or bottom, for no readily discernable reason. The offset tool appears to allow you to make concentric shapes. Also, one can draw polygons and push/pull individual surfaces to make some interesting shapes.

It also seemed wise to flip through the Learning Center Tips. I find it amusing that they feel it necessary to announce, "Do Not Run With Scissors." Learning Center also says you can move objects and attach them to other objects. So handy! It does say how to make a sphere, but I don't quite follow and shall have to experiment. I also do not know what lathed and revolved forms are. I suppose by lathed it means things like turned chairlegs and such. Revolved...not so much with the ideas, that.

15.45. Spheres prooving harder than anticipated. I am hung up on how to rotate the circle 90'.

16.00 Eventually I figured out how to make a sphere, but it warned me about things not intersecting as they ought and to beware of "unexpected results." Not sure what that means. It went more smoothly the second time, although I have discovered, to my dismay, that I am not sure how to move objects around anymore. More fiddling needed.

Spikey bits made. Still can't seem to move things.

...There is a tool called move/copy. This helps. One has to select the whole object, first, but it does allow you to move/copy things! Go me. For my next trick, I shall...um...make a layout of the cats? Tomorrow. Two hours is enough today.

22.40. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to make the pipes, so I can start building my grid. Perhaps it will take some free hand drawing (perturbing, as I only have a laptop, which isn't too good for that, I suspect), but so far it's okay, just making tubes. I still find rotating them to be on the x axis slightly tricksy, but practice, I hope, will round that out. I am not yet sure how to connect them together, the pipes. Perhaps with joints, like the real thing. Must remember to download some new tutorials when I am on campus next!

23.20. It turns out freehand drawing is about as irksome as I expected. Oh well. Maybe it is possible to bend cylinders? That, or I'll just have to get better at drawing straight lines. In other news, I am learning keyboard shortcuts for switching between one tool and another.

23.37. Still can't rotate things on a consistant basis. Maybe Jim will have some insight. Maybe I should concentrate on drawing them two dimensionally? Seems like the point was to make models, but hey...maybe to curb frustration for a few minutes?

QUESTION: Rotation made easy?

PARTIAL ANSWER/Note To Self: it helps to select the thing you're trying to rotate. Duh. That would be my thing for the day, clearly. It now being an hour later and a mere single factoid smarter, perhaps I should cut it out for a while. David gave me plans of the catwalks. Tomorrow, to build! Whee! I have some ideas about how to express where I wanted the light to point. To build the cats, hang the lights, build the stage below, and rotate the light-things to point at the stage. I could colour code them and match them to plain old flat circles on the stage, then. Smart? We shall see. It feels smart, anyway, although it is, admittedly, not all that early in the day, anymore.

15.00. Started building the wirework grid, today. It is extremely difficult to get the measurements right. I am also not sure how to tilt something to a specific angle, so I'm mostly guessing and deciding that it looks about like the plans David gave me. The Copy tool is most helpful. I thought I read somewhere about being able to enter measurements into something to get a line that's exactly thus and such a length, but I can't seem to find where there was any such thing mentioned. I shall endeavour to persevere. Next I will try and make pipes, although that might prove more difficult than I'm willing to play with for more than about an hour or two. Hey, more fun than writing papers! It's possible I'm just having trouble with fine control because of the laptop mouse. Here's hoping otherwise, and that insanity remains at bay.

16.39. I have decided it would be awesome if you could make a shape, copy it, and flip it over, instead of trying uberhard to measure until you turn blue in the face. Maybe there is such a thing and I have just not yet found it? Hope not. Shall feel silly, if so.

QUESTION: A flip component function, somewhere?

16.48. Once I got all the lines laid in, it became a slightly easier matter to make them three dimensional. I am thinking next about how to put this whole thing however high up it goes. 20 feet, I think. Must confirm with David, again. Next, I shall consider building the stage. A MUCH easier idea. I'm making all pipes 2" h/w, varying lenghts.

17.20. I would like too know how to round the corners. It seemed to me that the making of cylendards and tilting them on their sides would take hideously too long, so I didn't. Must be another way.

17.30. I give up. I cannot for the life of me draw a rectangle with any dimension coming even close to two inches. Hence, giving up until I find out how to input dimensions.

