A Sketchup Stadium Academy Omnibus Thread

[Thazer]

There seems to be a macarena-like fad of sketchup stadium concepts, so im putting this here so the individual concept threads dont get sidetracked from the actual concept to the '''whoaa, how maaaan?!" type deals.

 

so, heres sketchup :http://www.sketchup.com/

and heres what i use to render the scenes: http://getvisualizer.com/

both free.

 

Anyway, a little about the craft.....

 

here, have a seat:

....very simple. 3 planes. practically modern art.

not many people dig modern art, so lets slap some textures on:

 

heres a quick render of the same thing...oooh... sexy seat:

heres the back:

still simple, but showing that you can assign a front and back texture to one plane.

 

...and the sexy back:

 

but hey, you might be asking, what if i want a diff color seat?

no prob

you can tint the color of the texture within the program, and not actually modifying the base texture file.

this is why i had the textures in grayscale. its easier to do this that way (but still possible otherwise with wonky results).

 

so youre like, great! but thats too much work to photoshop textures. i just want stuff man.

 

tough! here's all the source material, do it yourself!

 

 

........

 

 

 

 

 

ok...here you go

 

 

all in .png format to preserve transparent areas.

 

now i realize that seating isnt crucial. you'll just slap a texture on a wide area and call it a day. i just use this as an example because you can apply this elsewhere, and when you really think about it, its not that hard to go the extra mile.

 

.....actually it is kinda hard...initially......what i meant is, its totally worth it. 

 

 

 

everyone else feel free to add some jazz.... questions, concerns, comments etc.

[GeauxColonels]

Very enlightening. Thanks for putting this together. I'm sure many of the sketchup fans are going to find this very useful. Hell, I may have to download the program and try a few things as well.

[Guest darkpiranha]

Awesome.  I'm sure I'll have annoying questions once I get to trying it out, but I'll make sure to be verbose and document my process so others can learn from my mistakes.

[XenonDesigns]

This  is really awesome! I made a few sketch up stadiums years ago but they were so bad I just gave up them but I've recently returned to it and this is definitely going to be a big help.

[GeauxColonels]

I do have a question, so you cut out an item to use it as a "texture," does sketchup just fit the texture to the height and width of the object to which it's being applied?

[Thazer]

7 hours ago, GeauxColonels said:

I do have a question, so you cut out an item to use it as a "texture," does sketchup just fit the texture to the height and width of the object to which it's being applied?

 

not automatically, no.

its possible to set the dimensions of the texture, for example if you have a 600x600 pixel thing you can set it in the editor to be 35' height by 100' width. you would still have to manually position it after you apply it to the plane.

A more practical way is just to apply the texture on the plane then manipulate it on the fly.

 

Heres how i build up the hand railings on a vomitory (slides 3-6 esp.):

 

----------------------------------------

 

 

and yes again i wanna annoyingly emphasize the concept of NOT SETTLING

 

this is/was one of my first stadiums:

i actually got my concept across: a retro ballpark in which you can hit an upper deck and out of the park HR. and an in play scoreboard which can block hr's!

weeeeee!

........except it looks sterile as hell.

that, and jacking wrigley fields scoreboard cause i needed an old manual one was cheesy.

 

 

 

 

so, version 2:

yeaa! 3d light towers, a more unique scoreboard, and a more interesting left field! i'm done!

 

but damn those flat vomitories look lame. and the seat textures close up, yikes.... i can visualize watching a game here but that's sad the illusion is compromised...

oh well.

 

 

 

 

....or, oh hells no!

..yyeeeah! a busy as hell outfield, and railings up the ass to distract from the flat seating textures. whatever, it looks awesome.

actually putting in all the seats? eff-that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

...or, oh hells no!

[XenonDesigns]

Do you think you can do a tutorial on Visualizer? I've downloaded it but have no clue what to do now. 

[Thazer]

It's a plug in. once it's installed you should just be able to hit the button within sketchup and it'll render the scene. 

[XenonDesigns]

I've got another question, this time concerning the seating: Do you go and copy+paste each seat manually on the corners and such? Right now this is what I have: 

Just a small little stand. So if I were to make a corner, do you have any tips on how to do it? 

