SketchUp is an extremely user friendly 3D Model Creating Program that unfortunately has a bad habit of wanting to make you, and your PC, do more work than either of you need to do. When they open SketchUp for the first time most people could be forgiven for wondering if it is capable of doing even half of the stuff Google claim it is capable of. The Purpose of this Guide is to show the reader how they can reduce the Loading Time for SketchUp, Reduce the Workload on their GPU and how to Reveal the Hidden Toolbars.
Template Selection is Extremely Important - SketchUp is not too good at handling multiple decimal place numbers. Pick the wrong template and not only do you get the SketchUp Person loaded into the window you also find that making minor positional adjustments can become a marathon task. The one I prefer to use is 'Product Design and Woodworking - Inches'. As it gives me a nice clean workspace that I can start working in immediately without having to delete the things I don't want. To show just how important Template Selection can be Google actually provide Two Ways of Selecting the Template to use. On the Splash Screen/Window you first see when Opening SketchUp and/or From the System Preferences Window/Panel.
One bad habit is the fact that SketchUp is true to the first part of its name - it loves to Sketch and until it's tamed, it will act like a Two Year old with a Crayon, and draw lines in places you don't expect it to. Thankfully there is a simple way to stop it doodling - All you have to do is open the System Preferences Window click on the word Drawing and remove the check mark from the box beside 'Continue line drawing'.
Shadows can help give a Product a Sense of Realism, which is great if all you intend to do is put it into the Google Warehouse or on Google Earth. But, you are not doing either of those you are Building Models that are going to be exported for use with IMVU. Because those shadows are effectively Optical Illusions as they are not part of your Model and so cannot be exported. By having the things turned on Your Computer, especially the Graphics Processor and your Screen, is doing a heck of a lot more work than it really needs to. Especially since SketchUp's Shadows are Dynamic, rotate your Model in the Workspace and you will notice that the shadows are constantly changing. Thankfully one of SketchUp's Shadow Casting Tricks is off by Default - Using the Sun to Cast Shadows.
Open the Materials Window and select the Colors Folder and you will be presented with over 300 icons - Icons that your Graphics Card has to render every time you open SketchUp. Guess what - if you go to the SketchUp Help Centre among the things Google Recommend to Improve SketchUp's Performance is to switch the Texture Icons Off. Now somebody is going to say - 'but we can't see what the Individual Colors are' - Stop Panicking if you click on any Color or Material Name in the List it gets loaded into the Color/Material Icon Panel in the top part of the Window .
Now somebody is going to say: 'but we can't see what the Individual Colors are'. Don't Panick, if you click on any Color or Material Name in the List it gets loaded into the Color/Material Icon Panel in the top part of the Window.
Not all of the Materials/Textures Google supply with SketchUp comply with IMVU's Rule of 2 for Textures so you shouldn't be using them.
SketchUp's Solid Colors and Markers do not have any Image Information therefore you can not Resize or Pin Them. So unless you want to make models that look like they have been Textured with Postage Stamps do Yourself and SketchUp a favour and delete them.
Hiding - to get to them you have to click on the View Menu and select Toolbars. If you don't have SketchUp 8 Pro then you may not have some of the toolbars. Especially the one for Solid Tools, also if you didn't remove the Two Shadow Related Extensions you would see Entries for Shadow Strings Fix and Solar North between Sandbox and Large Buttons. What you intend to use SketchUp to model will determine which Toolbars you will need. My copy is set up so that I have access to the ones shown on the Right.
The oddly named 'Large Tool Set' contains most but not all of the Toolbars that SketchUp places down the Workspace's Left Side. Therefore, if you opt to Reveal It sometimes you have to mess about revealing then hiding some of the other Toolbars to find out which ones are included in the Large Tool Set.
SketchUp will only allow you to change the Status of the Toolbars one at a time.
Oh, there is a real weirdo in the Toolbars Menu - Only the Ticked ones will be visible in the SketchUp Window except for the Measurements Tool. It's that oblong box at the right hand end of the Status Bar. However If you put a Tick alongside its name in the Toolbars Menu SketchUp will move it to the Left Hand end of a New Toolbar immediately above the Status Bar, without its Caption.
