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7 Surprising Kick-Ass Things You Can Do with Google Sketchup

maximumpc.com — Sketchup is a free 3D modelling tool developed based on the philosophy that by giving people a small set of powerful, intuitive tools, you can lower the barrier of entry to 3D modelling, so that almost anyone can make quality 3D models with just a couple of sessions of practice. For example, you can design a Left 4 Dead map!

Who dugg this? Made popular 17 days ago

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  • casspa, on 11/04/2009, -1/+31These still require many artistic skill I do no (but wish I did) possess.
  • rusty0101, on 11/04/2009, -2/+19port sketchup to linux apparently.
  • CaliforniaEagle, on 11/04/2009, -0/+14Wow, really? The L4D map thing seems really neat
  • ZapWizard, on 11/04/2009, -0/+13If you are wondering how far you can push making a level for Left4Dead in SketchUp, just read my project log here:
    http://www.austinmodders.com/modules.php?name=Foru ...
  • dmcaudio, on 11/04/2009, -1/+8get you laid.
  • Kolbeck10, on 11/04/2009, -0/+7THIS
  • MooseOfReason, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=How+do+I+get+laid%3F
  • CaughtThinking, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5Holy crap, that is amazing. Great job.
  • Inleblack, on 11/04/2009, -0/+5Pretty impressive...off to make a papercraft model.
  • BillyB, on 11/04/2009, -1/+6even the normal kick-ass things you can do with Sketchup are kick ass.
  • dengzhi, on 11/04/2009, -0/+4is there an app for that?
  • rusty0101, on 11/04/2009, -1/+5One of the things that Sketchup is being used for is to generate designs that are pumped through Blender to create the rendering code to operate 3d printers such as MakerBot (see http://www.makerbot.org/) or reprap (see http://www.reprap.org/)and other tools (see http://www.thingiverse.com/).
  • sputnikv, on 11/04/2009, -0/+4blueprint drawings are a result of burning an image coated with ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, is, as you can imagine, very obsolete along with its more common successor, the diazo print (same printing principle just reversed)

    for your health
  • Jeepinator, on 11/04/2009, -1/+4I didn't know about the Hammer plugin. I can't wait to make some actual good CTF maps for TF2 and survival maps for L4D.
  • globesterdigg, on 11/04/2009, -2/+5What can't Google do?
  • Jeepinator, on 11/04/2009, -1/+4I suck at drawing, but for some reason 3D modeling clicks with me. It's fun and I need to get back into it. Last time I was modeling was for some random fun maps in BF1942 with Gmax.
  • Philbert, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Even though I stick with LightWave for work I've found Sketchup handy for converting CAD models to LightWave format.
  • Moralogic, on 11/04/2009, -0/+31. Build a Model of Your House from a Floorplan
    2. Design Your own Papercraft Schematics
    3. Design custom furniture (same page as 2 for those that missed it)
    4. Make a Left 4 Dead Level!
    5. Use a Raytracing Renderer to Make Photorealistic Images
    6. Make Custom Logos and Icons
    7. Turn Your Building Model into a Blueprint

  • Zoshchenko, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Since I have no drawing skills whatsoever, I need them to figure out how to take images from my head and render them in 3D.
  • MooseOfReason, on 11/04/2009, -0/+3Kick-ass, I tell you!
  • gellfex, on 11/05/2009, -0/+2They completely missed SketchyPhysics! It's a free plugin that creates a gravity environment and allows you to create joints, motors, pistons, hinges, etc between objects and so create entire moving motorized machines and simulations. I've been using this professionally to make little demo movies of what I'm designing, Comparable systems like Autocad Inventor cost thousands.
  • rusty0101, on 11/04/2009, -0/+2I will agree that Blender is the more powerful tool, however the UI is not as intuitive for the novice.

    I'm going to be teaching myself 3d modeling among other things, and since I don't have a windows computer or mac lying around, I'm pretty much stuck with Blender at this point.
  • Mouser58907, on 11/04/2009, -1/+3This is a very poorly written article, the good pictures come from good render engines, the modeling isn't that great, l4d maps are actually just an exporter to the half life model files, all gameplay has to be created in the hammer engine, so on and so on...

    it comes down to Sketchup being a fun little, very basic, modeling package, with some cool plugins. IMHO Blender is the far better choice for free 3D modeling apps.
  • digitalArtform, on 11/04/2009, -0/+2yeah, digg that down. Completely irrelevant and self-serving. What was I thinking?
  • esromneb, on 11/05/2009, -0/+2You can also put Sketchup models inside a flash movie!! :)

    For this to work you need Papervison3D: http://blog.papervision3d.org/category/demos/

    As well as Flex 3 http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/

    Both of these tools are free!!
  • banderwocky, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Pretty bad ass.
  • digitalArtform, on 11/04/2009, -1/+2http://www.maxwellrender.com (costs money) also works with Sketchup.
  • dilfo, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Wow, great info.
  • Nelagster, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1aww man i was hoping that left for dead thing was an easter egg hidden in sketchup kinda like the flight simulator in google earth
  • MAGZine, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1cool info. thanks!
  • MAGZine, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1don't they just use a white pen/chalk now for actual 'blueprints'? (When they're not computer drafted, or hand drawn in pen/pencil)
  • h0ly, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1You still need to trace the walls, right? If so, you can already do this with Blender, but using a plane primitive instead of lines... Then, remove the duplicate vertices from the walls (they will join), and extrude.
  • sputnikv, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1there are large scale copiers where you feed unbound sheets and it scans and prints like any other printer. typically, you see people making digital scans of drawings and then use that to distribute or print sheets on large scale toner printers. if you have digital files, i believe they use large inkjet printers that collate and bind the sheets for you, ultimately the effect is that of a black india ink on white paper (could be vellum, mylar or something else)
  • CaughtThinking, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1The floorplan demo is awesome. I'd be surprised if the Blender community can't come up with something similar though.
  • richmondphotog, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Kick-ass.
  • fredclown, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Be not Google.
  • s73v3r, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Dugg for the phrase "pootie ride" found in one of the articles linked in the search results.
  • copypastry, on 11/04/2009, -4/+3GRABBIN PEELS

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