Recommended Book: 3D Construction Modeling
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I posted about this book on the "Getting Started" thread -- but not much traffic there lately.
Because this book was so HELPFUL for me in learning Sketchup I thought I'd start a new thread.For me, the best way to learn is by actually doing the thing you want to end up doing. By that I mean, not practicing only -- but doing it.
So, if you want to bake a cake, you would learn by baking cakes.
You could practice measuring flour and milk into measuring cups.
You could practice turning the oven on and off.
You get the idea.
But eventually you would want to get down to it and bake a cake.The genius of this book is that you are plunked right into the task of having to build a house -- complete!
By the time I finished the book (and companion cd) I KNEW how the tools of SU worked together to make a complete composition -- from the fundamentals.The book is Dennis Fukai's 3D Construction Modeling.
In my initial learning phase of SU I was having enormous difficulties and nearly gave up.
Fortunately I found Dennis' book.The whole concept of the book and it's format is terrific.
You construct an entire model house from the ground up in SU.
Dennis gives you not just the book which shows screenshots of the entire process but also included is a CD which has tutorials broken down for each phase of the model.This book "pulled it all together" for me.
I learned very fully how to use not only the basic tools: inferencing, groups, components, etc. but how they all "fit" together.Dennis has a natural teacher's style and voice. He personally narrates the tutorials and I actually felt like it was a one-on-one session with a SU tutor.
NOTE: If you like Aidan Chopra's tutorials -- you'll like Dennis's, too.Plus (and this may not be the case now) he includes his phone # in the book so you can call him! I called him twice and he was very gracious each time. After that we exchanged e-mails.
So -- I cannot recommend this book too highly for someone who is really serious about learning SU well.
It's available from Amazon or other sources as well:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0976274108Danty
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I have read your post there, Danty, and got the idea to expand the "Getting started" topic with a collection of books as well (certainly including also this one - so thanks for the post). I'm just a lazy a***ss as well as too busy at the moment but I'll make it for sure.
And thanks again
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hi danty,
i agree with you 100% about the importance of learning from a real case. i have intended to buy this book before; what prevented from doing so is the fact that it has not been updated since 2004. although the basic principles are probably there things change very fast in the software/hardware world and 4 years is a lot of time.
on the other hand there are two other excellent choices on SUp that keep being updated:
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the series of books written by Bonnie Roskes (http://tinyurl.com/2298fm), where my basic knowledge of SUp comes from;
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Aidan Chopra's Google Sketchup for dummies, available through amazon.com.
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I myself have Aidan Chopra's book "Google SketchUp for Dummies." It is quite informative and as an added bonus, Mr. Chopra has created video tutorials at YouTube.com as a companion. I had downloaded the videos prior to purchasing the book and they have been a great help. I believe that viewing the video tutorials without having the book is as good as having the book, if that makes sense.
Reading is one thing, but seeing is another. I applaud him for taking the learning process one step further.
Mr. Chopra's video tutorials are available here (as noted in a previous post):
Also, Google has some video tutorials at YouTube as well:
For those of us that are visual beings, seeing SketchUp in action (as opposed to reading about it), really helps to smooth out some of the humps that the written word can sometimes create.
In another post, I had explained how to download these videos for convenient offline viewing. I originally downloaded them in December of 2007. For some reason, YouTube always seems to be changing their restrictions on downloading videos from their site. Just about everytime I load up my favorite YouTube downloader, I find out that it no longer works.
In order to spare my fellow SketchUp users this occasional frustration, I would like to make available the video tutorials which I have in my possession. However, the file sizes are quite large. The Chopra videos are 575MB and the Google videos are 334MB. The bandwidth for my website's server would probably choke on that. If anyone in our community knows of a large enough FREE server with plenty of bandwidth available, I would be more than happy to upload these most helpful videos, thereby saving everyone else the time required to collate and download them, as well as getting them before YouTube changes their download restrictions for the umpteenth time.
If this sounds like a good idea. please PM me with your ideas.
Thanks..........
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Another very cool free videos
http://go-2-school.com/ -
It's always good to put a face to the name. Here's a picture of Aidan. I don't know who the guy in the red sweater is.
http://www.jamd.com/search?text=aidan%20chopra&partner=Google&epmid=3And there's a not-too-good pic of Dennis here.
http://aecnews.com/gallery/image/13.aspx -
I've got to chime in on this one. The book by Dennis Fukai, "3D Construction" is excellent! It is a couple of years old, but that in no way diminishes the impact of the book. If one wants to learn Sketchup this is one of the best ways. This book not only teaches the "program, or software", but also teaches one how to approach the problem of designing and building a project. That is, the methodology is as, if not more important than knowing which tool to use to get which effect on the screen.
I also want to say that not only is the book an outstanding resource, Dennis is a prince of a man. I was having a little trouble with the videos included with the book, and so I emailed him for help. He bent over backwards to get things straightened out, (it was a combination of factors which caused the trouble, and I wouldn't have solved the problem without his help.)
regards
rollin'
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