Now for the thing that is probably going to 'confuse the hell out of most people' SketchUp's Amazing Magical Measurements Tool - Although the Measurements Tool looks like an Input Box that you would normally click in to enter a Value it's not. Instead it makes use of something like a key logger that has been built into SketchUp, so you don't have to click into it; in fact if you do click in it nothing will happen. Instead all you simply do is type whatever it is you need to enter on your Keyboard and hit the Enter/Return Key. Furthermore it is context sensitive, so if you are drawing a line it knows what you are typing is a length; if you are rotating something it knows it's an angle, etc. Let's imagine you want to create a rectangle that's 24 square, after having grabbed the rectangle tool, clicked where you want the bottom left corner of the rectangle to be and started dragging the tool to form a rectangle you can let go of the mouse and type 24,24 then hit the Enter/Return key on your keyboard and SketchUp will adjust the size of the rectangle so that it is 24 Square. Want to change your mind and have a 24 x 26 rectangle instead then, provided you have not selected any other tool, simply type 24,26 then hit the Enter/Return key and SketchUp will turn the 24 square into a 24 x 26 Rectangle. Now for some more fun news, SketchUp will default to using the Units associated with/specified by the Template Being Used. Which for the one I prefer to use is Inches - if I want a 24' x 26' (Foot) Rectangle then all I have to do is type 24',26' and SketchUp will convert those feet to inches. If I want a 24mm x 26mm (millimetre) rectangle then I enter 24mm,26mm; If I want a 24m x 26m (Metre) rectangle I enter 24m,26m.
Finally you need to expose the most Important Tool of All - the Purge Unused Button, which is used to remove all redundant textures and statistics from the Workspace. It's on the Statistics Panel of the Model Info Window.
Incidentally not only do Google recommend that you have the Materials Window set to List View they also recommend that you close the Components, Entity Info and Materials Windows before exiting SketchUp.
These are a bit similar to Apps that you can download onto your phone. They are routines (small programs) that give SketchUp enhanced capabilities. Other than the ones that have specifically been written for use with IMVU: Meshout, Hellstrong's File-Editor, Merlin's Plugins, there are several Sources for Plugins/Ruby Scripts:
All Plugins/Ruby Scripts from the First 4 are Free (However, you have to be a free member of SketchUcation to be able to download any of the plugins on that site). Smustard has both free plugins and plugins you have to pay for.
When looking for/at plugins you should bear in mind that a lot of the older plugins were developed for Versions of SketchUp that did not have the functionality/capabilities of the newer versions so check to make sure you are not downloading a Plugin that is duplicating something SketchUp can already do. Furthermore, loosely written plugins that worked in Older Versions of SketchUp are known to trigger Bug Splats in SketchUp 8. When you download any Plugin/Ruby Script that are contained in a Zip file then you should download them to a Non Google SketchUp Folder – The best folder to download them to is the Downloads Folder, Unpack them while they are still in that folder and then move/copy the .rb or .rbs files and any other files/folders specified in the Read Me to the Correct SketchUp Plugins Folder.
Since SketchUp doesn't really care which Face is facing the Camera quite a few of the SketchUp Routines, and even some Plugins, will generate Geometry with faces where the Grey (Back) Face is facing the camera. The easiest way to turn the faces round is to select all the geometry, right click on one of the White Faces and select the Orient Faces Option.
Since our intention is to Create Models for use in IMVU we are going to need Meshout, Merlins_Startup and Merlins_Toolkit.
As its name suggests Merlins_Startup is a Plugin that automatically runs every time you open up SketchUp. Its purpose is to change the default Selected Tool from the Line Tool, the Pencil, to the Selection Tool, the Arrow, set the Camera's Field of View to 45 degrees so that it matches the IMVU Camera and make sure that the Google Sun is not Casting Shadows.
All three, plus the Merlin's Toolkit Guide should be downloaded (See Resources in Sidebar) into your Downloads Folder and not a Google SketchUp Folder, unpacked and installed in accordance with the instructions in each ones ReadMe.txt file.
Even if you have only used SketchUp for a short while the one thing you can't fail to notice that SketchUp's Geometry, edges and faces, wants to stick to all the other geometry in the workspace as if they were coated with Glue. Unfortunately this can cause problems so Google developed Groups and Components to help prevent specific parts of Geometry from gluing themselves to others. This you do by collecting the geometry assigned to a particular area or purpose into a Group or Component.
Let's assume you are making a model of a House, therefore it would be easier and quicker if you could work on various parts of the House, like the Roof, if they were separated from the other parts of the House. Groups allow you to do this by keeping the Geometry inside the Group intact whilst preventing any other Geometry from sticking to it.
If you turn a selection of geometry in your model into a Group you can give it an identifiable name.
