Posted by Steve Dapkus, Market Development Guy
The folks who make iClone have recently announced their interoperability with SketchUp files. iClone is animation software that lets you compose, animate, light and "shoot" scenes digitally; it's kind of like a film studio that lives in your hard drive. People use iClone to do pre-visualization for live action work and as a standalone animation package. With the new iClone 3DXchange conversion utility, you can combine iClone with SketchUp models -- now everything in the 3D Warehouse available to anyone who needs 3D content. The following video shows this off using a model of an X-wing fighter made by
Use SketchUp models with iClone
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:45 PM
Sticky arrows in LayOut
Monday, January 28, 2008 9:34 AM
Posted by Matt Lowrie, QA Engineer
In LayOut, you can turn any line into in your document into an arrow using the Shape Style dialog box. Here's how:
- Select any line in your LayOut document.
- Make sure the Shape Style dialog box is visible. If it isn't, choose Window > Shape Style from the menu bar to open it up.
- In the Stroke section of the Shape Style dialog box, use the "Start" and "End" drop-down lists to choose "endings" for the line you selected in Step 1. To turn your line into an arrow, choose an arrowhead.
- Adjust the slider under each drop-down list to change the size of the arrowhead (or other line-ending) you just created.
- If your arrow isn't pointing where you want it to, make sure it's selected, then move its arrowhead by clicking and dragging on its green "endpoint dot". Release your mouse button to drop it where you want it to point.
Now here's the cool part: arrows you create in LayOut are "sticky". When you move the object your arrow is pointing to, your arrow moves, too. That way, you don't have to re-position all your arrows every time your layout changes. Happy pointing!
Four days at the zoo
Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:12 AM
Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist
Working our booth at Macworld Expo is always a hoot. It's fun to be among the first to check out the latest Apple hardware (the new MacBook Air is thinner than it looks in the pictures). It's fun to meet Mac geeks (like me) from all over the world, and it's fun to represent Google to such an enthusiastic crowd. But for my money, nothing beats the look on someone's face when they see the Push/Pull tool in action for the first time -- showing SketchUp to folks who have never seen it never gets old.
The Google booth was, to say the least, completely mobbed almost the entire show. In addition to SketchUp, the dozens of Google people working in the booth showed Earth, Maps, YouTube, Desktop and the Mac-compatible Picasa Web Albums plugins. We also told people about Google Mobile (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Search and others) for the iPhone, and gave away socks, flip-flop sandals, patches and other bag-stuffers to throngs of attendees.
This year, six of us SketchUppers made the trek to San Francisco to spread the word. John, Dusty, Steve, Matt and I are trade show veterans, but Preston made his debut in admirable fashion. He stood for six hours a day, four days straight, answering the question "So what's SketchUp?" with a smile and a great demo every time. Thanks, Preston, and welcome to the road-warrior club. The foot massage is on us.
Maybe we should add an Intersect with Dragon tool
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:51 PM
Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist
A kind reader by the name of Zach Mayo just sent me a link to a great video put together by the folks at Lionhead Studios. They make a video game called Fable 2 (among others), and apparently they use SketchUp in the conceptual stages of their design process. It's super-interesting to see how people in the gaming industry are using our stuff. I fully plan to buy the game when it's available (for research purposes, of course).
By the way, if you see a cool use of SketchUp somewhere on the web, please feel free to drop me a line about it. Send your notes to sketchupblog@gmail.com. Thanks Zach!
So that's what the EPX exporter is for!
Monday, January 21, 2008 4:08 PM
When it comes to rendering their models for presentation, a lot of designers make a beeline for photorealism. That's all fine and well, but there are definitely times (and clients) which call for decidedly softer measures. In the realm of softer, more nuanced forms of digital representation, it's hard to beat Piranesi. In the software maker's own words:
Piranesi’s unique ‘3D painting’ technology allows you to rapidly add paint and textures without needing to create masks, and the range of nearly 3000 ready-to-use textures, images and cutouts supplied free on the product DVD enable you to apply a wealth of effects to your illustrations, tailoring them to suit a house style or a client’s brand positioning.
