Hello everyone,

I've had a million Private messages from a bunch of you for help on making building's in Sketchup. I don't know how well this will work but I am going to post a step by step, from concept, to modeling in sketchup, to rendering in 3DS Max. I will be posting screenshots, and possible videos to go with each lesson. I will post a lesson at a time Sound like a good idea? Good! If not, I'm going to do it anyway.

Here is the table of contents: (Will get larger)

Mid-Rise 3 story Retail/Office Building.

Lesson One: Basic Building Shape. POSTED! Link (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=11879274&postcount=2)
Lesson Two: Basic Materials (Painting). POSTED! Link (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=11940436&postcount=12)
Lesson Three: Building Support Details
Lesson Four: TBA
Lesson Five: TBA

Lesson One: Basic Building Shape:

As I mention before, I will be posting lessons, when time allows. Depending on the difficulty, I may post videos as well. OK onto the first lesson.

My ideas usually stem from a detail I see in a building, and then I go from there and let the imagination run wild. The important thing is to keep trying things, I always add stuff to my buildings all the time and hate it. I remove whatever I did and try something else.

With that said, what I want to do is a mid-rise 3 story building with retail at the bottom and two stories of office space. I want it to be an expensive looking building, with nice modern details. The building will reside on the corner of the street.

First Step:

This is the basic shape I wanted, about 12,000 square feet a floor (sorry Europeans, I'm a spoiled American and refuse to learn the metric system. Accept it.) The bottom floor (retail) is 20' high and the other floors (office) are 15' high respectively. I created lines to seperate my floors as a guide for now.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step1.jpg

Step 2:

This is the detail that I saw in real life that fascinated me. The outer supports of the building did not reach the roof, so I decided to incorporate architectual detail into the building. I drew an outline her to get an idea of the look. The supports will end about 5' from the top of the roof

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step2.jpg

Step 3:

I extended the roof overhang out 5' from the building. I used the follow me tool to follow the roof line. (Video Demo (http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/less1_follow.avi)).

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step3.jpg

Step 4 and 5:

Create the footprint (plane) for the support and select all of it and create component. I named it support1, descriptive huh? Then edit the component and pull it to the top of the outline.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step4.jpg
http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step5.jpg

Step 6:

Copy the component you just made and rotate it 45 degrees and connect it to the other support outline.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step6.jpg

Step 7:

Create another support footprint for the rest of the building. Make it a component.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step7.jpg

Step 8:

Copy the component along the building 15' apart from each other.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step8.jpg

Step 9:

the other side as well.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step9.jpg

Step 10:

Edit one of the components and pull the support plane all the way to the same level as the as the first supports we made.

http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/step10.jpg

And here it is our basic shape, not very exciting but it will be. I promise.

Here is the model up to this point (http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson1/Lesson1.skp)

Thanks Brett!

Yeah I was about to send you another PM asking for a Step 3 Tutorial, now there is no need.

Thanks.

can't wait for #4 and #5

Great lesson ;)
Although i do prefer the video tutorails, but this is still great :)

Oh my god!! you are da profesor!

Thanks everyone...
I added a video demo of the follow me tool. Lesson 2 is coming up later today. Oh and also, as things get more complicated I will be adding more video demos.

Quick question (anyone can answer this): How do make curved glass?

^^ Depends what kind of curve, generally you just make your curve and paint it with a transparent texture.

how bout adding the old videos?

how bout adding the old videos?


They are still up: do a search. :)

LESSON 2:

Sorry guys, the past two days my web server was being a little bitch, and wouldn't let me upload anything. Remember the video files are large so you may want to right-click and save them to your computer... Also at the bottom I have attached the model and textures complete after lesson 2 for reference.

Anyway:

Step 1:

OK now that we have our basic it shape, we need some basic materials, this video goes over basic material creation and painting.
Step 1 Video (16MB) (http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson2/step1.avi)

After your done you should have something that looks like this:
http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson2/step1.jpg

Step 2:

Now we are going to "paint" or texture the buildings supports, this next video demonstrates manipulating a texture. We create a new texture from manipulating a current texture.

Step 1 Video (26MB) (http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson2/step2.avi)

You should have something that looks like this:
http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson2/step2.jpg
http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson2/step2a.jpg

... and that is basically it for Lesson 2.

I am providing the model up to this point to see what your model should look like. The zip file contains the model and the textures. Lesson 2 Model and Textures (1 MB) (http://www.slapdashbravado.com/tutorials/themet/lesson2/lesson2.zip)

Thankyou Brett. :)

thanx brett

You're welcome... Hopefully people will find this useful.

thanks

thanks

Nice textures on there!

Hello everyone,
A while back i purchased the Sketchup Book all 500 pages of it and full of
great info...it is amazing how many hidden uses the icons have. The book can get a bit tedious at times but if you hunker down and read throught it plus do the exercises it is well worth it.
I got my copy from " At Last" and it was about $ 91.00

^^ can u scan and post some of the pages from it which u think are interesting and teach something?

hello guys i need your help..I'm quite new to this forum and i am totally fascinated by your posts and i would like to upload some minor projects I'm working on at Google sketch -up..do you have any idea how to upload pictures from my work>is there any software i have to download or something like that to capture my buildings...?:) ,thanks

hello guys i need your help..I'm quite new to this forum and i am totally fascinated by your posts and i would like to upload some minor projects I'm working on at Google sketch -up..do you have any idea how to upload pictures from my work>is there any software i have to download or something like that to capture my buildings...?:) ,thanks

Something I just learned in the sportarenas subforum, thread "design your own stadium": printscrn key, and then paste in Paint. For myself, I use a small program called Game Photographer.

Thanks a lot -i downloaded the game photographer it was very easy to find out how to capture screenshots but do you have any idea how i could make this into picture?i think i did but when i save it it cant find the file..also any ideas how to upload it her???Lol..by the way its not a serious project or something like that..but still..u know for me its the joy of showing others my work:happy:

i started off slowly with sketchup but one learns fast, its so quick and easy and does the job. it really doesnt take very long anymore to design anything
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p210/rfataar/2-8.jpg

mo rush,how did u capture the image what steps you followed exactly i mean..and how did you upload it?very nice stadium by the way,i think stadiums are hard to design

mo rush,how did u capture the image what steps you followed exactly i mean..and how did you upload it?very nice stadium by the way,i think stadiums are hard to design
Press printscreen on your keyboard [prtSc]
open Mspaint, press ctrl + v and save.

wow that stadium is awsome