15.30 Been working on trying to make a two-by rectangle for twenty minutes. Have managed to make one. Increasingly, I am infuriated. It was not this hard the first couple and seems to get more and more difficult. I am sorely tempted to leave off until Jim can tell me how to enter the dimensions of the shape I want. Perhaps drawing a line on the one 'pipe' will allow me to make a rectangle on the diagonal? Here's hoping. Lo! I am right! Being clever takes too long, with this program. At least it's possible to create rectangles on diagonals, now. I have had to take to being less picky about dimensions, in order to keep from screaming and thereby disturbing the family.

17.00. CORRECTION: It turns out that if you zoom in really close it becomes easier to adjust the dimension of a thing. I'm feeling less irked, having figured out both how to make rectangles on a diagonal and how to have more control over what size they are.

QUESTION: My next question, having drawn the grid (I'm only assuming the angles are correct), how do I put it in the sky so I can draw the stage under it?

I feel bad that it takes me forever to draw anything in here, but hopefully with practice I shall become faster. Perhaps instead of trying to make it float I shall practice making elipsoidal lights. I bet I could actually draw all the components.

QUESTION: Somewhere it said how to change the scale. I can't remember how, alas. I suspect it of being unimportant, except Da asked how much of this material is printable. None?

18.00. After a short break and success more or less constructing Marlboro's grid (sans actual catwalks, as I am not feeling up to remembering how they attach to the pipework) I shall attempt the Actor's Guild Theatre Grid. As that's an actual grid, I anticipate greater deftness. It occurrs to me that I don't know any of the measurements. I will write to Sam and ask. In the meantime, to draw a grid! Wheee.

This time, I am experimenting with making round pipes. So far it goes okay.

NOTE TO SELF: Remember to select the thing you're trying to rotate. It's much easier, that way. The rotate tool is still awkward.

Note On Dictating Dimensions: Pick tool you want, drag out something near where you want, type out its dimensions, sans clicking anywhere else first.

Notes On Rotation: Escape key to start over. Click and hold down to pick axis of rotation, dragging to a new location. Click to give starting spot, click to give rotation. Possible to type in angle of change.

Libraries - Components can be downloaded.

Must add unit of measurement or it gets upset. (feet - ', inches - ")

Ask Google about things that suck.

In class: we figured out how to type dimensions: just type 'em.

We also figured out how to change the angle of the rotation protractor thingy: click, hold down, drag to pick the rotation axis.

15.30. Next step - catwalks. two foot wide platforms hanging about even with the pipe-system. Perhaps to rebuild using round pipes? To consider, now that I know how to dictate angle of rotation. This leaves rectangles freed up to represent things like the strips into which things get plugged. Perhaps it would be wise to go up there and take a tape measure and notebook. In the meantime, I will make it up and say, should anyone ask, "Ideally, it would be like this. The truth is, it's not, alas, but ideally? Well, that's what digital rendering is for. "Idealism." Is it not? I played with this for about half an hour before going home, at which point I discovered I couldn't keep my eyes open.

21.00. The new dimension skill? Very neat. I shall attempt to create the Actor's Guild Grid, although frankly, it will be an aproximation. Then again, who's going to go out there and check? When Sam writes back I can make a more realistic drawing.

QUESTION: Is there a way to draw a grid sans laying in each line? I would be surprised, but it would be a neat discovery.

QUESTION: What is it, exactly, that the offset tool does? I shall look this up later, I think, but when I tried it on the rectangle it made an arc where I clicked, expecting it to make a concentric rectangle with the aim of making a grid, but it didn't work out that way.

21.30 After some experimenting, it turns out that a) it made an arc because I had circles on the corners of the grid I'd originally poked at and b) that I suspect I could use it to make a grid but it will take some calibrating in order to figure out how it works, exactly, like at what point does it decide to start drawing the offset shape. It will also be good to use this to make Marlboro's stage and seating.

21.34. I think entering a distance only tells it how wide to make the offset shape.

21.40. Note To Self: Entering measurement of a circle is the radius, not the diameter. I think this is okay, as the pipes probably aren't two-inch EXD anyway, and this is a notional grid. This is merely good to note.

