After fiddling around with SketchUp, and with the assistance here of such notable modelmakers as Gerardo64 and jpwade, I got most of the things that were giving me fits about modeling figured out and put together a little scenario. I'm still far away from being able to duplicate real world places but now have a bit more confidence. The model attached to this post is large ( 773 kb ) so the best way to see it from various angles is to click on each of the numbers in the tour folder.

Note that the folder is downloaded with the smaller scout craft checked off. To see the whole image. click the Model subfolder and check as few or as many as you want. If things are running verrrry slowly just check them on at each stop in the tour and click them off before you move on to the next stop. Images below are from the full folder.

Great stuff Hill!
Just like in the videogames!

I'm still trying to work through the basics of SketchUp
I can barely make decent-looking diamonds!

Great Hill!

May I say something to you Mr Orson? Just a suggestion. Try making the models bigger. Go out of scale, a lot, as showing them at high altitude is very difficult at real size (WTB, wich is the "real size of an UFO? ). Specially when making views. I have a problem when the model comes too close to screen (it began to dissapear) I think this could be due to scale.

Regards

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Try making the models bigger. Go out of scale, a lot

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Bigger? I've got your bigger right here. This file was supposed to follow right on the heels of the original post, but cooking and eating dinner, and then watching a two hour program about shipping and aviation boneyards got in the way. So with this slight delay passed, here is a model of the mothership that little old carrier came from. It's actually a smaller file. It also has a tour and if you download the attachment from the original post and leave it activated, it ties in with the Castaic attachment. Below are some views from SU.

the sequence of views are setup really good, though the same here clipping occurs, makes the ships appear to be cloaking themselves .....

i followed up on the suggestion of maybe scale and imported into Su the main ship and scaled it by 4x.

was then able to zoom upto the ship in GE before any clipping started to occur.

then scaled it to 8x and was able to zoom into the ship before clipping occured

then scaled it by 1000x and was able to look out of the windows from inside the ship ..... what a view !!!!

JP Wade

That�s HUGE ! She�s a real Mother...
Burbank: the first abduced city. (Hill, from where are you posting now?)

Hill, nice job with the model. The subject matter is fun.

I didn't see any clipping. What size screen were you guys using? My screen is at 1600x1200, so I get a wider angle view. Maybe that's why I didn't have clipping?

Just for some related fun, check out the UFO sightings database (2.1 MBytes - Large file). Make sure you only turn on one year at a time. Amazing how we see more and more sightings reported every year.

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What size screen were you guys using? My screen is at 1600x1200, so I get a wider angle view. Maybe that's why I didn't have clipping?

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Yes Frank, that would be the reason...I use 1024x768 (17" mon.) and in GE/Options/View I tried 512x512 & 1024x1024 and have some clipping..

Frank,
thanks for the pointer , yes increasing monitor resolution does remove the clipping.

i run at 1024x768, 17" monitor

with my feet proped on the desktop puts me almost 3' from the monitor.

my vision is not what it use to be ....

I don't know if anyone else had the problem I had for awhile. SketchUp models that had imported very nicely at one time would only import as wire frame models when newer versions of GE appeared. So I figured that my UFO's were lost. But now the models download as they did before. That is good news.