Hey, guys, I'm Aaron and this is SketchUp Square One, where we take a look at the
basics of SketchUp. Today I want to take a look at a functionality that is part of a tool we have
already looked at. That tool is the Move tool. In the Move tool, you actually have the ability to
rotate through groups and components while using Move. You don't have to switch over to Rotate
if you just want to spin something around. There are a few pieces to it that make it...
Well, let's hop in and take a look. First things first, I have a couple of things up here on the
screen. I have Sumele and I have a group. So this is a bunch of lines, edges, and spaces that create
a box. You can see up here, they are a solid group. Over here, I have the exact same geometry,
but it is not in a group. You can see it is just loose faces and edges. Now,
I'm going to take a look at how this tool works, and then we're going to talk about where it will
and won't work. First thing I'm going to do is, in Select, I'm going to go Pick on this Group, this
box inside of a group. Then, I'm going to come up here and I'm going to hit the Move tool.
I can also hit Control + M on the keyboard, that would work just as well. Now, this functions
exactly the same. We did this function of Move in another video where you can actually grab it by
the edges and do relative move. You'll notice, if you move your cursor in so you're over one of the
sides of the group, you get these little red 'X's that show up, or really they're little '+'s. These
are handles for rotation. If I hover over one of them, it's going to show me a compass in
that axis, and if I click, click and release, I am actually moving around that center point.
If I watch down in that lower right hand corner, it's telling me the exact angle. If I want to,
I can start moving in a direction and type in the amount, like 90, Enter, and boom. There it goes.
This rotate command only works on groups ir containers. What it is actually doing is
rotating the box, the container, that this geometry is in. As you move to different sides,
you are going to move on those different axes.
Okay, so how is that different from using the Rotate command? If I keep it selected and go hop
in here to Rotate, I can do very much the same thing, but Rotate works off of points just like
Move does. So, with Rotate, I am going to come in here and, by the corner, flip it up like that.
See, that's very different from what Move does, because Move always moves off of the center of
the face. The rotate that I use in Move is always going to be in the middle of the highlighted face.
You could get to that point with Rotate too. With Rotate, I could use inferencing to find where the
middle of this face hits the middle of this face, and find that middle-point and now start rotating
around, just like the Move command does. The Move command is going to be faster. Another thing that
is nice is that while I'm in here, I can do that. I can drag it. Move it over here. Rotate it again.
Line it up again with the origin. So I am in Move all the time so I can constantly come in and move
and rotate seamlessly without switching commands. Now, like I said, there are caveats.
When it's rotating, it's basing those rotation points on the container. So, even thought I have
this nice square group here with nice, flat faces, if I go to Move, I can grab it and move it around,
but if I hover, I don't get those controls. Why don't I get those controls? Because it's not
a group or a component. If I want to, one of the solutions to that, is I could temporarily
right click, make it a group, use that rotate on that geometry, and then right click and explode
and that would let me use those commands, those controls, without having actually made a group.
So, kind of a cool little tool that is in there. I didn't cover it when we talked about Move
originally because there was so much to cover with the basic command, that I didn't want to spend
another, however many minutes that was, several minutes adding that on. I wanted to to it justice
because it's such a cool command. If you work with a lot of groups, which you should be doing
if you're using SketchUp, you should be putting things in groups; then using that rotate piece
of Move is essential. It's a great command, it will really help you if you're moving things
around in your model. If you liked that, go ahead and click like down below. If you haven't already,
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