Definitive SKETCHUP course & From beginner to total expert | Discount Coupon for Udemy Course

HIGHLIGHTS

• Go to the official page of sketchup mentioned during the class

• Within the page we will find different options to download the program

• The course includes the Sketchup Pro options, so it is this option that is recommended to finally install

HIGHLIGHTS

• Sketchup backup files are saved in another file with extension Skb. To use it in case of need, you have to change the extension to Skp and open it normally with Sketchup

• In Preferences_General we can adjust the time that elapses until the next backup

HIGHLIGHTS

• Within Model Info_Units, we can change the scale of our drawing at any time

• It is convenient to work on scales with two decimal places of precision

• If we are going to work in small scales like mm or cm, it is better to work in meters until finishing the drawing to avoid program errors, and finally switch to a smaller scale like mm, if that is what we are looking for

HIGHLIGHTS

The interface of the program consists of the following elements:

• Main toolbar (called large set tools)

• Groups of specific tools, placed on top (customizable)

• Default trays

• Main menu bar, at the top

• Bar of exact measurements, in the lower right part

• Model info menu

  
  

HIGHLIGHTS

• For a good navigation you have to orbit (middle button), zoom (mouse wheel) and pan (middle button + shift or H key)

• If the zoom does not work, you have to put the cursor over some geometry of the drawing and zoom again

• To open an area of the scene I must place the mouse in the opposite place and zoom out. Once I visualize where I want to go, I place the cursor in that place and zoom in.

HIGHLIGHTS

• We can select a geometry by making a box from: left to right or from right to left. The first selects only the complete elements inside the box. The second selects all the elements that are inside the box, even if it is incomplete

• We can also select a surface or edge with a mouse click, two clicks to select a surface and its contour edges and three clicks for a volume

You can download a PDF with all the shortcuts

HIGHLIGHTS

• Objects in Sketchup are formed through surfaces. They are not solid even though they appear to be.

• To get them to behave like solids we will use the Bolean operations tools

• Surfaces have a front color and a back color. You have to orient the front color towards the camera to avoid producing errors in the renderings later

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• It is very important to draw based on guide lines previously

• Guide lines are drawn from some point on a real edge, which is not a vertex

• The guide points are drawn from the vertex of real edges or from endpoints of those edges

• The width and length measurements of a rectangle are separated by a semicolon

• Number of sides directly in the exact measurements bar as soon as we select the tool

• Once the circle has been drawn, that number of sides could also be changed from the entity's default information tray (will be seen later)

• To change the sides of a polygon, the same operation must be carried out as to change the sides of a circle.

HIGHLIGHTS

• To build an arc that is not too polygonal, we must change the number of sides

• The two-point arc is widely used in Sketchup for drawing curved elements

• To draw a curve with continuity, we must look at the colors that the arc tool marks us, to draw tangents to the last curve

• Face styles are part of the default styles tray

• Solid with textures: to see our elements with their applied textures

• X-rays:  we can detect edges and vertex that are behind different surfaces and work with more agility.

• The use of X-rays is essential to draw skillfully in Sketchup

HIGHLIGHTS

• The push/pull tool is the main tool for making volumes

• To make a supplementary extrusion keeping the original surface, you have to press the letter ctrl (win) or alt (mac)

• We can make positive and negative extrusions depending on whether we add volume or subtract it

HIGHLIGHTS

• To move an element you have to mark a start point and an end point in a given direction

• If we want to copy an element, we must press ctrl (win) or alt (mac) after selecting the starting point of the movement

• To make a multiple copy we must make a first copy, and then, without deselecting the element, insert * or / , depending on the type of copy we need

HIGHLIGHTS

• If we want to copy an element, we must press ctrl (win) or alt (mac) after selecting the starting point of the movement

• To make a multiple copy we must make a first copy, and then, without deselecting the element, insert * or / , depending on the type of copy we need

HIGHLIGHTS

• To rotate an element we need, first of all, to mark the plane on which the rotation is to be performed. For that when we press the left mouse button, we must keep it pressed and move the mouse to be able to choose between the different planes

• To copy while rotating, the process is the same as when we make a copy with the move tool

HIGHLIGHTS

• We can scale with the scale tool or with the tape measure tool

• To scale proportionally we must strech out a grab point located at a corner

• If we press the letter ctrl(win) or alt(mac) while scaling, we set the anchor point in the center of the geometry

• The measure tool scales all geometry in the scene proportionally (except external components)

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The order to use the follow me tool is as follows:

