SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization Beginner''''s Guide phần 3 pot

Composing the Scene Time for action – setting up a scene with Photo-Match Photo-Match works by recognizing foreshortening in the frame In order to do this, there have to be some buildings, walls, or other items with right angles in view All you have to do is open the photo in SketchUp and line up some colored lines with these walls or other right angles 1 Select a suitable site image It can be your own photo or a scene you've downloaded from the Internet If it's from the Internet check first whether it's licensed for commercial use Try www.sxc.hu or the attribution license search on www.flickr.com 2 Don't crop the image Photo-Match won't work unless the centre of the image stays exactly where it was when you took the picture So, some images downloaded from the Internet may not work either If this is the case, just switch to another image and try again 3 On the drop-down menu select Camera | Match New Photo 4 Navigate to your photo and select Open 5 Move the origin point to the corner of a building (or other feature) at ground level [ 62 ] Chapter 3 6 Click and hold the left mouse button to move the grips 7 Align a green dotted line along an edge going off to the right 8 Align the second green line in the same plane but further away from the first 9 Do the same with the red lines to the left 10 Click Done [ 63 ] Composing the Scene What just happened? SketchUp has now created a scene (the tab in the top left of your screen), which you can click whenever you want to come back to this view You have now set up the blue, red, and green axes to correspond to the real world up/down, in/out, left/right that you've captured in the photograph Having done this you can now happily draw away in the scene, knowing that the model you create will always look right within the photograph The depth of field, focal length, and eye height have all been taken care of And that's a big deal, because doing this by trial and error would have taken far more time, and probably caused a lot of frustration! You now know how to take just about any photograph and insert 3D content into it Before the days of SketchUp this was only just possible; but best left to the experts Having learnt how to do it, don't waste the talent Use it as often as you can! Using this technique you can seamlessly fit your models into pre-made backdrops and save bags of time You will come across other ways to benefit from this in Chapter 4, Modeling for Visualization Time for action – 3D drawing in a 2D photo You can now test your new camera setup by drawing a simple box into the scene If this looks right in relation to the photo, you know you've done the photo match correctly 1 Select the Pencil tool 2 Click on the origin (where the blue, red, and green axes meet) 3 Move up the blue axis and click 4 Move along the green axis and click 5 Move down the blue axis, hold Shift, and click on origin 6 Click on origin again to complete the face as you can see in the following screenshot: [ 64 ] Download from Wow! eBook Chapter 3 7 Select Push/Pull 8 Push the face along the red axis to form a 3D box (see the following screenshot) [ 65 ] Composing the Scene What just happened? The perspective of this box should be in keeping with the house, wall, or other right-angled item you included in your photo If it isn't, just click on the Photo-Match pallet, click the cogs symbol to edit the Photo-Match, and tweak the dotted lines The best indication that you're right is when the blue axis lines up perfectly with the corner You've created a 3D box where the existing building is Rotate the view with the mouse to view it Notice the photo disappears? Don't worry, you can bring it back at any time by clicking on the scene tab that Photo-Match created at the start You can now draw or add anything onto this scene; it will look correct if you place items into the scene in relation to that box, as you can see here: Setting up a real world location and sun position The most accurate way of setting up the physical location of the site is to import a location from Google Earth This will set everything up automatically However, you might find that this can slow your computer right down, as we'll see when we look at Google Earth in more detail Another way of going about this is simply to set up the location, date and time of day using the menus in SketchUp If you had previously noted down the time and date you took the photo, you can set this up now too Time for action – real life sunlight 1 Click on Window | Model Info 2 Select Location 3 Select the nearest Country and Location (city) from the list 4 Close the dialogue box [ 66 ] Chapter 3 Checking North location SketchUp defaults to North on the green axis From the location sketch you drew when taking your photo match image, you will be able to work out which direction north is in your scene You can use Google Maps or similar websites to check the site orientation if you need to To change the North direction follow these simple steps: 1 2 3 4 Click Window | Model Info Select Location Under solar orientation check the box show in model Change the angle as necessary by keying in an angle by North Angle You've now set up the correct orientation and geographical location Setting up time and date for shadows All that remains is to tell SketchUp