Burt's WIP

designerstuart · 4 Apr 2011, 16:08

also, in response to above, there is a mirror command in skp but it's a little unintuitive. slect whatever you want to flip, right click, flip along.....
so to make something symmetrical, make half as a comp, copy it, flip the copy and snap it back into place. now you can edit both sides of your car / spceship / face simultaneously.

bupaje · 4 Apr 2011, 16:52

Ahhhhh! I saw the 'flip along' but didn't think to make it a component - thanks!

bupaje · 5 Apr 2011, 07:08

Actually may be me. I am using an 11 year old system here at home and not sure the monitor is calibrated. Looks normal on my monitor but might be dark. I'll have to look at the image at work.

bupaje · 5 Apr 2011, 07:08

Spent hours tinkering with the Kerkythea rendering engine - pretty amazing. I was just doing the baby monkey turning the dial at random thing. Finally ran out of time so I Photoshoped a quick light sphere for visual interest.

Baby steps.

bupaje · 17 Apr 2011, 18:45

Two more I started working on. Just jumping around trying to get familiar with everything. Unfortunately my pc is at its limit. I tried to render some 3 sided wires on the robot legs using Lines 2 Tubes,but the computer keeps crashing - can almost hear it chugging when it is trying to render them.

bupaje · 18 Apr 2011, 06:24

Poked at this a little more. Think this is as far as I'll go with this one. I want to start over with a bit more of a plan and see what I can do.

designerstuart · 19 Apr 2011, 16:49

nice one burt, i have a couple of tips i think you might like
1 make some lines hidden (entity info box) like where you use two components back to back, like at the feet / knees. hide the joins so it looks like they are one
2 intersect the sphere (select - right click - intersect with model) at the 'pelvis' with the leg bits - this will show the joints here rather than the white blob look you currently have

hope these help - keep it coming!

bupaje · 19 Apr 2011, 18:53

Ah, thanks for that. I didn't quite get the purpose of the intersect operation before. Will get back to work as soon as I get home tonight. Spent last night watching sketchupbasecamp videos - fairly certain I am addicted now.

bupaje · 20 Apr 2011, 06:58

Here's today's effort.

I'm thinking I will render some 3D icons for a small carousel I have on my main page. This will be the 'job page' icon if it works out.

Looks like a simple box but fiddling with this took me about 4 hours.

bupaje · 22 Apr 2011, 07:26

Next effort is to make a 3D store icon for my site. Still squarish stuff but getting practice anyway. I want to add some products, signs and other stuff yet.

bupaje · 24 Apr 2011, 18:52

Trying out the 3D icons with SketchUp idea. Here's a shot from the first 3 on a carousel on my site's main page.

designerstuart · 27 Apr 2011, 15:05

nice idea

bupaje · 5 May 2011, 05:22

@designerstuart - thanks.

Here is my current wip. I wanted to try something a bit larger so opted for a 'medieval-ish' store (the rare times I play a game I favor RPG's with medieval or apocalyptic settings for some reason).

It's mostly square boxes so far but I hope to fill it up with items and texture it so should be a good learning experience.

bupaje · 10 May 2011, 07:01

Still tinkering with this - maybe a fortified tavern of sorts. Making all sorts of mistakes (including somehow deleting - instead of hiding- a couple huge sections). Hopefully that's a good sign.

I hid the second floor for this screen shot - not much to see there yet anyway.

PS. You know you're spending a lot of time in SketchUp when you keep trying to pan the browser window by pressing H and dragging.

solo · 10 May 2011, 08:21

@unknownuser said:

PS. You know you're spending a lot of time in SketchUp when you keep trying to pan the browser window by pressing H and dragging.

or centre button orbiting in Word.

Keep going...practice makes perfect.

designerstuart · 11 May 2011, 11:15

looks like you are enjoying it anyway!

bupaje · 12 May 2011, 06:52

Well I think I am done with this one - not that it's complete. I just slaped on some colors to seperate basic elements. I didn't really start with a plan and grew it organically. Of course then the stairs didn't fit quite rightand there were other design problems - so going to try something much smaller (maybe a single room or elements like a medieval chest or piece of furniture).

I am having fun anyway.

bupaje · 17 May 2011, 07:29

I found two videos at The Art Department Org by Whit Brachna that demo some environmental concept art techniques.

He uses SketchUp to do a basic layout to get perspective, basic lighting and values sorted out. Then he renders and paints over with Photoshop.

(Watching him work on his thumbnails I was reminded of how important thumbnailing can be as he quickly works out 4 thumbs and selects one that meets his criteria.)

These aren't hand holding lessons where Whit explains Photoshop and SketchUp in a step by step way but they do provide a 'live' view of a talented artist's workflow, with comments and some tips.

I just completed video 1, made a couple renders of the SketchUp model I've been poking at and tried a quick paint over tonight.

Lot's of mistakes but here is a relatively quick first effort (might also be a little dark).

I'll start on video 2 tomorrow.

bupaje · 7 Jun 2011, 04:05

Hey. Been a little less active the past week or so as I try to line up some work. I have been trying to use SketchUp to do a few concepts for a Flash studio I use to work for. Here is a monitor concept, a couple of frames of a rotating gold coin (I did 12 positions in Kerkythea but only low setting as my PC went to sleep on the better ones) and a safe. Be back tomorrow to catch up.