Street Scene Rendering Tutorial
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I'm looking for some direction or tutorial help on rendering street scenes in SketchUp.
I have been doing all my work in Illustrator, but having everything rendered in a 3D scene would make my job much more efficient.I have played around a bit with SketchUp, but am having a hard time drawing roads / curbs / medians.
I have attached a few examples of the type of work I'm producing in Illustrator to give an idea of the output I'm looking for.
I assume this would be pretty easy stuff to produce in SketchUp once I learn some fundamentals!
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks & Cheers
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Sketchup is perfect for this type of modelling. Something to remember is every element you create is 'sticky' so get into the habit of 'grouping' them or later mods will be a nightmare. You should also familiarize yourself with how layers work... very different from Illustrator/Photoshop.
Tape measure is also a great tool for creating grids.
Good luck, you will catch on quickly and never go back to Illustrator.
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Thanks!
I am slowly working my way through Google's video tutorials..
They seem to be pretty comprehensive! -
By the way, LayOut2 can export to vector PDF. And I have experimented with opening this in Illustrator. So if you need to drop this into larger presentation, or just want to use some of illustrator's brushes, this is an option. I have asked Google to do some under the hood organization of how data is layered in the PDF, so that selected elements to edit in Illustrator would be easier.
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EDIT: Technical difficulties. Give me a few minutes to see if I can get this worked out....... Nope, the forum is too smart for me. Clips my image so that the paragraph isnt too long....grrr. I'll see if I can find a fix for those of us withe "small" monitors......
ok, I made a video tutorial. But if you've never seen me work before, I should warn you sometimes I get a little jittery
So watch the video, it goes by pretty fast even though its 5 minutes. and it cut me off right at the end. I was about to paint the striping, b on accident first. So just imagine me finishing by actually painting the striping white. Then repeating the striping process on the other side of the road. Hope you find this helpful. Its only one method, but its the one I use.Chris
[flash=812,630:1ld9zfdf]http://content.screencast.com/users/clf23/folders/Jing/media/9262631d-8d4b-471c-9f62-4d6ea62a17fe/SketchUp road tutorial.swf[/flash:1ld9zfdf]
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Wow, I really appreciate that Chris!
I have been drawing all the components as seperate objects, trying to align everything is a pain.
I love your technique.. simple, and effective.How would I go about adding a corner into the mix? I assume its just a matter of copying the original shape, pasting it at a new angle, and completing the shape with the arc tool?
Thanks again Chris. Amazing.
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@cartographicgreg said:
Wow, I really appreciate that Chris!
How would I go about adding a corner into the mix? I assume its just a matter of copying the original shape, pasting it at a new angle, and completing the shape with the arc tool?No, then you use the Follow Me tool.
Create your road profile, then draw a path with the line tool which will be a guide for the road. With the path lines selected you activate Follow Me and then click the face of your road profile. -
Nice tutorial Chris
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Chris,
Can I bring in a cross section from AutoCAD, or do I have to redraw them in SketchUp?
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Yes. (at least in Pro, not sure about the free version...)
Make sure that when you import you check the import options (from the import file dialog) that the import units are correct.
Also, before you import a DWG, purge the dwg and place the lines near origin. -
OK, I have the Import working..
but it looks like i have to trace over the DWG cross section in order for it to register as a solid shape, not just a bunch of line segments. Is there a way i can lock the cross section, and trace over it without modifying the lines in the cross section? i cant figure out how to lock the segments. -
do you have an example .dwg you could post? There's a few things that might be happening. If it is drawn in autocad and all the lines connect correctly, then it should work in SketchUp without having to retrace everything. But there is also a plugin called make faces from http://www.smustard.com. Its free and it helps with what you're doing. Essentially you select all the linework and run the plugin and it will analyze your model and make faces where they can go. So d/l the plugin and put in your SketchUp plugins folder and then open SU and try the import again. Then run makefaces on it. If that doesn't work, theres more options to test.
Chris
BTW thanks everyone on the tutorial. I would have gone on and done more, but apparently the free screen grab app I use has a 5 minute limit. I could do another one for how to make and incorporate a corner into your model if you'd like next time.
Chris
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Thanks Chris,
I'll try the "make faces" plugin...
I uploaded a copy of the simple cross section dwg to my server for your reference.
The Follow Me tool is great, and I have had no problems so far incorporating corners into my drawings..
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yeah, make faces worked great for me on your section there. I also like the script from smustard called stray_lines.rb. It goes through and labels every line that does not end at another line. Generally it finds every face that isn't closed right and labels it so you can get in and manually fix the problems by drawing little lines to close faces as needed. That script is also free. And there is one line segment in the .dwg you uploaded that is not closed correctly. So get stray lines and you'll see what I mean.
BTW make faces plugin is in the tools menu once its installed.
Chris
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having a hard time extending this cross section with the follow me tool. The plug in works, sort of...
but it seems like i am missing a step, because i cant push more then one surface at a time, and once i use the make face plugin, the follow me tool will not follow curves?this is my working file...
hopefully Its a simple fix! The frustration is building pretty quick!
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I see that your model is warped a little. Somewhere in the rotation process I'm guessing, you made the profile non planar.
You are right though that push/pull only works on one face at a time though. But if you are followme, you don't need to push/pull first. Just the flat face is enough to get follow me started.
So start with re-importing the profile and then rotating it.
Chris
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It worked, but I had to follow me every single face in the drawing...
I tried to do multiple select by option clicking, or shift clicking, and i tried grouping and making a component.. none of which worked..? how do i follow me multiple faces at once? -
You cannot do that with native SU tools. Push/Pull and Follow me only work on a single face.
There is a plugin by Didier Bur (as far as I remember) however which should do that (I just cannot recall its name).
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Another option is to make a 2nd copy of the profile, after you have all the faces filled in correctly. THen on 1 copy, delete all interior faces, so it is just 1 big face. Then run the follow me tool. Then move the copy of the profile, that still has all faces in place, onto the road. It should al line up nicely and make maces on the front so you can then change the color as you desire. Hope that helps,
Chris
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Also there is a great plugin that will create dashed roadlines along any line ...
http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/em_arc_page.htm ... dashes.rb
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