[Thazer]

there are a few ways to do it. you can use the offset tool, select the field edge, then drag out to outline the grandstand footing, then build up.

 

or you could copy paste line segments to keep the measurements legit and build up

 

 

 

 

 

that type of stands was when i was still using flat textures for seating, but the principle is there.

 

as for seating. there are tricks. if you select to move a seat, you can hold down shift, drag the next seat into its place, drop it, then type 'x' then the number of seats you want, like 'x12' and itll paste 12 seats in a row the same interval you dragged and placed the second seat.

 

as for filling irregular areas with seats. , if you find the seats dont neatly fill up the row...like they leave irregular ends, you select the whole row of seats and scale the length to fit the area. in real life, seats are actually different widths to compensate for this.

[DarkKnight]

This is sweet man! Definitely going to use the seat texture in my stadiums!

[DarkKnight]

Where do you find your textures for railings and walls?

 

[DarkKnight]

How do you use extensions? I've downloaded a rendering software, but I can't figure out how to use it?

[XenonDesigns]

4 hours ago, Commodore Crablegs said:

there are a few ways to do it. you can use the offset tool, select the field edge, then drag out to outline the grandstand footing, then build up.

 

or you could copy paste line segments to keep the measurements legit and build up

 

 

 

that type of stands was when i was still using flat textures for seating, but the principle is there.

 

as for seating. there are tricks. if you select to move a seat, you can hold down shift, drag the next seat into its place, drop it, then type 'x' then the number of seats you want, like 'x12' and itll paste 12 seats in a row the same interval you dragged and placed the second seat.

 

as for filling irregular areas with seats. , if you find the seats dont neatly fill up the row...like they leave irregular ends, you select the whole row of seats and scale the length to fit the area. in real life, seats are different widths to compensate for this.

The attachments aren't working for me...?

[Thazer]

4 hours ago, XenonDesigns said:

The attachments aren't working for me...?

 

should be fixed now!

 

8 hours ago, DarkKnight said:

This is sweet man! Definitely going to use the seat texture in my stadiums!

 

my name must be featured every time you use them

or

think upon me lovingly as you populate your stadiums with magnificent looking seating.

 

your choice!

 

7 hours ago, DarkKnight said:

Where do you find your textures for railings and walls?

 

 

google searches or wherever. then i photoshop them for what i need...

majority of the walls are from default sketchup textures, specifically the blinds. they are tinted and re-scaled all in the program to my liking.

 

 

6 hours ago, DarkKnight said:

How do you use extensions? I've downloaded a rendering software, but I can't figure out how to use it?

 

if it is visualizer, it looks like this on my sketchup. the V button opens the renderer

 

or access it like this

 

other extensions i cant testify to. i've found other renderers to be confusing or taking too long a time to render.

[GeauxColonels]

Anyone get an error message trying to download Visualizer? I downloaded Sketchup 2016 but the Visualize install said I needed an older version of sketchup (i.e. 2015 or 2014).

[Thazer]

1 hour ago, GeauxColonels said:

Anyone get an error message trying to download Visualizer? I downloaded Sketchup 2016 but the Visualize install said I needed an older version of sketchup (i.e. 2015 or 2014).

i see whats up. visualizer is abandonware, its only supported up to sketchup 2015. i didnt realize that cause i still have 2015!

 

this link has 2015 if downgrading is worth it to ye

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/desktop/3d_modeling/google_sketchup.cfm#all_versions

[GeauxColonels]

Well, what does Visualizer do? Why would I want it?

[Thazer]

On 4/18/2016 at 11:04 AM, GeauxColonels said:

Well, what does Visualizer do? Why would I want it?

It's a renderer. 

 

Rendered in sketchup 

 

Same seat same textures rendered in Visualizer. 

 

More specifically,  'rendering' with sketchup is more like taking a screens hot of the model,  whereas using a renderer like Visualizer generates  real lighting and shadows. 

[GeauxColonels]

Ah ok, I didn't realize that Visualizer was the software that created the lighting. 

 

 

I may hold off for a while to learn sketchup....and hopefully they release a compatible 2016 plugin in the near future.