21.46. Note To Self: The Rotate Tool doesn't like you to tell it degrees, the apostrophe being exclusively for declaring feet, not also to be used for degrees, which is sometimes the case. At the moment, I am trying to get it to rotate in only one direction instead of 90'up/down AND some other number of degrees right or left.

22.00. I notice that my handy-dandy information bar notes, "Hold Shift To Align to Face." Not sure what that means, yet, but I thought I'd write down that it said so. Also, triple clicking selects the whole object.

22.30. Making rectangles on top of which I will build pipes to make the grid. Four foot squares sounds about right. Nice and orderly.

10.00 It occured to me just now that I'm going to have to build the whole theatre. I had lights not just in the sky but in the audience and on the stage. I am eager to see what they put in the expansion of stage/film components.

14.00. Picked up playing with the grid again, after discovering difficulty concentrating this morning.

14.30. Mysteriously can't get the pipes to lay flat. Perhaps I should try to build it vertically instead of horizontally! I'll try moving the pipes off the framework for the grid, laying them down, and then moving them into place. Stupid picky rotate tool. Gr. (Not that this is an educational statement; just what I'm up to this afternoon.)

14.50. Sometimes you can get the protractor to draw a line on which you can align the thing you're trying to rotate. It's a shame I haven't figured out how to make it simply snap to where it belongs, but this is helpful enough to keep frustration at bay.

15.30. Severely frustrated with tools that seem to insist on jumping around and a lack of mouse around here (I can't find drivers for it; curses.) I've started over. We'll see if I can make it work more smoothly. Practice, right? Not productive, but I suppose I'll get around to productive later.

13.30. I have decided to stop waiting on Sam and will make a notional Actor's Guild Theatre. I do have sketches of what it generally is shaped like, just no numbers about how large it is. Ultimately, I have decided the largeness is totally insignificant. The point is, of course, that if I wanted to, I could make it to exact match. On that note, I have begun attempting to create a space into which to place my grid. I have some trepidation about navigating this space on as small a screen as Snark's, but I'll deal, as this is the tool I have and I would be floored if someone were interested in helping me upgrade tools at this late date.

QUESTION: Is there a tool that lets you shrink things?

Doing this according to my immagination is harder than I want it to be. I keep trying to remember how big the actual space is. It turns out I have no idea how big more than about three feet is. Problem, no? I'm using my living room to provide a three dimensional ruler kind of thing.

14.27. The polygon tool hid, but is located under the Draw list. It's not up near circle and rectangle and line, as one might think. This is perhaps because I haven't closed the program in a while?

15.26. QUESTION: What is "offset limit," I wonder?

15.32. Building spaces? Way easier than building grids. I think it likes working in blocks better than lines. Understandable. I am also not a big fan of straight lines. Poor computer.

15.50. I tried for a while to give the walls depth (a wall is four inches thick, etc) but I am not sure this is fruitful, as the push/pull tool seems disinclined to make prisms, at the moment, just to push a selected plane in or out according to its outline. As this is not what I want, I have given up on that project for now. Perhaps I shall return to it later.

16.20. I am considering building the whole building, but I think that might be a little excessive. The small room near the open side of the theatre is the back stage area. The other one is a staircase and small landing. I am not quite sure how to go about building this, and if it's even necessary as you can't see in there unless I delete the ceiling. I should like to, but perhaps after I have suspended the grid and added some instruments? In other news, I am pleased with myself.

16.30. ...I discovered, much to my alarm and extreme dismay, that saving as a component means you can't ALTER anything about the component. Hence, NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT DO THAT until you're REALLY SURE you're done tinkering with it. ...now would be a good time to swear. First, though, I will see if there's a way to unsave-as-component.

16.36. Apparently not. Hence: !#&*@^$(%#&$&^k. When it asks if you want to open the auto saved version, ALWAYS SAY YES. I just deleted three hours of work...fuck. For future reference, either upload to the site every time I do something different, or save the effing thing more often. Oh well...at least now I get to go back and make the seating right. Hopefully it takes less long, this time.

17.00 It did indeed go faster this second time, due probably to not having to make the whole thing up as I went along. Thank God (and my good memory!)

