I am new!
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Hello Everyone
I've just discovered SU and I'm fascinated by its simplicity yet frustrated by its idiosyncratic nature. Still, I'm sure I will get used to it. The rotate tool is testing me at the moment and I've just recently sorted out the OpenGL graphics problem. No more coloured spots on the models now! However, the problem of not being able to see a bounding box with the selection tool continues to frustrate. Ultimately, I intend (I must be insane) to reproduce a long since demolished London prison (To be offered to the London Museum); Holloway, house of Correction in connection with building a model for real. A good percentage of my site (http://www.mollycutpurse.com) is dedicated to preserving details of that once august building and at the moment, is probably the most comprehensive resource in the world.
I have built it before using Maxon's Cinema 3D 8.2 but that was tough! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH0ovvk0GOc) But I am hoping, once I gain experience, to have an easier time of it with SU.
I began using 3D programs back in 1987 on my old Amiga 500 and I've always loved it even though I don't have the brain for it. Never mind, you guys are here now. Brainy and knowledgeable.
All the best,
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Hi Princess Molly,
This is an extremely interesting project (and I'm personally interested as I'm also making reconstructions myself). Also very nice presentation, and I'm looking forward what you come out with using SU.
Should you have any problems/questions, just feel encouraged to come up with them.
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Hi Princess
Your work sounds great! Welcome to the forum.
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Hi - as someone who's designed a few 'Correctional Facilities' I find your project quite interesting and important.
With regards to sketchup, please take the time to go through all the training movies. Even the older version 5 ones can be helpful. The movies will jumpstart your success with sketchup. The books on SketchUp that are available are very good too. If you visit http://www.aidanchopra.com/ - the site of the author of the Dummies book - you'll find another whole set of training movies.
Regards, Ross
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Molly interesting site, had a quick look and noticed you were having a
bad hair day building your model from card. couple sugestions, visit a hobby shop
and get some foam board (foam sandwiched between two pieces of card)used by a lot of modelers,you can also by styrene card in various shapes of bricks and stone(very expensive)also another site that might be of interest, (although the model would be huge)
is http://www.hirstarts.com/a plaster casting system which is very detailed i have used both to build models for my kid, who is into wargaming and needed buildings and terrain to play her games on. just a few suggestions that might make your model making a wee bit easier.Ang
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Molly, with the rotate tool.. try to put it on a the side of something that is the same as the side of the way you want to rotate and hold down the shift key and it will stay in that configuration and let you place it on the area you want to rotate. OR make it a group and put the Move TOOL on the little red + symbols and rotate that way.
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Impressive youtube video
Showing that in a movie, sound is for 75% of the success
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You Guys! Thank you for your suggestions, positive comments and encouragement. The most confusing issue about reproducing Holloway-House of Correction is I have no measurements except for some guides from the original cloth plans which I was (eventually) privileged to see and touch. So, virtually, everything, especially heights, are...guesstimated! And as you may have read, James Bunning changed his mind an awful lot, as did the building itself over its 120 odd year history. The British Home Office has not made things easier for me either; any information to do with prisons and in particular, executions (there were five in the building) has/is shrouded in mystery.
But I have help. Just currently, I am awaiting a report, written in 1970 by a doctor, about the five women who were executed there, one of whom was Ruth Ellis of course, and other, Edith Thompson, describing their remains when their bodies were exhumed when the place was demolished. This is gruesome stuff of course but it is collecting the smallest details like that, which keep the project alive for me. In that way I am not just dealing with bricks but the past becomes very much alive. The information is out there. It just takes a bit of digging (and patience) to get to it.
My real model? Well, this weekend, a friend is moving after his dad died and he has said I can raid his father's garden shed where there are many power tools, probably the most useful could be a Vibro saw (whatever that is!) He suggested that I make it out of thin ply which seems a convenient and easily purchased material. So we shall see. I am building this model by the way at a scale of 4mm to the foot so I expect it to dimension out at about fifteen by ten feet long eventually. It will probably have to be put together from its parts in order to get it out of my flat!
I hope I am answering the posts and I apologise if I miss anyone's answer out but I am on a different page and cannot see them. The suggestion for the Rotate tool was very clear; thank you so much. That will be very useful I'm sure. And thanks, I am working through all the videos and await, as I type, The Dummies book. I think I have most things covered there. Much of my confusion at the moment is the amount of different ways one can achieve the same job. So, I've been building windows this morning on the first of the 23 buildings which make up the site and I bet there are probably half a dozen ways to do it better, faster and more efficiently that what I came up with! Still, they are there now. Just waiting to be push/pulled! Perhaps this evening.
One question: Although I have been using computers for a long time, I very rarely put up posts like this because of time constraints so I am very much a newbie here as well. (I never 'chat' either for the same reason) So, is it possible to place a picture here or is it just for words? I thought it might be fun to offer you guys a chuckle over my amateurish efforts! I have the feeling that the answer is no so if so, I may start a Sketchup page progress in conjunction with the visual blog of the real model.
Thank you once again everyone and best of luck with your own projects. I would of course love to see any of the big projects that you have been working on. If only to encourage me!
MollyPS. Ah-ha! Just figured out how to look at your posts on this page. I am using the free version of Sketchup of course at the moment but if it goes well, I will buy it. The plan is to build the whole thing in Sketchup and then export it to Maxon's Cinema for texturing, lighting and animation. Its a powerful professional program indeed. However, I would like to know if Sketchup Pro supports exporting animation to other programs. Does anyone know?
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You can easily upload pics in your posting. Just below the text entry box there are some tabs -- the one you want is 'upload attachment'. Alternately, if your image is already uploaded somewhere else and you know its url you can use the 'Img' button to place an image tag inline in your message. You then just put the applicable url between the tags. In general most of us will try not to upload huge images as some members here are on dialup + the bandwidth has to be paid for by our gracious host Coen.
Using plywood for a model will be a really big challenge. It can be difficult to work with. In contrast styrene sheets can be easy. You can buy flat (non-embossed) sheets in several thicknesses. They usually are matt white and quite smooth. With styrene sheets it is like you are building from a thin cardboard like a bristol board except the styrene is far more durable. The thinner sheets can easily be cut accurately with scissors or an exacto knife. I recall that the solvent doesn't have to be "glue" but just something that will dissolve the styrene - I've seen the solvent applied with a syringe in a fine bead along an edge and the next piece will bond to it instantly. If you try using styrene make sure you do it in a well ventilated area or you'll be loosing valuable brain cells from the solvent fumes. After a styrene model is constructed it can be primed and painted. (Be sure to use compatible paint products or else see your hard work melt!).
Given the overall scale of your model you might want to consider building it from wood as a massing model. Not plywood but say beech, birch, or maple. It would be a major woodworking exercise to do it really well. The result would also be really heavy.
Regards, Ross
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Hi Molly, I answered your other question regarding the user profiles here in that topic.
There are a couple biiig projects a lot of stuff of which has been posted mainly in the Gallery Forums (this was posted by me for instance
).as for animation export - this must be different with every application. SU creates camera viewpoints and connects them with a smooth camera move. In some application these viewpoins get through and can be used for animation - but I'm not sure aboul all. Kerkythea can do it for instance.
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