New to Sketch Up and New Chesterton

photoLith · #1 Posted **Sep 9, 2008, 4:12 AM**

Hello all, I just found this sketch up thing and wow its so freakin cool. I always used to love sim city but this is so much cooler as I can design everything myself and make it look so much more realistic.

This is the city that I am starting. I am calling it New Chesterton for no reason at all, just sounded good. I dont really know how to do all that much fancy stuff yet with sketch up but I will learn how to do it soon enough I hope. The city layout will be kinda like the layout for Chicago and it has the Aon Center which I modeled. I love the Aon Center, its one of my favorite buildings of all time

Here are some of snapshots of the very beginnings of my city.

For whatever reason it started blocking out my models when I got too close to them, it made it hard to do close up work. How do I make it not do that because it wasnt doing that earlier.

Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated. Like how to export the images in a higher quality so you dont get the little white lines on the edges of the models and just any general tips would be great appreciated.

Eventually I will detail each individual building so they look a lot more realistic than they do now but that takes a long freakin time!

One question I have is how do I download water that is reflective and how do I download trees and cars to sketch up. I downloaded them from google but cant find them in the program. Thanks.

Hope you guys enjoy watching this city expand for the years to come, haha.

mikeR · #2 Posted **Sep 9, 2008, 1:50 PM**

nice start

to keep your models from being blocked out change your view from parallel projection to perspective under the camera menu

for renderings download kerkythea and read the tutorial on it. This program is a little confusing though.

for cars and trees you have to download them for each model you are working in then place them in the model

hope that helps

verticalextropy · #3 Posted **Sep 9, 2008, 1:55 PM**

hey nice start!
Is that Meigs Fields?

photoLith · #4 Posted **Sep 9, 2008, 5:40 PM**

^^^
Which one? The big block sitting out there in the park? Its not really anything yet. It may turn into a convention center or something whenever I get around to actually modeling it.

Also, miker is that kerk thing free? I also tried downloading the trees and stuff from google but I cant find them in the program. Do I have to save the plug ins to a specific folder or something?

mikeR · #5 Posted **Sep 9, 2008, 7:34 PM**

ya kerk is free and with the downloads when you click to download something a message comes up and says do you want to place this directly in the model and you click yes and that puts it in your model and if you want the model more than once just copy and paste it

photoLith · #6 Posted **Sep 10, 2008, 2:58 AM**

This is driving me crazy. How do you copy and paste windows without them losing their color. I know how to copy and paste windows and the like now but the color sometimes doesnt transfer when you move them. What am I doing wrong?

Also, how do I transfer windows and such across to another face of the building, ie where the arrow is pointing? Thanks for the help.

Mocholate · #7 Posted **Sep 10, 2008, 9:22 AM**

Very nice indeed. I like the shape of the waterfront interesting to see what happens with that peninsula.

- The colour hasn't disappeared. The face of the glass is there but the brick face is in front of it.
You just have to move the windows outwards about half an inch

Or if you want transparant glass- Highlight the whole wall face including the windows then right click on it and choose 'intersect>intersect selected' from the drop down list. Now click where the window should be and delete the brick face.

Before you copy and move something it's best to turn it into a component.
Highlight the area to be moved/edited and press 'G' - A box will appear to create component. This way it won't 'stick' to anything.

I recommend playing around to see what ALL the tools do before you start modelling as there are so many short cuts for everything.

Aleks · #8 Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 3:32 AM**

Oh, I hate it when that happens. I just make a floor, make it a group and copy it up and up. Nice city, I see a lot of Chicago in there. It'd be nice to see this city with a different skyline though.

I like the waterfront too, it looks really nice.

photoLith · #9 Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 11:29 AM**

It will have a much different skyline than Chicago. It just has the same layout and such but the buildings for the most part will be totally different than Chicago.

photoLith · #10 Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 1:19 AM**

Some new row houses i just finished. I spent around 4 hours finishing these houses but as I get the hang of this program it will take me a lot less time I hope. I am going for a high degree of accuracy and detail with this city. When I was a kid I loved building models and building model train sets but now with this program my imagination is the only limit and its free too, so thats awesome! I still cant figure out a lot of stuff, especially that Kerkythia thing or whatever. My computer wont let me open the file to extract it for whatever reason but oh well. Also, I am afraid that this will take up a lot of room on my computer. Another thing, I dont want to spend tons of time on this and then one day my computer blows up and I lose it. Is it possible to save this city to an external hardrive? Would it be compatible?

treras93 · #11 Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 2:05 AM**

Wow! this city is really just genuinely nice. very well planned and then created. very nice job

photoLith · #12 Posted **Sep 13, 2008, 5:56 PM**

Look familiar to anyone? Just finished it a second ago and now on to texturing the building bordering the park and the church.

Austin55 · #13 Posted **Sep 13, 2008, 7:18 PM**

very nice

Aleks · #14 Posted **Sep 13, 2008, 8:06 PM**

The park is fine imo. All these details will make you computer lag soon. But yes you can save it on an external hard-drive and you just need sketchup on another computer to open the files.

I'd like to see some more high-rises in the financial district and such. Keep up the good work.

photoLith · #15 Posted **Sep 13, 2008, 8:38 PM**

I havent yet gotten to the central business district area yet, that will be a long long time from now. I am working now on the low rise outer neighborhoods that will eventually turn into midrise and then the CBD and so on. Oh and yes, it already is lagging so my computer will probably need a lot more ram on it in order for me to complete this city.

photoLith · #16 Posted **Sep 14, 2008, 5:07 PM**

Another update, the south side is slowly coming together.

Wrightguy0 · #17 Posted **Sep 14, 2008, 7:15 PM**

Amazing

BoiseAirport · #18 Posted **Sep 14, 2008, 7:42 PM**

Cheese n' Rice!!

This is your FIRST time using Sketchup!?!?

My goodness, that is sheerly incredible! Incredible, I say! Very nice and good work, sir!

Anthony

photoLith · #19 Posted **Sep 14, 2008, 7:58 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoiseAirport

Cheese n' Rice!!

This is your FIRST time using Sketchup!?!?

My goodness, that is sheerly incredible! Incredible, I say! Very nice and good work, sir!

Anthony

Yeah, I just found it about a week ago. I watched a few youtube videos on how to use it and I still have tons to learn and theres still tons of stuff that I dont know how to do or why the program does certain things. It took me about 4 hours to make that church but Im sure as I learn how to use it better it will eventually take me about an hour to make something like that.

Does anyone know if you can make money doing this by any chance because that would be freakin sweet.

Patrick · #20 Posted **Sep 28, 2008, 7:34 AM**

I am so in love with this city, its very fresh, amazingly detailed without any textures! I cant' wait to see downtown New Chesterson!