Local TutorialDetailing in SketchUp

BorgMan

As I foresee that we'll get some members here that are going to use SketchUp as their primary modelling program, and as seeing that rwking couldn't get certain things done, I'll post some simple tutorials in here, explained in SketchUp language, so that anyone using the program won't have to figure out what the other members mean when talking things like *Extrude* and *Booleaning*

Modelling a Phaserstrip: Use of the Follow Me tool to make life easier.

A simple start here: a phaserstrip. In essence not that hard, but you do know how to use SU's tools.
First, start by making an arc, or a line, whatever you want. It is this line that our phaserstrip will follow, so be carefull that if you connect two different lines to eachother that they are connected; if they're not (for example, when you used the Offset tool to create an exact line that follows the outer edges of your hull and forgot to double check if they got connected) SU will come up with an error: This does not appear to be a valid path. If this error comes up, as said, it probably means that there's a mini line somewhere in between that you didn't select.



Next, start by making a squared shape at one of the line's ends. It doesn't matter if they aren't Perpendicular to Edge; the Follow Me tool will take care of that later on.



In this square, make the shape of the phaserstrip you desire. I usually do this by creating several smaller lines in the shape and taking the midpoints as a basis. By now you should have something like this...



Delete all the lines that you don't need. This is important! If there is a line somewhere in the face on which you're going to let loose the Follow Me tool that connects the top to the bottom, only one part of it will be selected; SU doesn't support the selecting of mulitple faces to apply to Follow Me tool upon, and neither does Push/Pull. So, out of all the lines we've drawn up until now, only the core of our phaserstrip remains:



Now, using the Select button, select the arc that we have created earlier on, and as said, watch out that it's one closed line. If it consists of mulitple smaller lines (for example because you already applied a 3D function on it) this means that you have to select all parts of it by keeping Shift pressed down, as long as it takes to make one big, connected line.



After you've selected your arc, select the Follow Me tool. If you accidentally press the Push/Pull tool, however, you will need to re-select everything that you had selected one step back that you wanted your shape to follow. So watch out for that! The same applies for other tools that need to select something to do something with them, like the Erase tool or the Offset tool.



if done correctly, this is the shape that you will get. Note that this also works on curved faces, but if it's needed I'll show that one later on

BorgMan

SketchUp is a very low-poly program at it's core, and you, reader, have probably notcied that there isn't a different light source to choose from. This is, unfortunatley, correct, but perhaps this can be solved by using plug-ins, which can be downloaded from here, but do remind that you need SketchUp Pro 5 for plugins to work. On a different note, some tools that I use aren't standard enabled in SketchUp Free, but they are there; fiddle around a bit with the Window menu and the Preferences tab there. For example, changing your length from inches to meters can be done there, a nice thing for us Europeans

Anyway, we're going on with

Going into Detail: a try to work around SketchUp's low-poly nature

We'll start a fresh mesh for this one. First, create a Circle from which we'll work from, and then up the Section count by left clicking on the circle, selecting Entity Info and change the value of Segments. This will add or decrease the number of segments a closed line has. The higher the number, the less fragmentation you'll see, but the more sheer processorpower it takes to render something.



Our circle is now a lot more smoother, so let's now make an ovuloid out of it. First, if you didn't have your circle selected anymore, Select it again, and click the Scale tool, located beneath the Rotate tool. You'll see that a field of yellow surronds your circle with little green boxes on it. Clicking on one of these will start changing the shape of your circle, but as we want an ovuloid, let's start by clicking the CTRL button; this makes sure that we're morphing the circle from the centre. Hitting Shift will make it bigger proportionally, while just clicking on one of the side boxes without hitting anything else will also make an ovuloid, but with the opposite end as a starting point instead of the centre.

So from this shape:



to this one:



Now that we have our basic shape to work from, let's continue with the saucer itself. Take the shortest point from Centre to Edge on your ovuloid, and create a rectangle on it that will serve as our *canvas* on which we'll draw the outline of the saucer. I learned from the Scifi-Eric tutorial how to make a pretty clean saucer, so we'll do something like that here too. Notice that, when using the Arc tool, you'll sometimes get a blue line. This means that you'll get the perfect transition from one side to another, which also means that you won't get fragmentation at the point where one arc goes over into another. So, when we're done making up an interesting shape, it should look something like this:



Next, the same trick we did before: select line that makes up our circle, and then click on the shape of our saucer cross-section. If you're into making a complete interrior for your ship, I'd suggest that you already create holes on this cross section that will later on become your corridors. Remember that the avarage deck varies between the 3.8 and the 4.5 meters. This would include jefferies tubes.

Uh oh... something seems to be messed up!



