Before viewing this video, please be sure you’ve watched the first Getting Started
video. We’ll build on the concepts learned there.
In this video we’ll create a more detailed house, learning about accuracy, drawing tips,
and using Offset and the Follow Me tool. If you don’t see the Large Tool Set, go to
View > Tool Palettes > Large Tool Set. To start this model, let’s draw a basic rectangle.
As we learned before, everything in SketchUp has real dimensions. We need to control what
the dimensions are. In SketchUp, to enter dimensions, you start an operation and simply
type in the desired dimensions.
Try this: undo your rectangle if needed, then start drawing a new rectangle. Click and release
once to start the rectangle, then type “10’,20’” and press the Enter key. This creates a rectangle
ten feet by twenty feet.
Now start a line from this corner and draw in the Red direction. Type “2m” and press
Enter. This creates a line that is two meters long. Working accurately in SketchUp is simple.
Don’t click in the Measurements box, but just start drawing and then type in the dimensions
as needed. Rectangle dimensions are separated by a comma. Here are a few examples of some
dimensions you might enter.
Now that you are familiar with entering dimensions, erase any existing geometry and draw a new
rectangle that is twelve feet by thirty feet. Now, starting from this corner draw another
rectangle adjacent to the first that is twenty feet by ten feet.
We can combine these two surfaces by erasing the separating edge. There, now this is one
surface that we can Push/Pull. Start pulling it up and type ten feet. To create the roof,
we’ll use the Line tool and draw all the edges we need before pulling the ridge up.
Using the Line tool, find the midpoint and draw back in the Green direction. This will
be our first ridge, and we need it to connect exactly to the second ridge.
To do this, simply hover-but don’t click!-on the midpoint here, telling SketchUp we are
interested in this inference point. Once you see the tooltip telling you it’s the midpoint,
follow the original Green direction and SketchUp will infer to the midpoint, telling you exactly
how far to draw the first edge.
Make sure you see both inferences, and click to finish the first ridge, then draw the second
ridge to this midpoint. Now that we have both ridges in place, simply draw the lines where
the roof will fold when we move the ridge lines.
Use the Select arrow and click on one of the ridges. Then hold the Shift key and watch
the icon. There is now a plus/minus that indicates you can add to, or subtract from, your current
selection. This allows you to select other entities and deselect them as well while holding Shift.
Add the other ridge line to your selection, making sure only these two edges are selected.
Now you can use the Move tool to pull up the roof. When you’re happy with your roof,
use the Select tool and click away from your model to deselect the ridge line.
Let’s explore a new tool: the Offset tool. To see how the Offset tool works, click on
the side of our house and pull inwards or away. All the edges of the surface are offset.
Click to finish. You can try this on different surfaces to see the results, or if you wanted
to focus on one surface, you could use the Select tool to pick a single surface, then
the Offset tool will only work on that surface.
Time to get back to our house. So undo any previous offsets, and navigate so we can see
under the house. Let’s offset the base of the house inwards. Select the bottom surface
to focus the Offset tool, then offset the base inwards by six inches. Push this new
surface upwards to create a roof overhang, but don’t push it all the way. Leave a few
inches for us to work with later.
Offset can help us add some quick detail to other elements as well. Use the Rectangle
tool to create a door and window. Be sure to start the door from the bottom edge. The
window is simple: offset it once or twice, and use Push/Pull to make the window frame.
The door is a little more tricky, however. Offsetting the door creates some extra geometry
that we don’t need. It’s easy to erase these extra edges, but there is another way
to use the Offset tool that will solve this problem for us.
Undo back to our simple door. Use the Select tool to select one door edge, then, holding
the Shift key, add the other two edges. With these edges selected, the Offset tool will
focus and only work on those edges, so we don’t have any problematic edges below our
house and can correctly create the door frame.
Pull the door frame out so we can use it in our next example. Now that you understand
the Offset tool, let’s move on to the Follow Me tool. Zoom into the lower corner of the
door frame we just created, and draw a line between these two edges. We could use Push/Pull
on this surface, but what if we wanted this to be trim that turns this corner? That is
what the Follow Me tool will do.
Hit the Escape key to cancel the Push/Pull, or Undo it. Then select the Follow Me tool
and click once on our trim surface. Pull along this lower edge and it looks similar to Push/Pull.
Until you meet the corner and continue in a different direction. You can pull upwards
or around the corner and follow any joining edges, and click to finish.
The key to Follow Me is having a continuous edge to follow. Let’s undo and navigate
so we have a full view of the base of our house. Now use Follow Me to start following
the trim all the way around the house until it meets up with the other side of the door.
Just carefully follow around the edges and click to finish when you reach the inside
corner of the door.
Sometimes it’s tricky to end the Follow Me tool at the right point, but a more sure
way to use the tool is to pre-pick the path we want to choose. Undo the Follow Me action
we just finished and this time use the Select tool to choose the path. Hold the shift key
down like before and select all the edges that go around the house. But only the edges,
and make sure they are all connected or the tool won't work.
With our path selected, choose the Follow Me tool. It may look like we lost our selection,
but don’t worry! Just click on the trim surface to pull it around the path. If you
example doesn’t work, try again, and make sure you pick all the edges and have nothing
else selected.
We are only scratching the surface of what can be done with the Follow Me and other tools,
so please look into some of our other videos and learning resources to explore these tools
to their full extent.
To finish our house example let’s turn our attention back to the roof and some drawing
aids in SketchUp. Use the Line tool and start drawing a line from this edge. Now hover over
the roof edge for a few moments and as you continue to draw you’ll see a new inference
that is purple in color and parallel to the edge we just hovered over. We can easily find
out how far to draw this parallel edge by hovering over the ridge point to focus attention
there. Then as we come back to drawing our original line, SketchUp will tell us where
these points meet.
Click to finish that edge, then continue drawing and hover over the far roof line to tell SketchUp
we are now interested in that edge. SketchUp will now show us the parallel inference to
that edge and we can follow it down to meet up with the lower On Edge inference point.
At this point you can keep practicing on your own. In the next video in this series we’ll
create an interior room and fill it with items from the 3D Warehouse.