Creating People Components

BigTom

I want to create People components similar to the ones provided with SU. Can someone direct me to a discussion on this forum board. Are those line and flat color components created with SU or from an outside software first? I've seen tutorials on creating "face me" people using photos but I want to create entourage similar to SU originals.

Gaieus

Do you mean 3D people? (note that there are "original" 2D Face me comps by SU as well)

BigTom

@gaieus said:

Do you mean 3D people? (note that there are "original" 2D Face me comps by SU as well)

Not 3d people, I want to create 2d people, like these...Are the line drawings created with-in SU or Illustrator or some other program?

Gaieus

Can you point me to such a model in the 3D Warehouse?
It could be done several ways and I'm not sure how this particular one was made.

solo

They are made with SU, by painstakingly tracing an image and filling the traced parts with flat color, then deleting the unwanted bits at the end and saving as a component.

BigTom

Here is a link to the bonus pack download section for SU version 6 (There is no version7 pack yet) http://sketchup.google.com/download/bonuspacks6.html

I've attached the SU file here as well 2D_Group_Allyson_Avery.skp

BigTom

@solo said:

They are made with SU, by painstakingly tracing an image and filling the traced parts with flat color, then deleting the unwanted bits at the end and saving as a component.

Thanks for the reply, Solo. I was afraid of that - that's what I've been doing but was hoping to streamline the process somehow.

Gaieus

If they are drawn with real geometry (and not images), you can still use some external program where freehand drawing is easier and then import the result to SU.

drewpoeppel

Here is a link to a tutorial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlroywBmCdM

Gaieus

Well, there, the outline is already drawn - and that's the painstaking part in here.

tomsdesk

Tom, I find it easier to trace the image in Autocad (no fighting the inference problems), then importing the dwg linework (image erased of course) into SU to finish up.

There are tracing programs that can create a path that can be exported as a dxf, but I personally found the clean up of such took longer than tracing in acad.

Have fun, Tom.

dale

I was trying to find this tutorial that I did once in which they used "trace contour" in Photoshop then, I believe they adjusted the contrast, did a little cleanup, exported as a bitmap to a cad program, exported as a dxf/dwg to sketchup . It sounds convoluted, but I remeber after doing the tutorial thinking it was quite slick.

Richard

Import photo to photoshop > edit > image adjustment > posterise > lower number of colours,
edit image to paint areas that you just want as one colour,
create masks of each colour and export each as separate JPG,
Get freeware - Wintopo, or use Coral Trace, or illustrator
Import image > auto trace outline > smooth or simplify > export dxf
Open SU > import dxf > combine outputs > clean up > create faces > make face me component,

Sounds like a lot but once you get process going it's pretty quick.

olishea

good idea

cosycat

I noticed that the offline version of vector magic
http://vectormagic.com/home
has a dxf export feature, might be useful if you wanted to do a lot of this type of work.