PlayUp - Making it Easy to Make Games

PlayUp, a SketchUp plugin for exporting content to a 3D game engine is under heavier-than-usual development recently. The latest releases include initial support CryEngine 3, as well as bug fixes. PlayUp - Making it Easy to Make Games - www.PlayUpTools.com

Source: Jim Sketchup Plugin Blog

Indigo Render 3 SketchUp plugin

Glare Technologies launches the version 3.0 of Indigo Renderer compatible with version 6 and version 7 of SketchUp and creates great images directly from SketchUp by aggregating an industrial-strength renderer with a high quality exporter for SketchUp.

The new release comes up with serviceability refinements and improvements to the unbiased physical renderer’s engine along with real time scene editing, GPU acceleration, built-in animation, improved rendering performance, new network rendering support, render queue support and improved sampling, subdivision and bump mapping.

These new advancement will help users to create and render photorealistic images quickly and smoothly. Besides the users can tweak materials, camera position, camera f-stop and focal length, all in realtime, with both a ray-traced and OpenGL preview.

Both CUDA™ and OpenCL™ are supported to ensure GPU acceleration will work on both AMD and NVidia cards, on OS X and Windows.

One can create great images directly from SketchUp by aggregating an industrial-strength renderer with a high quality exporter for SketchUp. The SketchUp exporter is called ‘SkIndigo’. Download Indigo and install Indigo to the default location on your system. Then Download the version of SkIndigo for your system from http://www.indigorenderer.com/documentation/sketchup. SkIndigo appears with an installer for Windows and Mac. Both installers will look for a “Plugins” directory in all known locations for SketchUp. Restart SketchUp after installing SkIndigo and you will find “SkIndigo” to be accessible under the Plugins menu.

Download option
Indigo Renderer 3.0.14 for Windows 32-bit
Indigo Renderer 3.0.14 for Windows 64-bit

Source: Sketchup 3D Component

Inspirational new book: Google SketchUp Workshop

When it comes to instructions for building your first house, or your first bench, or your first Google Earth model, there is no shortage of available materials. But what happens after you’re a SketchUp rockstar? Where are all the tomes full of delicious inspiration for those of us who have mastered inference locking and nested section planes and scene properties? It’s all fine and well to read about how SketchUp works, but real progress comes from peeking over our peers’ shoulders to see what they’re working on.

And that’s exactly the concept behind Laurent Brixius’ brilliant new book Google SketchUp Workshop. Translated from the original “Créer avec SketchUp” (originally published a few years ago in French) this full-color volume presents sixteen beautifully illustrated case studies authored by expert SketchUp users from a multitude of different disciplines. Each one includes high-level workflows, tips and techniques for using SketchUp in a different field of design. Architecture, urban design, engineering, process plant design, woodworking, theater set design and architectural graphics are all represented.

Our friends over at SketchUpArtists.org conducted a nice interview with Laurent (the book’s editor) before the English edition came out. An architect, architectural 3D artist and author from Belgium, he’s done an amazing job of assembling a collection of projects that are pure inspiration. This is a book that belongs on the shelf of every SketchUp aficionado.

Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Source: The Official Google Sketchup Blog

Featured Geo-modeler: Guillaume Godin

Guillaume Godin is an accomplished geo-modeler based in Montréal, Canada. He has 157 models uploaded to the 3D Warehouse so far. Of those, 86 are geo-located and 72 have been accepted into Google Earth. Thank you for your contributions and keep up the great modeling, Guillaume!

I am a 3D designer and Google SketchUp freelancer. I studied administration in college and now work in publicity for a small firm. I found out about 3D buildings in Google Earth by downloading the application and using it. I started modeling because Google SketchUp is free to download and I thought I might be talented doing it.

L'édifice Grand Tronc on Rue McGill in Montréal

When i started modeling six years ago, I really liked the fact that you have the possibility to publish on Google Earth and then millions of persons can see YOUR building.That really pushed me to do better and better. It really frustrated me for a while not to be able to place photo textures on faces.

Église Saint-Pierre on Rue de la Visitation in Montréal

The first thing I do when I’m geo-modeling is to choose a location with a Google Earth snapshot, then I trace the contour of the building in SketchUp. The third thing I do is to place the axes of the model. Next, I make a group, push/pull up my footprint, then I use Street View to check the approximate height of the building I’m working on.

Le Marché Maisonneuve (Maisonneuve Market) at Place Gennevilliers Laliberté in Montréal

Farine Five Roses is my favorite model because of the sign on top which is a unique feature in Google Earth and in Montreal's Old Port also.

Farine Five Roses (Five Roses Flour) at the Old Port in Montréal

I'd like to make Montreal and its surrounding areas more visible to the rest of the world and let people who are using Google Earth be able to use Street View to see my buildings.

1253 Rue McGill College, where Google’s offices in Montréal are located

I think the Google team have developed such nice and free tools for 3D that anyone with absolutely no experience can become a good modeler.

Posted by Greg Wirt, SketchUp Team

Source: The Official Google Sketchup Blog

Belgian architect Laurent Brixius has recently published a brilliant new book “Google SketchUp Workshop"

Belgian architect, architectural 3D artist and author Laurent Brixius has recently published a brilliant new book “Google SketchUp Workshop”. This book is translated from the original French version “Créer avec SketchUp”.

The book is not designated for beginners. The book is meant for professionals or people who are well versed with sketchup and other 3D programs like Autocad.

The book comes up with beautifully illustrated 16 real-world professional-level projects and case studies by some expert sketchup users from a multitude of different disciplines focusing on how sketchup can be applied for architectural visualization, architectural graphics, Urban & landscape design, engineering, process plant design, woodworking, theater scenic design, video game, film conception and numerous others.

Here the sketchup users explain their high-level workflows, tips and techniques in a different field of design.

In this book the author describes the strengths and fluid spectrum's of modeling with Google Sketchup with stunning visuals, models and illustrations in the graphics world. The users can also get overview of many of the famous plug-in for expanding sketchups abilities.

The book addresses both the free and Professional versions of the Google SketchUp and instructs 2D illustration and pre-visualization through to the fully rendered 3D Model.

The worldwide professional interviewed and exposed their workflow with tons of diagrams, screenshots and in-progress project designs. The book also provides a few hints regarding why, when SketchUp isn't doing what you expect, and how to recuperate to certainty.

Laurent Brixius’ BIO

Posted by Rajib
Business Development
Visit us at www.sketchup4architect.com
Download our sketchup magazine

Source: Sketchup 3D Component

Formatting text in LayOut on a Mac

If you happen to be using LayOut on a Mac, there’s a menu item that you might’ve missed: Choosing Text > Show Rulers displays the Mac operating system’s default ruler at the top of the screen. More interestingly, it adds a few typographic controls that are otherwise hidden.


Selecting a piece of text (when your ruler is visible) reveals drop-down menus for Paragraph Style, Alignment and Spacing, as well as preset settings for bulleted and numbered lists. Windows users can access list formatting controls in the Text Style dialog box.

Compared to the last tip I wrote, this one was quick, eh?
Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist
Source: The Official Google Sketchup Blog

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