1- select the path

2- select the follow me tool

3- select the area I want to extrude around the path

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• To be able to use the solids tools the elements have to be groups

• If the solid is not detected even though it is a group, it is because there is some error in the geometry that we must detect and repair

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• The measure tool has four functions: measure, guide line, guide point and scale (the whole drawing)

• The protractor tool is used to measure angles through guide line drawn with the given angle

HIGHLIGHTS MIRARRRRRRRRRRRRRR

• The application to make presentations parallel to our Sketchup drawing is called Layout

• This application allows us to update the changes in real time in our Layout presentation, when we make changes to the Sketchup model

• The dimensions menu can be found in the model info panel

HIGHLIGHTS

• The axis change tool allows us to place the coordinate axis of the model in the position that we want temporarily

• To return the axis to their place of origin we must press the right button on any axis in a place with geometry behind it, and choose the option restart

HIGHLIGHTS

• The section tool will draw a plane that will extend the entire length of the model, from one end of the drawn geometry to the other

• To contain the section to a certain space, we must use the tool inside a group

• Right-clicking on the same section plane already drawn, we can find more options

HIGHLIGHTS

• The entity information tray is used to obtain information on any geometry of the model: edges, surfaces, groups or components

• In addition to obtaining information, it also allows us to make changes to the geometries, such as changing the number of sides of a circle or polygon, the length of an edge, hiding a group or even blocking it, among others.

HIGHLIGHTS

• We can use materials from: the Sketchup library, from libraries that we have in our computer or from internet pages

• Visit the websites mentioned in the class to get amazing textures and resources

• From file-import-image we can also bring images, which we can transform into materials

HIGHLIGHTS

• We can use materials from: the Sketchup library, from libraries that we have in our computer or from internet pages

• Best textures libraries are mentioned in the class

• From file-import-image we can also bring images, which we can transform into materials

HIGHLIGHTS

• The components are like the groups but as a fundamental characteristic, they allow us that any change in any of them is reproduced in all its copies

• The components are going to be very useful when we work with modular elements that are going to be repeated many times in the drawing, such as pillars, windows, porticos, etc...

• If we carry out material or scale change operations from outside the component, the changes will not be applied to the rest of the copies

HIGHLIGHTS

• The styles are used to configure how we are going to see all the elements of the drawing

• We can use styles edited by ourselves and adapted to our tastes, in order to work more comfortably

• Sketchup has a library with different preconfigured styles

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• Tags help us to order the drawing and hide geometry that we are not interested in seeing at certain times

• Being able to hide geometry will allow us to work more comfortably and will allow the computer's graphics card to move the drawing better when we need it

• We cannot delete the default tag and neither can we delete the tag in which we are active

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• The scenes are used to save a specific view to which we can return whenever we want

• This scene saves information about: camera location, visible layers, shadows, styles and fog, active sections, hidden geometry, and axis position

• Throgh the movements of the camera between scenes, we will make our animations

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• Solar north is placed by default in the direction of the Y axis

• It is convenient not to activate the shadows while we work to prevent the graphics card from slowing down

• Within the default shadow tray we can find more options to configure our sunshine

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• When we search for something in the warehouse library, it is convenient to use the search criteria: by popularity. This criterion will order the models by number of downloads

• We can search for models in the search bar in different languages to have more options

• When we download a model, it should be downloaded in a separate file to organize its layers and correct its errors before transferring it to our file. In this way we will also generate a library of models on our computer

HIGHLIGHTS

• Terrains can be created from scratch in sketchup, or we can bring contour lines from another program and turn them into a terrain

• The tools to create or edit terrains are called sandbox

• Terrains, like the rest of the sketchup geometry, are formed by triangulated surfaces, which next to each other form complex meshes

HIGHLIGHTS

• When we Geo-locate a territory from sketchup, we will do it through Google-Earth and as a result it will load two layers in our model: location terrain and the location snapshot

• The location snapshot is the aerial photo of the chosen territory. The location terrain is a terrain generated by sketchup, which represents that territory and has the aerial photo applied as a texture on its surface.

• To work these lands we must do it with the sandbox tool

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• The Photomatch tool will help us to draw three-dimensional spaces from a photograph

• We will need the photo to have two vanishing points so that the tool can be used accurately

• The operation of the tool consists of creating a scene that positions the camera at the same point from where the photograph was taken

HIGHLIGHTS

• Dynamic components are components with different extra functions such as: scale changes, parametric control, position changes, size changes, color changes, animations, etc...

