Is there or will someone make a tutorial on producing a second story.

xilix brought up one problem that is helped by groups. Still once you've done grouping etc. you end up with lines on the outside of the house at floor level etc. I can work out ways to fix this. Who knows the BEST way to approach these steps with minimal fixing-up afterward, so that one can have clean surfaces to work with inside and out, well intersecting ceilings and walls etc.

I noted that trying to add a ceiling by drawing a rectangle over the exterior wall lines would not work. drawing inside the exterior walls did. Things like that, not clear to a beginner are helpful to demonstrate.

Does anyone have a method of resizing a window ... Edit: Doh! Now I know how to do it. With Sticky technology. Just select the edges on one side of the object (no groups) and move perpendicularly...

Thanks,

I'll keep an eye on the Tutorials.

oh man, I like this. Great art. I don't think it needs much populating.

xilix,

3dmax is a rendering program.

Group all the first floor walls: select all the lines and planes of the walls. You might do this by taking a low-angle view and selecting all at once. Then choose the menu item edit / make group.

Then you can draw on top of the walls and the wall lines won't stick to the plane you draw.

But there is more to making a second story and ending up with walls free of lines inside and out, and a ceiling plane on the first level which is joined to the walls below. I was hoping someone more experienced would explain the most efficient process of getting to the second story.

Peter

Planes that are made to intersect another plane make a line visible on both faces of that plane.

Make a floor with both a ceiling and a floor surface as in picture: A floor with a thickness that represents the size of all the materials that make up the floor. I made the box by push-pulling a cube, and then Option/push pull again--then removed two sides to look like your model. Option/ Push-pull is handy. Oh I'm on a Mac, maybe different key for you.

As you draw the surfaces have a front and back face. One is white and the other blue. You can "reverse faces" under Edit / Faces. I don't know why this is important but it may make a difference at some point. You can color or texture either face.

From another newb

I was stuck in Mt Isa for three days... Hitching in the 80's. What a place. But the people were super nice. The cops brought us soft drinks while we hitched, for crying out loud. An airline crew dropped off full meals once.

Lotsa luck enticing any spunky sheilas out there though! I think one of the prime features of the town was a lead mine.

Great pictures.

My thought of the first one was some touches of green would be nice. And now I see you have green in the other views. The bar scene looks ULTRA saturated. Starts to glow. Speaking of glow... it's about time to check out the bar. Happy Weekend everyone.

@daniel said:

I think I would add another step - to hide the lines.

Interesting... I was thinking of some way to pump them up. Maybe I need to rethink how I visualize this! Thanks for the tip, I will take a second look.

I did a metal hip a while ago and I had a hell of a time modeling that. If I can post the image, you will see I never healed the hip of the metal piece. (edit: looking at the picture I guess you can't tell and really it wouldn't show in a render--but it takes time to do something poorly--bugs me)I probably used push-pull and that leaves two ridges to fix. I have tried making this shape at the bottom of the hip to Follow-me with, but drawing that has been impossible for me so far (to draw the chevron shape perpendicular to the hip).

Maybe I should have used push pull to depress the main portion of the roof instead of pulling the flashing (the borders) out.

Verrou,

That looks like an unusual roof, if that is shingle. Maybe that's what you want, but along the lines of realism in this thread, there would often be a hip shingle detail. I haven't done it myself. Anyone have pointers?

@unknownuser said:

... , and most UK garages charge upwards of 45 UKP per hour for labour when repairing/servicing cars. Should a skilled modeller/illustrator be paid less?

No, - but in practice they often are.[/quote]

Here is the crux of the issue. Are we seeing a bump in renderer types? I think Architecture and design in general is very "vertical" as careers go. You really start at the bottom. If you are special, a strong individualist who makes a splash, that is one thing. But for the most part it is underpaid at first for the amount of education most have. When you become a principal it begins to pay off.

Renderers seem to have been a more rarefied breed and they freelance or work in smaller consulting companies traditionally... the times when it was all done in watercolors. Many would make a decent living, and little more. Now perhaps we have a greater number of people ( many who would do well in another technical field) coming into that field by way of the computer, driven by accessible techniques, programs like Sketchup, the internet community, gaming, and a common trend of spending endless hours on computers. This is juxtaposed with the old days of the slower route of developing hand skills and a studio--not to denigrate the quality work being done.

Just considering the possibility there might be plenty of renderers moving into a field that is already used to cheap labor...and you can just send it to China, after all (not that I ever found that feasible).

One can also give the render cost as a separate item, if you are formally billing clients. I charge for large plots. It pays for the paper, ink, and machine in my mind and while still being income is not a part of my hourly fee.

