[Tutorial > Modeling] How a Pro Builds a House in SU pt 1

smorales02

Ive seen the second part of the tut which I am going to get to in a bit. I am just wondering why we would repeat a process we already did when we can just copy it??? Im confused on how many "copies" of the floor plan are needed...

idraft

Hi all,

A couple of my tricks to speed up the whole process.

Copying or overlaying jpeg image. Draw a line around entire perimeter untill it closes in. Delete fill. Then draw the wall into the appropriate position on the plan and use the "followme tool" to create all exterior walls. Done
Interior walls. Make standard width wall (in plan only)and group it. make several copies for each wall needed. then group the lot. Grab one grouped wall and place in position, open the group and stretch it as req'd. Do this to all walls then finally ungroup all walls and push / pull to correct height.
3.cut in window openings by scaling off plan.
4.Make all windows on a single plane face and grouped(they dont need to be 3D in most cases) A cad drafting program will do that. Doesnt solve your cutting plane issue but saves a *&^% of time. If you want you can move your windows into the wall of the building by selecting all windows on each elevation then moving them in all at the same time, this gives you additional depth, or you can add cills to your window if needed.

Cheers Jeff.

wildswan

I am a newbie just starting to use SketchUp. Following along with this tutorial I have also encountered the same problem as jvh with Step 6. I right click on my imported plan, then click on "use as material". However, when I do this, the plan is NOT greyed out. Then when I click on the paint bucket and get the materials window, my plan is not in it, so I can't select and drop it in my square. I have tried using both .tif and .jpeg images but it doesn't seem to make any difference which format I import the image in. Can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

Chris Fullmer

When you click on the image and choose "Use as Material", it should add the material to your "In Model" materials list. So make sure you are looking at the In Model materials, or it will not show up.

Another option might be to just right click on the image and choose "Explode" and then activate the paintbucket tool, and hold alt and click on the image. That should select the material so you can then use the paint bucket tool to apply it to the other face.

Does any of that help? By the way, welcome to the forum!

Chris

Rose123

oops, appears i posted this in the wrong place ...n/m

Rose123

Hi Gaieus,

You said this: "Notice however that a face has two different sides; a white/beige one that is the front or outside of it and a bluish one that is the back face. Always make sure that the back face "faces" inside the "thickness" of the geometry and you can only see white faces everywhere in your model."

I have noticed that outside or inside faces will take on different hues. For instance, here:

the top and sides are different shades, even though they're both outside faces.

I assumed that was because SketchUp is replicating the effects of light; different planes are given different shades of the same color. Is my assumption correct?

Rich O Brien

See here to see the colour of front and back faces

Rich O Brien

that's normal its just shading to give impression of illumination

Gaieus

Well, that's just because of the shading I guess. Basically (if you have problems with face orientation), just set the two kinds of faces to something strikingly different. I think Dave uses some irritating magenta or what so that he cannot bear it too long and reverses back faces quickly.

Rose123

Thanks, Rich. I've played with those settings, but even so, it still looks like the outside faces take on different hues by default, such as below.

To clarify; they're all "fronts" or "backs," but still take on slightly different hues.

Rose123

Re: [Tutorial > Modeling] How a Pro Builds a House in SU pt

Hi, very nice tutorial, but I have some questions I'm hoping someone can answer.

I've gotten to step 5, where I've scaled the imported drawing and erased the line. Why can't I just trace directly over this plan now? Is it because I won't be drawing on one plane?
About step 6: "right click on your plan image and choose "use as material" and apply the material to the rectangle." How, exactly, do I apply the material? I select/copy, but can't seem to paste it to the rectangle.

Thx for any advice.

edit: Ok, I got the paint bucket to work. Apparently it "paints" the plan at the correct scale, and repeats it multiple times depending on how big the rectangle is. So I suppose I can just trace one of the patterns and then turn off the paint layer.

Rose123

Ok, great, thanks, that's what I thought (SketchUp is trying to replicate the effects of light).

stephen1766

I am following the guide. I imported a image plan. I draw a line, group line and image, then use measurement tool to scale the image. Okay so far. How about my image plan do not have 1:1 ratio for X-Y axis. Could I scale both horizontal and vertical seperately ?

syburn

Whats happened to ""üse as material"" in SU 2014?

Odd....

pbcsd

I see the "use as material" selection in 2014, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to apply it to a rectangle I just drew next to the plan? There doesn't appear to be an "in model" materials list either.

Help!

Krisidious

You can open the material browser window.

Go to the top of SU and hit Window>Materials.
Then the Material Browser will open.

about a 1/3rd of the way down you'll see forward and backward buttons and a home button. hit the home/house button. this will show you all of the materials that are 'in' your model.