17.30 I think dealing with the fact that walls are without dimension is going to be good for my soul. Doorjambs will likewise just have to deal with being flat. Maybe someone has made a "molding" component or something that I can add for making pretty's sake. I wish it wasn't so, because it tasks me, but it's something I'm willing to ignore, for now.

17.45. Moved the grid in, having given up on making the walls three dimensional. Saved and moved on to fooling with making a light. I am not sure whether I will make a light or a shape representitive of one kind of light and another I suppose it depends on how patient I am feeling with making light-shapes.

18.30. Clearly, I have not mastered rotate. I would be more inclined to practice if it wasn't so extremely frustrating. I am also not sure how to convince it to move straight up. This would be me, fuming. Wiggling the mouse about doesn't help, it just, as Jim says, doesn't like me. Perhaps I will go hunt around Google and see if someone else has made lighting instruments. I think there must be some way to make a surface curved without it involving making a sphere you have to then pare out of the shape you want it to intersect.

18.40. Apparenly, if you can't figure out how to get the one circle DIRECTLY above the other, it makes an egg shape. Joy.

Note not related to time spent working: QUESTION: Is there some way to type in on what alignment you'd like the object to rotate, such as along the red or green axis?

NOTE: Write to Plans and Maintenence - need plans for the Whittemore. Sooooon. Plans, elevations. Preferably things with numbers or at least a scale. Why the devil is finding blue prints such a pain?

22.00. Decided to play with textures a little bit, just for kicks. I discovered that you can change the tone of wood, for instance. VERY neat! (No, the 40's can't have their slang back.) Is there a way to make lens shapes? Curiosity strikes! I cannot deduce a way, but it would be nice to actually create the lighting instrument, if for no other reason than to show people a section in three dimensions.

10.30. Haven't worked on this in a while, due to a continued lack of response to my query regarding blueprints for the Whittemore. In the meantime, I will continue to play with making a sphere. According to the Learning Tips thingie, I am still not using Rotate to its most efficient, easy capacity. This frustrates me. I would like very much to make lenses so I can build actual instruments, but I would be surprised to discover this is either possible or a productive use of my time. Hence, also am I at a loss for what to do next.

10.45. Discovered that intersecting circles make a donut shape? Not what I was hoping for. Next, some research regarding how to make lens shapes. Surely other people have wanted to do that.

11.00. It said something about Warning: The Followme Path you have chosen does not begin or end on the extrusion something or other. The warning disappeared too quickly for me to flash memorize every word. I think the end had something to do with, "Unexpected results may occur." I have made another donut. Whee. I still find the rotate tool to be infuriatingly vague.

11.15. "Cannot extrude curved survace." Where did my prepositions go? Russians have been here.

11.30. Fiddling around with Vectorworks for a few minutes in an attempt to get the blueprints out of that program (where they've been put by the fellow who gave it to me) has pointed out to me how very, very handy the measuring tool is. He's got them drawn in component bits...

QUESTION: Can I export this file to Sketchup? ANSWER: Probably not, sans about $500. That would be cheating, anyway, I guess.

12.00. Trying to translate from VectorWorks into Sketchup is proving difficult. I have gone on a search for blueprints. Dan Cotter?

12.30. Incidentally, no luck finding anything about making a lens, something at which I have been picking off and on all morning.

16.30. Found directions for drawing "bowls" or "domes." I suppose, this being a more domestic than technical program, it follows that I should have been looking for that, as opposed to lenses, no?

Note: Should have written down that website. Will find again after being done being frustrated with dial up.

18.00. I was given drawings of the Whittemore as it was when it was built. Or at least as it was intended. This is good enough for me to at least begin. Unfortunately, they're only plans, no elevations of the insides, yet, but this, too, shall pass, I believe. I suspect the lobby didn't turn out quite as it was orignially drawn, nor the workshop area, but that's not hideously important to laying out shows INside the theatre space. Here we go!

18.15. Drawing on a particular diagonal is a pain. The Whittemore is rather an inconvenient shape to create out of rectangles.

19.00 I am certain I am getting all the angles wrong, and I have no idea how to fix it. Irksome.

19.15. Somthing is hideously wrong and I cannot fathom what. Perhaps my drawing is messed up, perhaps I am not as adept at making spaces as I'd hoped I was. Either way, I'm knocking off for the night; hopefully Jim will have wise ideas later. On the other hand, it's nice to know they haven't always been known as Voms. 'cause that's icky.