what time of day and date the photo was taken You can do this with the shadow dialogue box 1 2 3 Click Window | Shadows Use the sliders or type in the date and time Click Display Shadows Use this function to set up accurate shadow studies for all your projects Also, when you go to buy a new house you can now check the sunlight each room will receive! What Just Happened? You have now set the location, orientation, time, and date of your site This means that sun and shadows will behave just as they would if you were really there Check the shadow cast by the box Does it match with the photo? If not you may have got the North orientation mixed up or forgotten to set the correct location You can go back and change this now You can also use trial and error on the sliders for date and time to match the shadows in the photo as closely as possible This is the process you would have to adopt when using an image from the Internet because you don't know the time, date, location ,or North orientation Now that you've learned everything you need to know about setting up a physically accurate environment, let's look at other great methods you can use to set up a site in SketchUp Don't forget, even though shadows and shading look quite cartoony now, when you export to a renderer these settings make up physically accurate sun and sky lighting [ 67 ] Composing the Scene Starting with a CAD site plan If you are a CAD user and have an existing CAD drawing, either a proposed or existing site plan, you can easily import it into SketchUp and build up the 3D site from there You will need a copy of a 2D CAD application such as AutoCAD LT or the free DoubleCAD XT, which can be downloaded from www.doublecad.com In Chapter 4, Modeling for Visualization, you will also learn how to import and use CAD elevations (side and front views) to build up the detail Newer versions of SketchUp (free) may have the dwg/dxf import function removed You may need to use an older or Pro version in this case Time for action – setting up a CAD site plan 1 Open the CAD plan in your CAD program 2 Save a copy of the file (Save As) and rename it cadplan_xref.dwg or similar 3 SketchUp can import DGW, DXF, or DAE (collada) files, so make sure you save in one of these three formats 4 Delete all the lines, hatching, xrefs, dimensions, text, and blocks that you don't need 5 You should be left with outlines of buildings, roads, and landscaping 6 Select everything and move it near to the origin (0,0) 7 Hit Save 8 Still in your CAD program, use the Measure tool on one side of a building and make a note of the measurement This should be the measurement in the real world You now have a basic plan from which to begin modeling the environment around your building, and the building itself Now you need to import it into SketchUp at the correct scale 1 Open up SketchUp 2 Modify measurement units if required, using Window | Preferences | Template 3 Go to File | Import 4 Select AutoCAD Files in the bottom drop-down menu 5 Insert and move the plan where you want it [ 68 ] Chapter 3 6 Hit Zoom Extents 7 Select all of the plan and turn it into a group if it isn't already 8 Double-click on the group to edit it 9 Select Tape Measure and measure the same thing you measured when you were in your CAD program 10 If the measurement is different from before, you will need to scale the plan 11 Type in the new measurement and hit Enter 12 Select Yes to change the scale What just happened? You now have the plan within SketchUp and scaled to the real world dimensions This is important as the camera will behave differently at unrealistic scales Also, light simulation in Kerkythea (the rendering software) simulates real world lighting effects, some of which depend on scale Set up a top-down view now, so that you can revert to it later 1 Click the Top View button 2 Zoom until you get the view you need 3 Go to View | Animation | Add scene Setting up a Google Earth plan You've come across Google Earth already in Chapter 2 You can go there now if you haven't already and install it before you carry on in this section Time for action 1 Open Google Earth 2 Navigate to a city you're familiar with using the search function 3 Frame the view you want on screen 4 In SketchUp hit the Get Current View button 5 The view you framed in Google Earth is opened in SketchUp 6 Trace over some buildings with the Pencil tool 7 Use Push/Pull to give them some height [ 69 ] Composing the Scene 8 Click the Place Model button 9 Your 3D buildings appear in Google Earth! 10 In SketchUp, go to Window | Model Info | Location 11 Notice the location has updated to the city you viewed in Google Earth What just happened? You navigated to a real place in Google Earth and told SketchUp to adopt this location This is important because now all your sun settings and North direction are right for that location You also have context both with aerial photography and mapping You may have noticed that SketchUp can slow down a lot when operating this way To avoid this you can take a screenshot of the Google Earth plan, save it as an image, and import this instead Time for action – using a Google Earth / Maps screenshot 1 Make sure you're in plan view in Google Earth, or using a mapping website 2 Hit the Prt Scr key (Apple Key + shift + 3 on a Mac) 3 Open GIMP 4 Go to File | Create | From Clipboard 5 Go to Save As and save it as