Anyone use SketchUp?

[matt_lorenzi]

I have downloaded it and played around, but that is about it. Looks like it may be good for modeling and some basic rendering. I know in my wife's field (architecture), is used quite often. My question is for you illustrators, how good of an end product can you achieve with it? Any of you used it to draw a 3D model than bring it into Illustrator and redraw? I guess a lot of Photoshop may be required to "liven" things up.

[JamesProvost]

Check out Davvi Chrzastek's work, he uses SketchUp along with a lighting/rendering plugin called SU Podium:
http://www.behance.net/davvi
http://davvi.com/

I use it for quick mockups, but prefer to do the heavy lifting in C4D.

[LyleMills]

I have used it for architectural illustration and a bit of mechanical modelling. It is very easy to learn and intuitive. There is a tonne of sites devoted to its use and education. But I must agree, the complex modelling is best left to C4D or 3DSMax. There are ruby scripts that extend the capabilities of sketchup though - many of which are free.

[matt_lorenzi]

I am referring to it for one of my Technical Writing classes. That will give me chance to play around with it a bit more. I can definitely see how it would work well in building 3D "spaces", not necessarily the models, but the environment.

[LyleMills]

www.the-blueprints.com gives directions on how to set up sketchup to do models of things other than 3d spaces such as vehicles.

http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/ is the official blog site that give a lot of great info and references.

Lyle

[matt_lorenzi]

Thought I would give this thread a bump. I'm seeing the benefit of using SketchUp library items to get reference material for my illustrations. The odds are good someone has build a model of something you are working on, or even components (engines, etc.)

Does anyone else use per-existing SketchUp models to get "views" necessary to build a technical illustration? Currently trying to do a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine....I always have to go for the easy stuff!

[clint]

I don't use sketchup for it but I do use blender and download models from turbo squid, which can be a huge timesaver to figure out the correct view to draw in.