An established farmer's house on Abebe

I was fiddling with SketchUp to see if it was a tool I could/would use...

(what a frustrating user-interface, though)

Here's what I've come up with so far for my building. 6, btw, is a special number on Abebe (the use a base 12 system, instead of base 10), so it appears now and then in their constructions.

The room with all the windows, so far, is to be a patio (with roof) for general use.

The other rooms, I've got to decide, but besides kitchen/dining, sleeping, pantry, storage, there will be a workshop and storage for it.

This property will be placed on a large hex-shaped set of fields.

Any ideas, or tips for the noob to SketchUp? Where's my #$@# 3-d sphere tool?

Having used 3dStudio and similar programs in the past, I'm finding myself frustrated with the lack of direct tools and the unpredictability of orientation in SketchUp. It does have some nice features which have kept me trying to learn (e.g., styles, ability to easily create/erase lines/measures etc) - but some of them remain unpredictable to me (e.g., erasing a line sometimes erases the line, sometimes a wall, sometimes half and object...even when the line was a copy and past from one erased successfully in a similar location 30 seconds earlier).

The line properties are probably my main issue as well. If you don't follow everything very closely and remember things very accurately you might try to erase a line and nothing happens...this is caused by two lines in the same place. Sometimes you'll lose the wall (only one line there) and sometimes you'll erase only part of the line (due to clicking more than two spots to make the original line). The most important thing to pay attention to is the white/blue colors...if you see some diagonal funky blue lines and shapes on a white wall then you've got more than two lines in the same place.

As for the building, I think it looks great :)

Thanks for the tips (and feedback)...

I've created a few of those funky goings-on while trying to recreate the front face of a wall I just deleted somehow.

Is there a way to force move to slide along only one axis?

Or to directly see and modify the traits of shape I've created in the past? I know you can type in some of the variables as you create it, but I'm wondering about setting an exact position in space, changing it later (e.g., changing from a 6-sided polygon to a 12)...I want a pop up display I can type things in on.

There's no slide like you're thinking (sliding an entity down a line in a copy paste method). Very annoying since the copy/paste used can be very tricky to manipulate sometimes...once I had an item 20 feet up in the air but didn't notice it until I switched to side view. The way that I get around that is to draw a line directly to a spot where I want the new entity to start. For copying something like a wall this isn't necessary but if you want to place something like a bunch of tables: first lay out a grid (more accurate control of center-point placement), draw your table and put a handle on it (just a small line either on the x, y, or z axis), highlight the table and group everything (including the handle), copy it, then paste it down somewhere, while the lines are still blue grab the handle (at the very end of the line) and move it to where you want it and it should snap into position on your grid, ungroup the table and delete the handle, and lastly delete the grid when done. Lots of work, tedious work, annoying work. The effort is worth it in my opinion but I can be very anal like that when it comes to cad.

There should be a pop-up window when you hover over an entity or maybe right click on it (I forget, been a while); it pops up in the upper left of the screen. I always use it to make sure that my line is exactly as long as I want it to be (for castles I use 10 foot lines and for houses I use 8 foot lines...if I wanted to be really anal I would set the lines for 16 inches plus 1 3/4 inches -- which is how far the studs are apart in a modern wall plus the thickness of the 2x4). If you're drawing out a line there should be a small lil window on the bottom right of the screen that shows exactly how long it is as you're drawing it...you can type a number into that box and the line will jump to that length (just don't forget the ' for feet and the " for inches).

Pretty neat looking (even if you are not toally happy w/SU), I've yet to try it.

Oh well, one of these days.

That's more or less what I've been doing, creating grids of lines and using the move tool with specific points on an object/line.

I want my donuts and spheres though.

Congrats.

I love reading about different numbering systems then our know BASE 10 system.

I am familiar with (thanx to CCNA) with the binary System (or Base 2), so 100111 = 39, and I just finished reading a Harry Turtledove Novel "A World of Difference. The Novel postulates a 'WHAT IF' Mars was a little bigger than Earth, and actually supported life (intelligent life) that was discovered by the Viking Lander.

The Aliens in the Book (Mars was actually Called Minerva in this Alternate Timeline), known as Minervans were not built on our bilateral symestry by rather a hex symatry (so 6 arms, 6 legs, 6 eyes on Eye Stalks, etc). The Minervans had 3 digits (fingers) on each hand and as a result, had a base 18 number system. Thus numbers were expressed as groups or parts of groups of 18's (Eighteen eighteens of men, 9 18's of days, half an 18 hours from now, etc).

The reason I go into this, is there is a reason we as humans utilise a base 10 number system. With 10 digits (2 sets of 4 fingers and 2 thumbs), we can readily count to ten, and then make a mark and do it again. It is likely how we started to learn math. A base 2 number system (binarry) is equally logical (Present = 1, not present = 0), and in the book I mentioned above, the Base 18 number system also made sense. Even though the author never discussed it, I understood. The Minervans had 6 arms with 3 fingers, 6x3=18. Much like our 10 fingers.

So, I am curious. What was the catalyst for your society to have a base 6 number system?

exactly!

I was turned on to the base 12 system in the Frank Leonowski books.

I'm still flipping between having my population have 12 digits, or just count differently using 10....