If you're going to give a site as a design competition feature (as opposed to just describing a hypothetical site and giving other criteria), it should make some sense. What can one consider about this site? If you know Crissy Field at all, it's not that it happens to be a public space. Pretend it isn't. It is just a flat site with an obvious view, but very idiosyncratic siting given the neighborhood and other features (freeway overpass,biking trails, "historic" structures);and loaded local planning issues. It would be like "Consider that you are to build a house here, but ignore everything except the view and private beach." Because otherwise... IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! Also if I owned that piece of land, I'd dream of letting it be a park. I don't think I'd want to do the competition. I'd get depressed.

That's it. I'd build a tiny caretakers cottage and sweep the walks in the park the rest of my days.

I guess I just said what you were saying. Sorry.

Interesting that the Presidio Park itself is the site of several hotly contended development issues with other colorful players like GAP owners and Disney. Actually a very rich planning / architectural discussion /controversy. Somebody(s) will write a book or two.

@unknownuser said:

To be honest it looks to me like you Google guys spend too much time on your slides, Segways and table football to do enough work. Yes, I know I shouldn't believe everything I read in the newspapers, but I would be delighted if you prove me wrong.

I am a massive SketchUp fan, but if I'm totally honest it looks to me like Google is getting corporately fat & lazy. I think it's fair to say that all users are expecting some really big advances for V7.

I just wrote a long reply and lost it due to some login glitch. grrrh. I can't bear to do it again. So I spare you ... in brief.

Other programs cost much more,have their own problems,and are less responsive to user; often dying a slow death due to lack of development, while someone (I surmise) is mining the company for their retirement. You don't know what "lazy"is.

Where else is there something like the SU developers and community? Some much more expensive Pro softwares do not have an open macro system, do not respond to forums, do not have training, etc. SU gives a decent foothold into 3d for those who can ill spare the cost in time (which is money, I hear) to take on other offerings.

@unknownuser said:

SketchUp layers are used to control the visibility of geometry within large models. A

I see, but this doesn't note the problems discussed here. I am seeing how the components and layers work now...and think I better draw on one layer for a while! and read the manual.

Thanks

cool demonstration, Frederick.

RSW. Your work is encouraging for me, as I haven't got so far myself. If I may make some observations as a layman:

1. The second angle, straight on to the corner does not do the building justice.
2. The grass actually looks too large to me, too much detail beyond the building, as if it is a small model sitting on grass in the foreground.
3. Containers have been used in modern buildings. See DWELL. If you want to get away from this, perhaps more detail and a different color will help.
4. More suggestion of realism: landings at the sliders (are they doors?). Have the walkway lead off-camera to the access to site.

I like the building overall. A lot happening. Good luck.

Newbies need more information on layers.

I approached SU layers like CAD layers. Obviously they do not "stack" like CAD layers, especially like those types of apps that allow you to cover objects "behind". However the natural inclination is to put the roof on one layer, the walls on another and so on. There is another setting with layers that is not available with SU--that is what layers will be editable--it appears all layers will be edited, visible or not. So it's unlike CAD.

So what are layers for? How is another layer associated with parts of the model when the geometry is on the base layer? I can dig using components or groups rather than layers to organize (then there's the outliner which is still confusing to me). However then you cannot let the lines and planes in different groups interact when desired. In CAD you can choose to edit objects on multiple layers or only one. Where is that option in SU (with layers or other methods) or is it not necessary?

Where is there an explanation of the real world use of Layers in SU?

I also repeatedly tried to delete the layer with an ugly name: "Layer 0".

Aside: how do you designate groups of planes for later applications of textures? Groups? Components? I have colored parts of my model and now it looks like I must go about and pick each object, giving it a texture in order to render it.

Thanks for the link Chris. That's interesting. I see what David is trying to do but not exactly what he does. I didn't get the three horizons (and that's his first statement!). But there's nothing like fooling with it to clarify the issues.

Thanks for the ideas and especially posting the picture. That looks good. I was asking about the possibility of something built-in and relatively fool proof--because I have tried winging this sort of thing in another modeler (Design Workshop) and it can be a hassle for larger sites/ buildings. I will try Photo Match and see what I get.

Then there is the lens distortion that probably can't be figured in(for the likes of me anyway).

Peter

Thank you.

I was thinking more if you have an object modeled, like a car and then you get a showroom picture and make a view as if it is in the showroom.

But I think photo match (and I've watched some of those tutorials) might work. I'll try it.

Actually I have a site photo and I want to model a building and view it against the photo--then take it from there to some sort of presentation. It seems clear that you need some rectilinear objects or layout on the photo, with some relationship to a level plane and some dimensional knowledge about the site. I actually have a foundation to work with in the photos--so this would be a good test project.

Is there a method in SU to create a view of a model over a photo, that will facilitate approximating the perspective and scale of the photo--so the object is made to look like it is in the photo. I saw this demonstrated in FormZ.

I hope this is clear. I tried to add more explanation, but it gets more confusing as I write.

OK Tom. I'd like to see a push-pull elevation demo!