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Google SketchUp Workshop: Modeling, Visualizing, and Illustrating
Discover the secrets of the Google SketchUp with the 16 real-world professional-level projects including parks, structures, concept art, and illustration. Google SketchUp Workshop includes all the wide variety of projects that SketchUp can be used for-architectural visualization, landscape design, video game and film conception, and more. SketchUp masters in every field will get you up to speed in this agile and intuitive software and then show you the real uses with through projects in architecture, engineering, and design.
309 pages, Paperback
First published November 24, 2010
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October 28, 2012
This is an advanced projects book for SketchUp users in a variety of fields. It is not for those who have rudimentary SketchUp skills, like me. That said, the front matter materials teach good working strategies and troubleshooting techniques to conserve precious system resources and get the most mileage from SketchUp, and users at any level will benefit from applying them. Seeing the possibilities presented by the different contributors may well goad the casual user to dig in more deeply to master the basic-level skills so the sky can become as limitless for them as it is for others working professionally with SketchUp. It has goaded me.
What I find most exciting about this book is the Graphic Design portions of the "workshop," especially Alex Jenyon's concept art techniques. It never would have occurred to me to create a 3D Sketchup model of an object to rotate and position for maximum energy and dynamism (or whatever effect one is after) prior to bringing the image into another program like Painter, Photoshop, or Illustrator to finish off the work. Those graphic artists and illustrators who get this particular "Aha!" will then see the rest of the projects in the book—whether they be buildings, machines, or landscapes—through new eyes. I had not appreciated before that SketchUp has the potential to both speed up and minimize errors in artistic creation, whether of a realistic or fantastical nature.
Up until now, I have not invested the time needed to learn Google's free SketchUp program just to do an occasional garden plan or flowerbed design. But knowing I might actually be able to accomplish something artistically interesting (if to nobody else but me) just by playing around in SketchUp, then exporting it for further manipulation, appeals to me. I already have Photoshop and Illustrator skills I can put to good use in that regard.
This book is definitely going on my bedside bookshelf. When I get to the point that I am ready for the particulars of this advanced workshop, it will be there for me. Until then, I will enjoy just flipping through the illustrations of what can be accomplished using Google's program, absorbing it slowly.
What I find most exciting about this book is the Graphic Design portions of the "workshop," especially Alex Jenyon's concept art techniques. It never would have occurred to me to create a 3D Sketchup model of an object to rotate and position for maximum energy and dynamism (or whatever effect one is after) prior to bringing the image into another program like Painter, Photoshop, or Illustrator to finish off the work. Those graphic artists and illustrators who get this particular "Aha!" will then see the rest of the projects in the book—whether they be buildings, machines, or landscapes—through new eyes. I had not appreciated before that SketchUp has the potential to both speed up and minimize errors in artistic creation, whether of a realistic or fantastical nature.
Up until now, I have not invested the time needed to learn Google's free SketchUp program just to do an occasional garden plan or flowerbed design. But knowing I might actually be able to accomplish something artistically interesting (if to nobody else but me) just by playing around in SketchUp, then exporting it for further manipulation, appeals to me. I already have Photoshop and Illustrator skills I can put to good use in that regard.
This book is definitely going on my bedside bookshelf. When I get to the point that I am ready for the particulars of this advanced workshop, it will be there for me. Until then, I will enjoy just flipping through the illustrations of what can be accomplished using Google's program, absorbing it slowly.
Displaying 1 of 1 review