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In this course, author George Maestri explains how to model and render 3D objects and scenes using Google SketchUp 8. The course covers the fundamentals of the application, from navigating the user interface, manipulating objects, and building basic shapes to importing objects from Google Earth, animating a scene, and modeling organic terrain using the Sandbox tools. The course also explores SketchUp Pro features, which are available as an upgrade. These include tools for creating dynamic components and adding interactivity, as well as sophisticated importing and exporting options for working with outside applications.
SketchUp also allows you to create terrains from scratch. So instead of using lines and contours, we can just start with a flat plain and build it up from there So we start here with the From Scratch tool, and then we have five other tools that allow us to sculpt that terrain; the Smoove tool, the Stamp tool, Drape, Add Detail, and Flip Edge, and we will go through all of these. But it all starts with creating a terrain from scratch. So let's go ahead and do that.
I'm going to actually clear up my scene. I'm going to select my character here and delete her, and then I am going to zoom out just a little bit because I want to make this reasonably big. Now when you create the From Scratch terrain, it's basically just a plain. Now if you look down here in the bottom corner, you'll see that it has a default Grid Spacing of 10 feet and we can certainly use that. So what I am going to do is I am going to left click and drag and you'll notice how every 10 feet adds a little tick there and this is almost like drawing a rectangle.
So I am going to go ahead and maybe draw 60 feet by maybe 120 feet or so. So I am going to go ahead and draw that out and notice how now I have a Grid Spacing of 10'x10'. Now when I select this, you'll see that it's actually a group, but if I double-click in there, I can actually go in and select edges at a time. So in some ways, this create Terrain From Scratch is almost like creating a rectangle with subdivisions.
So you can use this for other purposes as well. But if you want, you can select each one of these little edges here and then just move them. You can move them up or down. You can also move them left or right, However, you want. So if you want, you can start sculpting your terrain this way. So if I want to create something that's going up, I can select all of these and just start moving my terrain However, I want. Now with a fairly coarse mesh like we have, this doesn't really work all that terrain like.
So if we want, we can add detail and start to subdivide this terrain. We can do that using the Add Detail tool. Now let me show you how this works on kind of a blank area here. So what it does is it snaps to a point here. So if I snap to an edge and click, what it does is it subdivides that edge, and allows me to move it up or down like this. So this is a great way to create a peak. If I select it Again, and may be snap to the center of a face, it'll go ahead and allow me to pull up that face from the middle.
So, for example, if I was here and I wanted to create more of a peak, I can do that, and again, you can just subdivide and keep sculpting. Now one of the things that you'll notice when you do this Add Detail is, it will go ahead and create a diagonal edge. So it creates this edge and this edge. If you don't like the way that those are moving, you can do what's called Flip Edge. Take this edge here and we can flip it.
So you can select Flip Edge, move it over the edge, and flip it. So if I've selected this edge, I can flip it as well. So those are ways to reorganize the direction of your geometry in SketchUp. Now this is just one of several ways to create terrain in SketchUp and this is kind of a good way to create kind of rough terrain that sort of stuff, but there are additional tools that are a little bit more sculptural that we can use and we'll get to those in the next lesson.
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