If you have SketchUp Pro, you can export views of your model as EPIX files which you can open directly in Piranesi. To celebrate the launch of version 5 for Mac (version 5 for Windows came out several months ago), Informatix Software is offering SketchUp Blog readers a 20% discount off the price of Piranesi for either operating system. All you have to do is use the voucher code SKUP0308 at the Piranesi online store before March 31st, 2008.
Here's a neat YouTube video that demonstrates Piranesi 5 in all its glory:
Update The 20% discount has been extended through the end of March. Please note the new voucher code in the post, above (SKUP0308). Permalink | Links to this post |
Santa's going to need a bigger garage
Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:00 AM
Having challenged readers of this blog to contribute versions of Santa's sleigh to this collection in the 3D Warehouse, I have to admit that I wasn't sure what we'd get.
About forty-five creative souls ponied up (reindeered up?) a model or two, and a good number of your sleighs are fantastic. This wasn't a competition, so I won't be announcing any winners, but here's a web gallery with images of some of our favorites. For those of you who would rather sit back and watch, the ever-changing image at the top of this post runs though them all.
One more thing: a not-insignificant number of the sleighs submitted came from active members of the SketchUp 3D Challenge. These talented folks from around the world build models every week in response to a different subject -- this week's is to design a Star Wars podracer. If you want to hone your SketchUp skills, or you just want a forum for gathering tips and feedback about your work, you should definitely check it out.
Keep tabs on the 3D Warehouse
Friday, December 21, 2007 7:29 PM
Posted by Tom Stamm, 3D Warehouse Team
If you're looking for an easy way to check out the latest models in 3D Warehouse, iGoogle gadgets lets you add 3D Warehouse content to your personalized iGoogle homepage. We've created three gadgets you can add:
- Google 3D Model Map - a rotating view of the latest geo-located models in the 3D Warehouse on a map
- 3D Warehouse Models - the latest and most popular models in the 3D Warehouse
- 3D Warehouse Search - a quick way to search the 3D Warehouse without leaving your homepage
Check out our Ruby API
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 5:02 PM
Posted by Sang Ahn, SketchUp Software Engineer
I'm happy to announce that SketchUp finally has its own little corner on Google Code. Do you fancy yourself an enlightened Rubyist? Do you love SketchUp, but wish it could do even more? With the SketchUp Ruby API, anyone can write tools that extend SketchUp's capabilities. In fact, we have an entire Ruby Group populated by people who do exactly that, and a whole SketchUp Ruby API blog to which you can subscribe. The brand-new SketchUp Ruby API section of the Google Code site includes plenty of documentation, as well as examples of what you can create. Have fun!
3D Warehouse gets a makeover
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 6:03 PM
Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager
The 3D Warehouse team is excited to announce that we've revamped our user interface. What's new? It's all about networking: We now show you other models you might like, based on the model you're viewing. This makes it much easier to find and explore other models by the same author, as well as collections that contain the models you're interested in. Our new map view (click on the "Map" tab above the model image preview) shows models that are geographically close to the one you're considering. The Tower Bridge in London, this Venetian Bridge and (of course) the MX-38 LEVIATHAN are great examples of models that benefit from the new features.
Update The 3D Warehouse's new look is only visible to folks who are viewing the web in English -- we're working on the Warehouse's other twelve languages now.
Make your own custom styles with Style Builder
Friday, December 14, 2007 9:36 PM
Ever wanted to create your own sketchy-edge Style that you can use to make your SketchUp models look hand-drawn? Now you can! It's my pleasure to announce Style Builder (Beta) for SketchUp Pro 6. With this version, you can use Style Builder to build sketchy-edge Styles from scratch. To get started, you create a template of strokes in any image editor (like Adobe Photoshop), then you import that template into Style Builder. You can use anything to make strokes: scanned charcoal, graphite, gouache -- if you can get it into your computer, you can turn it into a stroke for Style Builder.
The application itself is a plug-in for SketchUp Pro 6, and it's available for both Windows and Mac OS X. It's in beta, which means we'd appreciate your help to get it ready for general release. It's also only available in English for now. For more information about putting Style Builder through its paces, check out the Style Builder information page in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. Also, the SketchUp Help Center has how-to information, and this Help Group is dedicated to discussions about the newest member of the SketchUp family. Take a look at this video to see Style Builder in action:
Update Added links to information pages in French, German, Italian and Spanish.