20.00 Having returned after a brief break, I found sections of my model-in-progress highlighted in strange colours. As I do not know what started this, I don't know if I'll be able to reproduce it. I thought I'd note it, in any case.

20.24. The drawing I have looks totally different than the drawing I'm making.

QUESTION: Is there a protractor to measure angles with? Perhaps that would make me feel better about the lack of accuracy I am able to attain with this irregular shape. Is it easier in other CADs, I wonder?

21.20. Took a break for an hour. Started over, different approach. Started with a large rectangle and will carve bits out until I have at least the stage space built. The rest can come after, when I find either elevations or more patience.

8.30. I have discovered that you can draw dotted lines with the measuring tool. This is much less irksome than trying to draw everything with actual lines, as measured-lines seem mysteriously easier to control. How about that? I started over at some point yesterday and am happier with the result, although will probably upload it under a different title - Attempt v2 or something. I don't have the orignial attempt saved on Snark, but I'll survive, it being on the handy-dandy site and all.

9.05 Have I mentioned in the last four lines or so that I HATE the rotate tool? 'cause I do. A LOT. I really want a protractor tool that will measure the angles I have.

Notes for next time - smoothing over relations with the rotation tools. Continue to work on Whittemore. Peruse more tutorials, so I can see what's in them so I can see which ones will be helpful. Save tutorial work and post, also screen prints for Jim. Find a protractor. Also, might be smart to start with outside walls and work inward instead of with stage out; outside walls out is what I did with Actor's Guild.

16.30. I am taking a look at the tutorials, of the video sort. It says, "Use the tools you know to make a simple object." I'll make one as they show and save the file under "Tutorial 3" due to tutorials one and two didn't say anything I didn't know, yet. I discovered, in following their instructions, that you can push/pull things right into oblivion. Neat!

16.45. They did something to make the arc taller that I didn't follow and can't seem to simulate. "Cannot push/pull curved surfaces." Watched the tutorial bit again, and it was "MOVE" not "PUSH/PULL". I feel clever!

17.00 The rotate tool stops every fifteen degrees if you move it slowly! I don't know how helpful this will be but still, good to know. I went to use the rotate tool and the thing they claimed would happen didn't. I am...not amused.

17.15. Turns out it's another MOVE tool thing. Some experimenting with how to move things, which seems fairly striaght forward. Move a thing by clicking on the point from which you want it to move and to the point at which you want it to settle. If an object, that is the object that will move even if you start moving from a different object.

17.30 by the way: http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=39070&topic=9050 - To Draw A Dome. Some brief experimentation before headachely ick drew a close to today's experiments.

17.00. I've been reading through the SketchUp User's Guide, due to a lack of tutorials and not being sure if I was to go through the video ones and save the file to wiki every time it paused and suggested I do something or other. Also, the video tutorials take forever to load at my house. Apparently, there is in fact a protractor tool, although I have never found it among the tools of my version of sketchup. Also it says there's a newer version to download if I want.

Protractor is located under the tools menue, it turns out, and I now feel rather foolish for not having noticed before, in spite of wondering if there was such a tool. Well, now I know, no? I cannot remember why, exactly, I wanted a protractor, but it's cool to have anyway. The user's guide is not useless!

18.00 Just out of idle curiosity, I checked to make sure I can print things out of SketchUp. It would be silly not to be able to, but it's good to be reassured (via the FILE menue) that you can, indeed.

18.10. I notice that you can change the orientation of the axes in your drawing. I cannot think why one would like to do this thing, though. You can also add text, and that, at least, does make sense as a thing one might want to do.

16.45. Started working on making the Whittemore. Just a time-marking note, this one. Taking Jim's advice about making intersecting rectangles.

17.00 Attempted to create rectangles on top of rectangles...bad plan. I start over and make the workshop and then move on to make the "theatre rectangle," as I have dubbed it. Then I shall move it INTO the workshop area. Soon, I shall have to see if I can force the rotate tool to obey me. ...Here's hoping.

17.22 Adding rectangles works better, but there are now many many lines and I am not sure which I need to keep. I'll look for a tool that makes them dotted, which would be ideal, or one that makes them ...um... a different colour? Thinner? I don't know.

