Baseball Stadium

Box

Lookin good so far.

Just a little tip.
Since you will be eventually creating quite a large and complex structure, you should start to think about the full logistics of the model.
Sketchup can get bogged down as the file size grows, there are various reasons and ways around things but that's another story, so it's worth working parts of your model as separate files and only bring them together when needed.

So take your Bullpen as an example.
Create a very simple bullpen in your model and make it into a component called Bullpen Basic. Select and copy it.
Then in a new file paste it. This gives you the component geometry all on it's lonesome so you can do anything with it. You can then work on this as detailed as you want, pictures on the wall, spittoons in the corner and save the whole thing as Bullpen Hometeam, so that when the time is right you can simply load it back into your full model in all it's glory.

So this might make you look at starting to work out how to use and what to have in your component library.

Coach_Travis

Box - That is a great tip, thank you. I think it will also help with me getting to far ahead of myself. I usually do one component and go to the next. I sure really finish one, like the bullpen, prior to jumping to something else. I think this will assist me in having to go back to past portions.

Box

Yep, you can rough out the whole field but work the details whenever you want.

One of the great things with components is you can simply select them all or some and with one click replace them with something else. Or just reload the changes you made in another file.

Imagine you have 15 seats in your bullpen, you could add an armrest to your chair component in an external file, then go to your main file and reload the chair component and all 15 seats would have an armrest.

Coach_Travis

Box - Yeah I was reading up about components. My big thing right now is V-Ray. I am trying to figure it out. It is not going so well right now.

Box

You really want to get a handle on modelling before you start going into rendering. That's a whole other ball game.

Coach_Travis

@box said:

You really want to get a handle on modelling before you start going into rendering. That's a whole other ball game.

But.. but.. there is no color . I am getting the hold of it already. However, I can bump and render but it doesn't apply it to my model. Would you just recommend using basic textures?

Box

All I can say is, get back to the the batting cage until your swing is natural, then batter's up.
I should point out here that all my knowledge of baseball is from films, mostly bad.

Coach_Travis

I think I got the hang of the grouping / making a separate model. I can edit this model and just paste it back into my main model when I am finished. I think this will really help.

Bullpen Model.jpg

Box

Better than that, you can "reload" a component.
So if you have edited your saved component in a separate file you can open your main file and simply Reload the component and any changes you made will update in the main file.

Coach_Travis

@box said:

Better than that, you can "reload" a component.
So if you have edited your saved component in a separate file you can open your main file and simply Reload the component and any changes you made will update in the main file.

How do you go about saving a component as its own file?

Coach_Travis

Disregard. All I had to do was right click and "Save As". It is always the easy things that trip you up.

Box

I figured if you called yourself Coach then you understood the concept of throwing a hint to help someone learn.

Coach_Travis

@box said:

I figured if you called yourself Coach then you understood the concept of throwing a hint to help someone learn.

Yeah, you are really assisting me. It is so much easier to edit it as a component and just reload it. I am having problems with something that you might be able to assist with. The dirt "box" around the pitcher's mounds seem to be off plane with the slope of the dirt. I can no figure out what I did wrong. Do you see anything, or is it just the program?

Bullpen Comp.skp

Box

You need to model clean and careful, and understand how layers and materials and textures work.
You seem to have created geometry on a layer that isn't layer0, never ever ever do this.
All Geometry is layer 0, I have yet to work out why it is possible t create it elsewhere but it is. Make raw geometry on layer0 and then once made into a group or component you can move it to or assign it to a layer. Layers are only a way to turn visibility on and off.

Use the kiss method until you understand where you want to go.

In this case, layers and materials may have hidden your problem. You think you have joined at the corner but from my quick look it seems you have missed.

If your problem is elsewhere I will look tomorrow.

Coach_Travis

Box - Thank you. I have no idea why I added a layer, I must have accidentally pressed it. I will see what I can do.

Coach_Travis

Box - I deleted the other layer and had everything transferred to Layer0. However, it still seems like there is something wrong with the dirt box around the pitcher's plate.

Bullpen Comp.skp