Basically a solid is any Group, or Component, whose geometry can be thought of as watertight – continuous, with no holes or extraneous Geometry. Not only can SketchUp calculate the Volume for a Solid you can also use SketchUp 8's new Solid Tools on them.
When you use multiple copies, called instances, of the same components in your model, they're all interlinked. Changing one makes them all change, which can save loads of time.
It's a simple operation to make any component you build available for use whenever you work in SketchUp, no matter what model you are working with. Unlike Groups, which can only be saved as part of the Model that contains them, Components can be saved independently of the Model they are being used in.
SketchUp records two important pieces of Information about Components, their Definition and their Instances. Every time you create a New Component in your Model its Definition, the details about its geometry, position and texturing, is recorded. Then when you make a copy of a Component its Incidence Count gets incremented without having to create a New Definition. Lets' use something like a Chair Arm to look at the differences between Groups, Loose Geometry and Components; if it is formed from Loose Geometry, or in a Group, then everything about the geometry used in the creation of that arm is stored in SketchUp so when you add a second chair arm another set of definitions gets added into SketchUp. However, if you form that Chair Arm into a Component then only the details for the Geometry within that component is recorded. Now when you copy the Chair Arm to form the second arm the amount of Geometry Stored does not increase as SketchUp uses the Definition from when the Component was created to draw the second Instance.
I recently saw a tutorial that involved getting something that had been created in SketchUp into the active copy of SketchUp by using cut and paste from one copy of SketchUp to another. Why, the simplest, quickest and safest way to get SketchUp Models into SketchUp is by using the File Import Command. When you use cut and paste then you are making SketchUp do far more work than it really needs to. When SketchUp Imports a Model from Disk then everything it needs to draw, position and texture that Geometry is in the disk file it is importing. However, when you use cut and paste it has to rebuild all that information whilst adding it to the current model. Thanks to the changes made for SketchUp 8 to introduce Solids that analysis now takes longer as the cut and pasted Geometry has to be analysed to see if any of its component parts are solids or not. Like most 3d Modelling Programs SketchUp is not impressed by the Number of Cores your Processor has nor the amount of Ram there is in your PC. Furthermore, your SketchUp Licence only allows you to run one copy of SketchUp on one PC at a time and has some Tricks up its Sleeve to ensure that only one Fully Functional copy of SketchUp is running on a PC, or Networked PC's. When you open up a Second Copy of SketchUp on a PC or a Networked PC then it opens up in 'Free Version Mode' therefore anything in its workspace that is dependent on being in a Fully Licensed Version of SketchUp, especially Dynamic Components, will lose that Functionality and not regain it if you use cut and paste to transfer it into the Active Fully Licensed Copy.
If anyone though this was going to be a guide to using SketchUp then think again. There are countless books on SketchUp and one of the best is Aidan Chopra's 'Google SketchUp For Dummies'. Just make sure you get the correct one for your Version of SketchUp. There's also a mine of Information in the Google Help Files, On the Google SketchUp Web Site, Plenty of Video Tutorials on YouTube. Plus there are the ones in the IMVU Education Centre and the SketchUp Groups and a load of Invaluable Info in the various Group/Forum Threads. It's amazing just how much info you can find on and about SketchUp by using the web's simplest tool: A Web Search.
Except to place Models in the Warehouse or to Access and Download any of the Files another Member of the IMVU/SketchUp Community has placed there for your Use – as far as we are concerned the SketchUp Warehouse Does Not Exist. To save me having to retype it all I've copied the relevant sections from 'Google's Terms of Service', the most important sections are Clause 8.2 and 16.1. Essentially what they are saying is that if you Derive anything from a Model that is held in the Google Warehouse without that Model Creators Written Permission then you are Violating Copyright Law and Legal Action can and will be taken against you.
8.1 - You understand that all information (such as data files, written text, computer software, music, audio files or other sounds, photographs, videos or other images) which you may have access to as part of, or through your use of, the Services are the sole responsibility of the person from which such content originated. All such information is referred to below as the 'Content'.
8.2 You should be aware that Content presented to you as part of the Services, including but not limited to advertisements in the Services and sponsored Content within the Services may be protected by intellectual property rights which are owned by the sponsors or advertisers who provide that Content to Google (or by other persons or companies on their behalf). You may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement.
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.
16.1 It is Google's policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable international intellectual property law (including, in the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and to terminating the accounts of repeat infringers.