Introduction to SketchUp

Riddle me this Batman! What does Lord of The Rings, The Rings of Power, HBO’s West World, and For All Mankind have in common? Ok, ok; aside from being streaming series, having actors, being shot on cameras, etc, etc, what do they have in common, wiseguys…

SETS!! They all have sets! And I don’t mean CG sets, but bump-into-them-and-say-OUCH, physical sets. ‘Golly’, I hear you ask, ‘how do those things get made?’ Well, I’ll tell you: Someone had an idea, and that idea got turned into a model, which got turned into presentations, illustrations, and finally working drawings, and yes, CG bits. The drawings were turned over to a bunch of beardy guys with tools and chunks of wood who built something pretty close to the original idea so actors could stand in them and say things that become memes.

Forget everything but the ‘model’ bit.  If you can get that part down you can do all the illustrations, presentations, CG bits, and yes, working drawings for the beardy guys. That’s what I have been doing for nearly forty years…forty years, I feel so old…wait, that’s because I am old…sigh… I’m the guy who has done all of that on the shows mentioned waaaay at the start of this monolog, and many others.

If you don’t believe me you can go to my website here at ArtStation...

See, I really have done all of that! And I have done a lot of it in SketchUp and its companion program Layout! I also teach other people to do it too. I teach graduate students at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, and I teach design professionals at the Art Director’s Guild of Los Angeles! And now I want to teach you how to do it too! This is a classroom in a box for people to learn SketchUp and Layout. This class comes in two parts; SketchUp, and Layout (duh). Each covers the entire program and assumes you come to the table as a beginner. The series is geared to people designing sets for the entertainment industry but remember, it is a SketchUp class, and when you are done you can use the program to make whatever you like, not just movie sets, so everyone is welcome.

This is "Introduction to SketchUp" and in it, we build a sad-looking little house. Be that as it may, it is intended for the complete novice to learn the basic toolset and navigation functions, not to make the Sistine Chapel. The detailed architecture (including the Sistine Chapel) comes later. This tutorial works with free SketchUp Free and SketchUp Pro. No files or plugins are needed.