Sculpting a terrain
-
Ok as Ive said in my first post on this awesome site Im newer to the site but not to sketch-up as a program, I was a student a a local community college for residential architecture (recently graduated! ) so I have lots of experience with Auto-desk type products such as Auto-CAD and Revit Architecture too. My question is this, and its frustrating me to no end on why Im not smart enough to figure this out or that sketch-up cant do what i want/need it to do for me as usual. My question is, is it possible to curve a mesh/topo that is mostly square after i performed the stamp tool to make a flat opening for a walkout basement? right now it is straight up and down to the top of the non stamped mesh and i need it to curve down to a slope in multiple directions and i can picture it in my head, i can hand draw it, and can even think how i would do it with shaping it in clay with my hands but i cant figure it out in sketch-up and Im about ready to go nuts....if anyone as ANY input or advice on this or even just a plugin/script that will let me smooth the curve and slop the terrain I would love it...also if I can have it be something free since this is just a portfolio project Im working on to show potential employers what i can do for them in the best free program ever that would be great...thanks in advance if you can help me out!!!
Here is the attached screenshot of the area on the model Im talking about:
-
Probably the simplest would be to drag the hard top edge towards the right and possibly down a bit to lessen the angle. Then "soften" this edge. Sketchup will retain the links between this edge and the other faces when you move it, so you will get a reasonable transition. A better way is if the landform is a sandbox surface that you could 'smoove'to get a nice rounded transition. Cheers - Mick
-
The retaining wall needs to come out some more, and some grading for drainage.
A layout of basic slopes to work out ideas.
Adding some curves instead of lines and Sandbox "from contours". Still not an even mesh. Needs more detail:
Using another mesh generating plugin. In this case extrusion tools Extrude Edges by Rails
See Daniel Tal's talk (video) at Base Camp 2008 for more ideas. Sandbox is possible but you might need to draw in countours to get a smoother mesh.Also ValiArchitects has a terrain plugin you might be interested in.Instant Site Grader
One thing in making this mesh-- draw the outlining curves or lines through the wall, ignoring one or both corners of of the wall (I figured this out in the third picture ) If you draw your outline to both corners, its gets messy, you can intersect the terrain afterwards and remove the overlap if you need to.
I just realized afterwards that's all patio, like this maybe.
-
Thanks so much I will look into those plugins and work on drawing the contours and smoothing them out to see how that looks, I don't quite need the mesh you have in the bottom pic because that's all supposed to be a flat concrete pad but the idea and methods helped me a lot and I will work on them in the area I need them at.
Advertisement