18.00 Break for dinner and a class, and I am having only marginal success with the floor plan, mostly due to being hung up on geometry. I'll try again more tomorrow.

12.20 I think my chief problem is not in the making of appropriate rectangles but in figuring out how to carve the correct shapes out of them. I am hopeful that it will become easier with practice and a certain amount of judicious rectangle-drawing on the drawing I am attempting to copy. Tools are not, at the moment, a problem, and yesterday's rotation experiment seems to have worked out alright. Having a protractor in my hand makes me feel better; whether or not it's actually going to be enormously helpful remains to be seen, but at least I know things now, right?

12.28. It's also possible that the thickness of walls is throwing off my measurements, somewhat. I am not sure how relaxed it's okay to be about that. At the moment, I am attempting to ignore it, but I thought I'd note that it's an issue that's come up. In Vectorworks, I think there is a way to make walls, with a thickness and all. A way to do this in Sketchup, perhaps? It would be convenient, if not necessarily necessary.

12.40. To my delight, I have used the protractor and the measuring tool to create a right triangle, as opposed to the equilateral one offered by the Draw Polygon Tool. This means it will be much easier to cut corners off my rectangles to make the irregular shapes of Whittemore. Delight! For protracting, you pick your line of 0' and type in the angle you want, hit enter, and it draws a line for you. I am somewhat fuzzy on what, exactly, I did to get my 3' hypotanuse, but it didn't involve fancy geometry. I'll take better notes when I make the next one. On another bright note, not only did my 45' marks for the corner cutting of one rectangle (a storage space I am not even certain exists) cut that corner, they marked the line on which the next rectangle, the "God Platform" space, goes. How convenient! Perhaps this building was constructed with a deliberate plan after all.

13.00 Unfortunately, I seem to have made a mistake in my measurements, somewhere, and now things seem slightly...off. By about two feet from one side of the space to the other. I find this bothersome and am considering starting over. Since I am now more comfortable with the tools and would like to get this right, I imagine that after lunch this is, in fact, what I shall do. It would be easier than trying to correct everything. To be more careful, this time.

14.00. Half an hour break for lunch and repositioned the bulk of the outer walls. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to build the lobby space. Next, to create those notional-storage-spaces! Hurrah. I think I might like to use this program to try and construct the set for Midsummer. Perhaps a final glorious (derranged) project?

14.20. About the right triangle: made my right angle, via rectangle tool. Made my 45' marker via setting the protractor tool in the corner and drawing up along one side of the rectangle; type 45, hit enter. Next, draw a line half the length of the hypotunuse. Set protractor tool at the end of the line. pick a point parallel to one of the face-lines of the rectangle. Enter 45, hit enter. Voila! Right traingle. Finish drawing in lines; go me!

NOTE: I'll have to look through the user's manual for a flip too. Probably by clever use of Rotate, achievable.

14.30. I am finding that using lines is easier than drawing whole rectangles and rotating them. Just a by the way sort of note. Upon further reflection, this is not actually a necessary thing at this juncture.

15.00 I have run into a problem trying to construct the internal architecture. Instead of stressing about it, I will start on some other piece.

It's been a while since I wrote anything here. Mostly, I've been busy using skills I already feel comfortable with, rather than figuring out new ones. I finished the Cahtolic School Girls thing as much as I intend to. Now, at Jim's repeated insistance, I took a look at the Photo Match tool, instead. I scanned the copy of the Whittemore floorplan I have and looked at the Photo Match Help in SketchUp Help Center. They're talking, it seems, about photos of three dimensional objects. Lacking such a photograph, I suppose I'll just attempt to trace over everything that's there, instead. I'm not convinced that will go well, but that is the plan. Start time: 13.30.

Note: 14.00: It turns out that keeping everything on one plane while trying to copy over all these lines is surpassingly difficult. I wonder if there is some way to restrict on what plane you're drawing. Unfortunately, I can't think how to word that question so that Google understands it. It shall remain mysterious and instead I'll attempt to remedy the situation by turning the camera to a top-down position and drawing in that fashion. Incidentally, I've had to restart due to the discovery that my previous outlining attempts were all on anything BUT the floor level.