Hmm. So it turns out that when using an ovuloid as basic shape, weird things happen in SU. Hmm... Well, fellow SU modellers, have no fear. First, left-click your just-formed hull and hit Intersect with Model. SU will now connect every face that cross-connects with eachother, making them easily editable. Next, delete all the things that come out of our hull. It's bound to happen that a few lines will have to stay, but that's okay. You won't see them when we turn of the Edges. Notice that sometimes when you erase a line, your hull will be broken open. Undo your last erase (CTRL-Z is your friend ), and delete segments easy on. Big chance that SU will know delete your desired line as if nothing is wrong, while last time it also deleted a piece of hull. I don't know how this can happen, but let's just put it away as a bug for now. When you're done deleting, you should get something along these line:



Let the part on the right be for what it is, it'll be cut off when we're prepping our ship for mirroring anyway. So voila, your first, eliptic shaped saucer

rwking

I think I have figured out how to put windows into a starship saucer section

This is how I did it - Borgman - check this out and see if it works for you as well

Step 1 - selected View - Hidden Geometry
Step 2 - Magnified one geometric section
Step 3 - Drew a box using the pencil draw line tool
Step 4 - After completing the box, used offset to make a smaller box
Step 5 - Extruded the smaller box slightly above the hull level to make a small raised area
Step 6 - Colored the smaller box a window transparent color
Step 7 - erased the outer lines that I drew to make the first box leaving the smaller box intact

I have posted an image that I hope shows this clearly

BorgMan

Indeed, the image shows it all, but the problem is that I want the windows to have a specific shape, namely a box with a rounded top and bottom. Next to that, the Challenger's primary hull is complicated, as it is done completely by hand instead of using tools. Time consuming, but it does mean that when you compare the side and front view, and when drawing a line from the top where the bridge is to the side and the front, they have different lengths: the line that goes to the front is longer than the line that goes to the side, and that was something I couldn't get done with a tool. Back then, anyway

I could redo the primary hull, but I've put so much time in it that I'd rather not do that...

But anyway, in the following screenshots I left the View -> Rendering -> Edges on, so you can see how complicated the primary hull is. Next to that, I copy pasted my windows, put them on my bridge module and rotated them so that they are now correspnding to the edges on which I pasted them. Clawhammer showed me a variation of the Follow Me tool as it is present in MAX, and with that one, instead of creating a tube or so, that Follow Me tool copies the shape you make and spreads the copies out over the selected line. I find that very hande, so I'm going to see if there's a way I can do that too. I'm afraid it's not possible, tho...

rwking

Looking at the attached ship image......particularly within the red circled area...How do I 'Cut out" a section in order to put something else....Like a deflector dish array mounted on the ships' leading edge?

BorgMan

ofcourse.

On the underside of your ship, create the shape that you want to cut out. Then, use the Push/Pull tool the make a bigblock that is as long as you need to go past the endge of your saucer. If you deselect the Show Hidden Geometry option, you can then right click on your saucer, select Intersect with Model, and then you can delete both the box and the part in between the lines where the box originally went through your hull

rwking

I DID IT !!!!!!! I got a cool looking deflector dish mounted on the leading edge of the saucer......

rwking

I tried this and it seemed to work fairly well.


While working in wireframe mode......draw a line like you would if you were going to extrude a shap....the line from outside the structure to a point inside.

then at the outside of the structure dar your window shape at that end of the line you just drew.

convert back to regular mode and use the extrude feature.

This seemed to put a shape into the structure....then push/pull to position the window.

BorgMan

Yeah I know that part, believe me Follow Me is your best friend. What I am curious about is if there is a tool that, instead of just let the shape follow your line, lets you copy a shape past that line. I could, ofcourse, draw lines that are corresponding to edges, and then connect all the lines, select them and let the Follow Me tool make one, big shape that is criss-crossing. This would mean, tho, that I will have to delete all those structures on the outside...

rwking

Other than what we have discussed....I know of no other way to place windows into a curved structure

viper01870

i like to see how u would do making a cannon sys for gonra stargate or for war ship fore the sea

rwking

I'm not sure I fully undrestand what you are asking...Is this a cannon that would have been used circa civil war era, or a more modern howitzer type, or a futuristic, laser or phaser/ photon type of weapon?

BorgMan

It all depends on the shape you want to have. But what REALLY makes the difference: do you sketch out what you want to model? If you're just going with an idea on the fly and figure out what you want to do with it while modelling, that's fine, but it helps if you have something on paper on which you can fall back. I'll post a turret soon; it took me 45 minutes to make, but that includes 10 minutes of sketching to get the shape I am intending to use. In order to get exotic looking stuff, make extensive use of the push/pull tool in combination with the Intersect with Model command. That's why you need to sketch out atleast something: it gives you an idea what shapes you need to make and then push/pull to get the desirder effect.