filename.jpg 7 In SketchUp, go to File | Import 8 Navigate to the image and click on Open 9 Click where you want it and drag to a size about as big as the site 10 Measure the scale key in the image and scale the image as you did with the CAD plan Maps on Google Earth, Google Maps, Multimap, and local.live, and so on, are copyright so the actual image shouldn't make its way into your visual unless you're sure it's allowed under the usage license All you're doing here is using it as a base to model from [ 70 ] Chapter 3 Sketch plan SketchUp works surprisingly well with sketchy details So even importing a rough sketch plan or a scan of an old hard copy drawing you might have found lying around still works well 1 Scan the page (200dpi or 300dpi scanner setting should be ample) 2 Save as jpg 3 Insert into SketchUp and scale as per the screenshot photo method above 4 Draw over as you did with the map or screenshot in the previous section It's surprising how little detail you need to start drawing meaningful 3D visuals Just try now to draw a very basic house and garden plan Scan this into the computer, or alternatively find one on Google Image Search and use that Can you see how easy it is to construct from sketches? The important thing here is that you've at least used something that was almost to scale to start from, rather than just starting to draw in 3D from scratch Fleshing out your site plan Now that you've set up your site base using one of the previous four methods, you can flesh it out in no time This process is called massing The idea here is to give an overall impression of the 3D space that buildings occupy Details can be modeled later on providing they will be visible in the frame Time for action – massing 1 Make sure your base plan is turned into a group so that you can't inadvertently change anything 2 With the Pencil tool, draw over one side of a building 3 Notice how the rubber band turns magenta to lock to the perpendicular (right angle) 4 In this way you can draw all walls at right angles to the first wall 5 Push/Pull the surface up [ 71 ] 4 Modeling for Visualization No doubt you're already a dab hand at creating models with SketchUp's easy to use but powerful toolset But what precisely is modeling anyway? It's any process you use to create objects or other geometry within SketchUp Modeling is the making part of the visualization process In this chapter, you'll learn the extra modeling techniques specifically required for architectural visualization You'll look at: ‹‹ Swapping between low and high detail models ‹‹ How to model detail from CAD elevations or photos ‹‹ Low polygon modeling to increase computer speed ‹‹ Harnessing the power of components ‹‹ How to model the main building features for visualization If you've already completed Chapter 3, Composing the Scene, you will have started your scene using one of four methods, or a combination of these: ‹‹ From a site photograph with Photo-Match ‹‹ From a scanned sketch or drawing ‹‹ Using an existing CAD drawing ‹‹ Using a Google Earth or other online mapping image Using any of these methods will instantly give your model focus and context If you haven't done so already, flesh out your main scene by placing boxes in place of all the buildings that give context but are not the main focus Modeling for Visualization Time for action – creating the basic building shape We're going to create a dummy building within the scene, save it as a separate model file, and then open it individually to start modeling the detail This is firstly a good modeling technique, especially for large or intricate scenes, and secondly will also keep you from being distracted as you work on it 1 Draw the basic outline of the building you will be modeling 2 Push/Pull it to the maximum height (usually the ridge height) 3 Triple-click to select it all 4 Right-click and select Create a Component 5 Click Set Component Axis 6 Set the origin at the corner of your building (see the following screenshot) 7 Set the red and green directions to line up with the edges of the building 8 Now right-click again and select Save As 9 Name it something relevant and suffix it with _LR 10 Do this a second time Suffix the first with _LR and the second with _HR (standing for Low Resolution and High Resolution) [ 90 ] Chapter 4 What just happened? Having done this you now have two versions of your building You'll want to keep the LR version more or less as you see it now, and model the HR version to perfection (or near enough!) Why have we done this? The reason for creating two versions of everything is simple You want to stay as focused, uncluttered, and unencumbered with detail as possible while you're modeling and throughout most of the design process When the time comes to output some great visuals, you'll bring all the detailed elements back in The rest of the time you'll have the LR versions in place Actually, this also makes massive sense due to the limitations of SketchUp The lower the amount of polygons, the quicker you can maneuver around the SketchUp environment (see also the Low polygon modeling section later in this chapter) Have a go hero Have a go now at creating components of everything and saving them as LR and HR versions It will help to keep a folder on your computer called "site components", or similar, to save them in You can do it for everything from buildings and