• Within the component library, those that have a green triangle means that they are dynamic components

• To work parametrically with our geometry, dynamic components are the best option

HIGHLIGHTS

• Animations are created by joining the camera path from the first scene to the last scene

• To control the speed of the camera we must go to model info-animation

• To export our animation in mp4, we must go to file-export-animation

HIGHLIGHTS

• Plugins are small programs made by external developers, which are incorporated into sketchup providing new tools

• The extension of these plugins are .RBZ

• The main libraries to download plugins are: Extension warehouse, Sketchucation and Ruby Library

SOME IMPORTANT PLUGINS

• Rouncorner

RoundCorner performs the rounding of the edges and corners of 3D shapes along a 2D profile, in 3 modes: Round corners, Sharp corners and Bevel. RoundCorner also supports concave corners (always rendered as Round) and non-orthogonal edge faces. Corners can have 2, 3, or more edges.

• Fredo Scale

With FredoScale you can orientate the selection box around a set of objects and interactively apply a number of geometric transformations, such as Scaling, Tapering, Stretching, Planar Shear, Twisting, Bending and Rotation. By extension, some transformations can be performed without a selection box.

• Solar north

Provides tools for you to set and display the solar north an

• Solid inspector

Inspect and repair solids in SketchUp

• Select n isolate

This plugin allow you to isolate selected items by hiding them

• Clf Shape Bender

Bend a group or component to match an existing curve

• Curviloft

Curviloft is a script dedicated to Loft and Skinning, that is, generation of surfaces from contours.

Loft by Spline joins separate contours, open or closed, by smooth splines

Loft along Path joins contours, along a given rail curve.

Skinning creates surfaces bounded by 4 or 3 contiguous contours

• Bezier Spline

Draws a variety of Polylines, Bezier and Spline curves, all in 3D

• Joint Push Pull

JointPushPull is a suite of extrusion tools operating on faces.

• JHS Power Bar

Principales fuentes para descargar plugins:

- Extension Warehouse

- Sketchucation

- Ruby Library

SOME IMPORTANT PLUGINS

• Rouncorner

RoundCorner performs the rounding of the edges and corners of 3D shapes along a 2D profile, in 3 modes: Round corners, Sharp corners and Bevel. RoundCorner also supports concave corners (always rendered as Round) and non-orthogonal edge faces. Corners can have 2, 3, or more edges.

• Fredo Scale

With FredoScale you can orientate the selection box around a set of objects and interactively apply a number of geometric transformations, such as Scaling, Tapering, Stretching, Planar Shear, Twisting, Bending and Rotation. By extension, some transformations can be performed without a selection box.

• Solar north

Provides tools for you to set and display the solar north an

• Solid inspector

Inspect and repair solids in SketchUp

• Select n isolate

This plugin allow you to isolate selected items by hiding them

• Clf Shape Bender

Bend a group or component to match an existing curve

• Curviloft

Curviloft is a script dedicated to Loft and Skinning, that is, generation of surfaces from contours.

Loft by Spline joins separate contours, open or closed, by smooth splines

Loft along Path joins contours, along a given rail curve.

Skinning creates surfaces bounded by 4 or 3 contiguous contours

• Bezier Spline

Draws a variety of Polylines, Bezier and Spline curves, all in 3D

• Joint Push Pull

JointPushPull is a suite of extrusion tools operating on faces.

• JHS Power Bar

Principales fuentes para descargar plugins:

- Extension Warehouse

- Sketchucation

- Ruby Library

HIGHLIGHTS

• To import a dwg file, we must go to file-import and check the dwg file type in the extensions tab

• The dwg files will bring all their layers to our sketchup file, which we must order

• Once the file is imported we can use its geometry directly, or use it as a template to redraw it with the sketchup tools

HIGHLIGHTS

• To export an image from sketchup we must go to file-export-2Dgraphic

• Later we will have to choose the type of image that we want to generate (jpg, tiff, png, etc...), as well as we will have access to configure some of its characteristics from the options panel

HIGHLIGHTS

These are the seven aspects to take into account to control that our sketchup models do not slow down:

• 1. Weight of the models

• 2. Styles

• 3. Layers

• 4. Purge

• 5. Shadows

• 6. Scenes

• 7. Proxies

HIGHLIGHTS

• The two most interesting programs to render when we have finished our sketchup model are: Vray and Lumion

• The main difference at the software level is that Vray will be a native part of Sketchup in the form of a plugin, while Lumion is an external program where we will have to export our skp file to work