Note: 14.10: Top down view gets rid of the picture I'm trying to trace. Next, to look for a way to rotate that.

14.20: Nope. And Lo! I was right. Not helpful. I can't rotate the picture to be on the xy plane. In fact, I can't select it at all, not even to move it out of the negative planes. Apparently, it's just a red-outlined background piece. I'll try with a different photograph, but I'm not long on hope that it will be particularly productive. I will also attempt to acquire sketchs of the set and use Photo Match on them.

Time At which I got frustrated and moved on to another project: 18:00. Noting specific to note, just practice. It adds up.

8:30. I lament the lack of new things to note...perhaps I'm coming near the end of the rope? I also, therefore, haven't been as good as I was about noting the actual time spent working in SketchUp.

Jim and I explored the photo-match tool a little bit, last week, and determined that it is tricky and not quite spot on. Google claims this is because of the fish-eye effect lenses impart to their subject. Jim says it's because his house is not square. It's a shame you can't seem to build not square things. In fact, last night I noticed an extreme prediliction toward making things square. So intense, in fact, that it was frustrating. There is almost nothing square about the Whittemore but Sketchup tries very hard to guid you in the squared off direction with its snap points and suggested guide lines. It was nearly enough to make me want to give up on the whole project. I was unable to find anything that said I could turn that feature off. I do like it when it points out the green and red axis, but I would rather it not try and force my lines in one direction or another.

On the other hand, we turned the scan of the Whittemore plan into a background via the "Add Watermark" selection in Styles, under Window. I had intended to draw with the Blueprint style. It occurs to me, just now, that perhaps the lack of axis markers will prevent it from jerking me around about where I lay my line. Of to the testing realms!

Well, that didn't work. On the other hand, I am enjoying the look of the Blueprint style. I think it's going to remain slightly off no matter what I do. Perhaps this is one of those things I just need to put my head down and get over. I found a thing called, "Guides" and turned it off. We'll see how that works. Infuriatingly, that, also, did not help. The more lines I draw, the worse it gets. This makes it surpassingly difficult to remain interested in drawing.

Jim suggested blowing up the image I'm tracing. I can only blow it up a little bit before it goes off the edges of my board (due to my reduced screen size? I don't know) but we'll see if that helps enough to let it go. I am wondering how to rescale it all, or if I should just mention that the scale is thus and such.

Lately, I have been picking at things in half hour chunks. I know I'm being graded on how long I spend on this, but I can't remember. 6 hours? 8? Anyway, it seems like a long time to me. I've been creating an idealism, a fantasy, of the set for The Forest. I know it didn't look nearly as cool as SketchUp would have you believe, so when I included a still of it in my paper, I wrote, "Idealism of The Forest," It's a paper about dreams, so why not? Anyway, arcs to create the appearance of a spider-web like covering on the squarish set pieces and to attach "rope" to the sky like it was. It's hard to get them to look as though they're hanging "down" from all angles, but do able by simple dint of trying it until you're happy. I also added the grid. I had considered drawing also the catwalks, but it's beginning to look a little cluttered, perhaps due simply to the size of my screen. Hence, no catwalks, just the pipe system and a few of my rope/arcs leading up to it. Having shown the model to a few laymen and gotten good responses, I am confident it's now okay to be happy with it.

I'm also enjoying the layers option; switching from one set to the other is much easier when it's just the click of a button involved! It's also allowing me to assign things to layers as I add features by dint of turning everything but what I just drew off and then being able to select en masse instead of trying to guess which of the myriad lines was just added, or to find out if I missed one. I have a layer called Ropes and Burlap and when I add a new arc to indicate cloth, it tends to want to consider itself part of another layer. I am not sure why. Perhaps it has to do with what you've selected as the active layer?

The time I spent this week and last feels somewhat like cheating to count. I was mostly tinkering, honing, and fussing. I guess honing a skill counts as a worthy endeavor, even if I didn't necessarily learn anything shiny and new. Rotating things is getting easier, if not necessarily to execute, at least to eyeball to my satisfaction.

http://cs.marlboro.edu/ courses/ spring2007/tutorials/ kat/ diary
last modified Sunday April 22 2007 11:10 pm EDT