landscaping to furniture and road-signs Mobile file structure When starting a SketchUp project it's a good idea to set up your file structure first Start with a main folder for the project, and include sub-folders inside that for site components, input images, entourage, output drawings, and whatever else you need When you transport your main model to another computer you can then grab the whole folder to keep the hierarchy intact Time for action – swapping high/low resolution versions Now here comes the clever bit! Whenever you want to swap a LR with a HR version, just do the following: 1 Right-click on a component 2 Click Reload [ 91 ] Modeling for Visualization 3 Navigate to the HR version and click Open The scene updates with the HR version instantly If you now double-click on SketchUp on your desktop to launch another SketchUp session, you can have two open at the same time Now with the HR component opened in the second SketchUp window: 4 Modify the _HR component 5 Save it 6 Go back to the original SketchUp window that contains the main scene 7 Load the HR component again using the steps above The scene updates with the changes you just made! What just happened? As you go along you will use this method to swap all the scene place holders you set up in Chapter 3 with final items of entourage (see Chapter 6, Entourage the SketchUp Way) and other scenery Let's think of an everyday example You have a large housing site with 40 house plots Each of these has 20 bushes in the garden, made of the same component but scaled and rotated differently to give an impression of variety Each bush may have (say) 3000 faces, giving a total of 2.4 million faces just for garden shrubs! This is how SketchUp ends up slowing down Right-clicking on just one of these and replacing it with a simplified version (say a box) will change them all in one go and allow you to zoom, rotate and pan quickly again When importing Autocad files, blocks often import into SketchUp as components This means if you have trees and the like, imported in your CAD plan, you can swap them out for 3D versions in SketchUp using the above methods What's particularly good about this is that all copies of the AutoCAD blocks will update with the same SketchUp component so you can instantly turn all 2D trees to 3D in one stroke! [ 92 ] Chapter 4 Carving out the detail When visualizing with SketchUp the great benefit is that most of the detail can be introduced easily with textures and photographs So, we don't need to be 3D CAD virtuosos to create great looking architectural visuals In fact, the general rule of thumb when deciding whether to model more detail is—if in doubt, don't bother! Here are some reasons to be lazy: ‹‹ You can always model more later if you really need to, but you can never retrieve the time you spent if you did too much ‹‹ Applying images and textures will work much better on flat simple surfaces ‹‹ The more complex your model is initially, the harder it is to change details later on Modeling buildings in SketchUp is really easy That's because SketchUp has been developed with the architectural market specifically in mind You'll already have picked up lots of useful tips from the training videos on www.sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html Three ways to model the building Open up your main building file (building name _HR.skp) You will notice that there's nothing else in the scene except for the building We're now going to start modifying this simplified blocky building to resemble the finished article At this stage we really just need to focus on the major shape of the building Often just walls and a roof will suffice There are several main ways of doing this: ‹‹ From CAD elevations ‹‹ From a photograph ‹‹ By eye or measurements [ 93 ] Modeling for Visualization Time for action – modeling detail from CAD elevations Import and scale your CAD elevation using the methods you learned in Chapter 3 When you have inserted it into the model, turn it into a group 1 Select the Move tool 2 Hover over the CAD drawing edge The rotation grips appear (see the following screenshot) 3 Click on a grip and rotate 90 degrees 4 Move the ground level of the CAD elevation to origin level using inferencing: While clicking on the CAD elevation at a point in the ground, move up the blue axis and hold shift, then click at the base of your model as shown here: [ 94 ] Chapter 4 5 Line it up with the building outer edge in a similar way using inferencing 6 Set up two or three elevations using this method so that you can model all sides of the building 7 Select the Pencil tool 8 Hover over the building face Hold Shift to constrain the pencil line to this face 9 Click wherever you need on the CAD elevation as illustrated here Can you see how the line on the face (right) follows wherever you move and click the pencil? 