These days, there are quite a few ways in which we can share a SketchUp model with the world, thanks to a technology that is built right into most modern browsers: WebGL. One example is Trimble's 3D Warehouse, where an uploaded model becomes an interactive one just by clicking on a small icon:
Other web services expand on this technology. Of those, Sketchfab offers amazing possibilities when it comes to adjusting the model and its materials after upload. Using its 3D Editor, you can tweak the interactive WebGL model quite a bit. Here is an example of an edited SketchUp model.
I covered the process of preparing a SketchUp model, uploading, and adjusting it in a recent guest post on the Sketchfab blog. You can read it at the link below. Feel free to discuss anything related to this process in the comments below this post.
Below is a link to the original Sketchup model:
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Did you see my 2015 Christmas card tree image on this site? In case you were wondering how I modeled and rendered it, here is a video that explains that process. It's a bit of a minimalistic design, but as you can see in the video, I used a bunch of SketchUp extensions and the Twilight Renderer to make it happen. I hope you find the tips and tricks useful for your own projects.
Covered topics: studio setup, materials, Erode extension, components, scale tool, Fredoscale extension, Selection Toys extension, Profile Builder extension, Twilight extension, Twilight materials, Twilight lights, Twilight rendering options.
Tutorial Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBhhXavm48&feature=youtu.be
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As you just saw in the CLT example, having a good texture makes all the difference when you create renderings in SketchUp. I also discussed this in some length in the book (especially in the rendering chapter). To expand on this topic, here are some tips for two cases:
Making a Seamless Texture
Obviously a seamlessly repeating (a "tiling") texture is the most efficient way to go when you use textures. This allows you to use a small image to fill a large space. And if you use a good texture, you won't even see any seams or repeating patterns. As I described in the book, there are many places where you can get good quality tiling textures.
Steps
What do you do when you need to make your own? First of all, start with a good image! This typically requires a few simple but important steps:
Find the texture you are looking for (a brick wall, grass etc.). Be careful with the sun's position....
Rendering of the newly-textured CLTs
With Cross-Laminated Timber (often abbreviated to CLT) available now as a new and exciting building material, I am sure some of you will need to include these in your SketchUp models, too. To help you out a bit, I am making SketchUp components of 3-ply and 5-ply CLT panels available. You can download them from my 3D Warehouse account (you can just search for "CLT" in the Components window in SketchUp).
Models and Textures
Click on the links below to preview and access them. I am making these available under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
If you need the raw textures for your own creations, you can download these images from my Flickr account here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexschreyer/8892850629/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexschreyer/8892850691
These are from my textures set.
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Rendering of the penny floor
Today I came across a great idea on Google+: Use coins as flooring - preferably one cent pieces (that are even taken out of circulation in some places). With a bit of resin on top, this ingenious flooring solution adds sparkle and a wonderful warm glow to a room.
While adding this to a real floor should be pretty labor intensive, as it turns out, creating a texture for rendering proved quite easy. You can grab the diffuse texture as well as the bump map from my flickr pages by clicking on the images below and then use them in your own projects.
Coin floor texture
Bumpmap for texture
And here are the material settings for Twilight Renderer:
The texture repeats a bit, so make sure you adjust its rotation a bit to remove that effect. Also, you might want to add the bump texture into the reflection channel to only have the pennies reflect.
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