Posted by Bryce Stout, Product Manager
I am delighted to announce the (deep breath) 2008 SketchUp Sketchy-Edge Style Building Competition. We thought that challenging you to produce your own unique sketchy-edge Styles would be the best way to really push the limits of Style Builder (beta). In case you missed it, Style Builder is the newest addition to the SketchUp Pro family. You can read all about it (and about how to get it) in this post.
We'll choose ten winners to receive prizes, including a 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator and a bag of SketchUp goodies. The authors of the winning Styles will also be given the option to have their creations included in the next version of SketchUp -- with full attribution, of course. Check out the competition website for all the details.
Got style? Prove it.
Friday, February 29, 2008 12:08 PM
All about EAST
Thursday, February 28, 2008 4:55 PM
Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist
Last week, I spent three days in Hot Springs, Arkansas, attending the annual conference of the EAST Initiative. EAST (Environment and Spatial Technology) is a non-profit organization that works with schools around the US. It helps them implement programs that bring access to technology education to students who might not otherwise have it. EAST students have been using SketchUp for four years.
Most projects undertaken by EAST students are service-based, meaning that they benefit the student's communities. These projects might include modeling the county courthouse in SketchUp for the sake of historic preservation, using GIS software to create maps for local emergency services, or creating videos that raise awareness of important issues like teenage drunk driving. The work that EAST students do is impressive because it's important, and because it's almost always very well done.
The most interesting thing about EAST is that the curriculum is self-driven; students create their own lesson plans, decide which projects they'll tackle, and learn the necessary tools on their own. They're assisted by a teacher trained in the EAST process (called a facilitator), but otherwise, it's largely a student-led endeavor. Fans of project-based learning should be very happy about the work that these folks are doing.
Anyhow, we sponsor a SketchUp and Google Earth competition for EAST students who are using our tools. This year, there were no fewer than 38 entries, and virtually all of them were terrific. Here's a list of the winning students and their schools:
- James S. - Pottsville High School | Project in the 3D Warehouse
- Carlyn N., Brandon M., and Darnesha S. - Henderson Health Sciences Magnet Middle School
- Josh G. and Mitchell R. - Nettleton High School
- Rick M. and Zach B. - DeWitt High School
- Christian K. - Magnolia High School | Project in the 3D Warehouse
- Travis R. - Kihei Public Charter School
I'd like to thank and congratulate all of the students who participated in this year's competition. Take a look at these images of their projects. I'd say the future looks bright for the next generation of SketchUp users.
Permalink | Links to this post |A time for reflection
Saturday, February 23, 2008 1:18 PM
Posted by Tyson Kartchner, Learning Guru
No, not the "deep meaning of life" kind of reflections -- I'm talking about the kind of reflection you'd see in a mirror. More specifically, the kind you might see when looking across a pool or lake. Here's a quick and easy way to simulate reflections in SketchUp:
You'll need a few things to create this illusion, starting with a body of water. In SketchUp terms, that means a surface you can paint with a transparent material. Make sure that you also have a ground surface for your objects to sit on.
- Take the objects in your scene that need reflections and copy them straight up in the blue direction:
- Select the objects with the Select tool.
- Press M to switch to the Move tool, start moving them, then press the Up or Down Arrow key on your keyboard to lock yourself in the up/down direction.
- While still moving your objects, press the Ctrl key (Option on a Mac) to make a copy of the objects you're moving.
- Drop the copies in space somewhere above the originals.
- With the objects still selected, press S to switch to the Scale tool.
- Drag the top, center scaling grip down (see the image, above), "squashing" the objects until they are "inside out". Continue scaling until you see -1 in the Value Control Box (in the lower-left corner of your modeling window). Now the copies are mirrored.
- Select the copies and move them straight down so they are directly under their original counterparts.
Finally, paint the water surface with a transparent material. You mirrored the objects below the ground plane to create the illusion of a reflection. Orbit around to get the full effect.
Extra credit: If you want to take this technique even farther, try this:
Create a large surface (larger than your water surface), and paint it with the same transparent material you used for the water. Create several copies of the new, larger surface below the original water surface to create the illusion of depth. By doing this, your reflections will appear to fade away.
Hint #1: Play with the distance and number of copies of the water surface to get more or less of this effect and adjust the opacity of your materials as well. Below, you can see the effect of simulating water depth in the image on the right.
Hint #2: Remember that if your ground plane is sloping, you may need to mirror it as well. You can see in the example below that I mirrored the entire hill and trees to get good reflections. Turning on fog resulted in a pretty nice scene.
Calling all Supermodel(er)s
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 11:54 AM
Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Google SketchUp Education Program Development
I'm pleased to announce the launch of the Google 2008 International Model Your Campus Competition! We’re back with another opportunity for you to show off your 3D modeling skills -- and this time students around the world can compete. This spring, you (and your presumably equally artistic friends) can honor your home turf and hone your 3D design skills by entering Google SketchUp's 2008 International Model Your Campus Competition.
Simply model your school's campus buildings in Google SketchUp, geo-reference them in Google Earth and submit them by uploading to the Google 3D Warehouse. You may enter this competition if you're a student at a higher education institution almost anywhere in the world. Team up with other students, or take the project on yourself.
The winners will earn everlasting online glory, and will each receive an Apple iPod Touch, a Nintendo Wii Console, and a Google t-shirt and hat. Our panel of judges include Ken Tse, from HKS Architects, Susan Koenings, from Callison Architecture, and Jeff Winston, from Winston Associates.
Entries are due by June 1st, 2008. Check out what last year's winners modeled to get inspired, then visit the competition website to register. The image at the top of this post shows work done by members of last year's Dartmouth College team, who were among the winners of the 2007 competition. Good luck and happy modeling.
Unlock the mysterious power of your keyboard
Monday, February 11, 2008 12:19 AM
Posted by James Therrien, Lead Training Simian
Are you agog over the blazing modeling speed exhibited by experienced SketchUp users? Want to know one big secret of their success?
Stay away from the menus and toolbars!
Watch them closely, and you'll see the sleight-of-hand is in their fingertips; they're using key strokes to switch tools. All it takes is knowledge and some practice. Try this little bit of prestidigitation -- or should I say "sketch-i-digitation". Ouch.
- Create a new file, then use the Rectangle tool to create three rectangles on the ground (they don't have to be the same size). To activate the Rectangle tool without picking its icon or choosing it from the Draw menu, press R on your keyboard.
- Press P to activate the Push/Pull tool, and pull up the rectangles so you end up with three boxes.
- Now we need to shuffle the boxes. Press Space to activate the Select tool, then triple-click on one of the boxes to select it.
- Activate the Move tool by pressing M and move the box you selected in Step 3. Click once on the box to "pick it up", move your mouse, and click again to "put it down".
- Repeat Steps 2 and 3 with another box.
By the way, most modeling wizards get familiar with SketchUp's keyboard shortcuts by means of the Mystical Illuminated Secret Rostrum of Mysterious Runes, also know as the Quick Reference Card. It's available if you say "abracadabra" and look under the Help Menu. On the Quick Reference Card, each tool's shortcut key is in parentheses next to its name. Presto!
One more thing: This Help Center article includes information about setting up your own keyboard shortcuts, just in case that's the sort of thing you think you'd like to do.
Permalink | Links to this post |Use SketchUp models with iClone
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:45 PM
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
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 |
