As I foresee that we'll get some members here that are going to use SketchUp as their primary modelling program, and as seeing that rwking couldn't get certain things done, I'll post some simple tutorials in here, explained in SketchUp language, so that anyone using the program won't have to figure out what the other members mean when talking things like *Extrude* and *Booleaning*
Modelling a Phaserstrip: Use of the Follow Me tool to make life easier.
A simple start here: a phaserstrip. In essence not that hard, but you do know how to use SU's tools.
First, start by making an arc, or a line, whatever you want. It is this line that our phaserstrip will follow, so be carefull that if you connect two different lines to eachother that they
are connected; if they're not (for example, when you used the Offset tool to create an exact line that follows the outer edges of your hull and forgot to double check if they got connected) SU will come up with an error:
This does not appear to be a valid path. If this error comes up, as said, it probably means that there's a mini line somewhere in between that you didn't select.
Next, start by making a squared shape at one of the line's ends. It doesn't matter if they aren't Perpendicular to Edge; the Follow Me tool will take care of that later on.
In this square, make the shape of the phaserstrip you desire. I usually do this by creating several smaller lines in the shape and taking the midpoints as a basis. By now you should have something like this...
Delete all the lines that you don't need. This is important! If there is a line somewhere in the face on which you're going to let loose the Follow Me tool that connects the top to the bottom, only one part of it will be selected; SU doesn't support the selecting of mulitple faces to apply to Follow Me tool upon, and neither does Push/Pull. So, out of all the lines we've drawn up until now, only the core of our phaserstrip remains:
Now, using the Select button, select the arc that we have created earlier on, and as said, watch out that it's one closed line. If it consists of mulitple smaller lines (for example because you already applied a 3D function on it) this means that you have to select all parts of it by keeping Shift pressed down, as long as it takes to make one big, connected line.
After you've selected your arc, select the Follow Me tool. If you accidentally press the Push/Pull tool, however, you will need to re-select everything that you had selected one step back that you wanted your shape to follow. So watch out for that! The same applies for other tools that need to select something to do something with them, like the Erase tool or the Offset tool.
if done correctly, this is the shape that you will get. Note that this also works on curved faces, but if it's needed I'll show that one later on