10 Continue to draw outlines of the main features and push-pull, inferencing to another elevation or plan 11 Remember to component-ize or group the main elements [ 95 ] Modeling for Visualization Here's a finished building done with this method, showing the CAD elevations set up at the front and sides Time for action – modeling from a photograph Use this method when you're modeling an existing building that needs modifications, creating building elements that already exist to include in your new building, or to model for fun, for Google Earth, computer game levels, and so on You can use any photos you have taken more or less perpendicular to the building 1 Start with your basic building block 2 Go to File | Import then click All supported image files in the drop-down box 3 Click Use as texture 4 Select the image you want to use and click Open 5 Click on the bottom left corner then top right of the side of the building [ 96 ] Chapter 4 6 Right-click and select Texture | Position 7 Click once on a pin to lift the pin up 8 Zoom in to the corner of the building image and click to place the pin there, as shown in the preceding screenshot [ 97 ] Modeling for Visualization 9 Repeat for all four corners Usually you will need the two bottom corners and the upper corners just below the roof 10 Click on a pin and hold the button Now drag over to the corner of the face and let go 11 Repeat for all four corners You will see the image stretch more or less to fit to the face 12 Right-click and select Done 13 You can now push/pull to increase the building to ridge height 14 Triple-click on the geometry and use Scale on the blue axis if necessary to reduce the height back to normal if this process has stretched the building 15 Draw over the geometry and Push/Pull as necessary as shown here: [ 98 ] Chapter 4 What just happened? You just created the main shape of a building using only a digital photo This is an excellent, easy method for creating simple buildings The big benefit is that textures are retained on the model, making the texturing process easier later on Here's the finished model with no more than some roof textures and windows added [ 99 ] Modeling for Visualization Have a go hero – modeling by eye or measurements The third way to model your building is to draw by eye or using basic measurements For visualization purposes nothing needs to be very accurate anyway Just open up the _HR version of your building and start modeling This method is the reason why SketchUp took off so quickly amongst architects They just wanted a 3D sketch pad! So, have a go at this if you haven't already Use the rectangle tool and input the basic x and y dimensions on the keyboard (x,y) then use SketchUp's modeling tools to experiment creating basic building shapes Review the training videos on YouTube or go to Help | Help Center | Online Tutorials to find what you need Use construction lines Make use of the tape measure tool to set up basic grids or construction lines when modeling by eye Select the tape measure, click a line and then type in the offset dimension to create a parallel construction line Delete them when you're done Low polygon modeling techniques You will already know the basics of modeling in SketchUp If you haven't done so already, why not spend half an hour reviewing the great SketchUp tutorials on the website at http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html These take you through all the main modeling functions of SketchUp In this section, we will look at low polygon modeling techniques that are especially relevant for visualization, animation, and games end uses Did you know? The beginners tip that makes the most difference to newbies is "create groups and components so all your geometry doesn't stick together" [ 100 ] Chapter 4 What's low poly? In SketchUp, everything you create is formed from a wire frame, over which is stretched a skin You can see this process happening when you draw any shape with the pencil tool The lines are the frame, and when a shape (polygon) is complete, the frame receives a skin (surface) These surfaces are actually all made up of simple shapes (polygons) which you can't see Go to View | Hidden to see what I mean Low poly modeling is where you create things in SketchUp while constantly striving to keep the amount of polygons to a minimum [ 101 ] Modeling for Visualization So what's the big deal about low poly modeling? Have you ever downloaded a huge model from Google 3D Warehouse and found SketchUp becomes un-responsive? Low poly modeling makes the difference between the smooth, easy navigation around large scenes and a slow jumpy nightmare That's because SketchUp has to calculate where all these polygons are many times a second when rotating/orbiting a view This is even more difficult once shadows are switched on, because SketchUp also has to work out where shadows hit each polygon Take a look at the following model It's got 80,000 faces It can really lock up SketchUp or at least make it hard to use Removing the foliage shows us where the high number of polygons was The model now shows 70,000 less faces (see the following screenshot) Foliage is often the biggest problem when downloading Google 3D Warehouse models We'll look at purging large 3D Warehouse models further on in the chapter [ 102 ] ... geometry within SketchUp Modeling is the making part of the visualization process In this chapter, you''ll learn the extra modeling techniques specifically required for architectural visualization. .. time You will come across other ways to benefit from this in Chapter 4, Modeling for Visualization Time for action – 3D drawing in a 2D photo You can now test your new camera setup by drawing a simple... Modeling for Visualization Navigate to the HR version and click Open The scene updates with the HR version instantly If you now double-click on SketchUp on your desktop to launch another SketchUp