- Why do you need to know SketchUp? Take a second to picture it. Maybe you're an interior
designer and you want to put together a room
for a client presentation. Or you're an architect and
you wanna put together a house so that you can create a set
of construction documents. Whatever you have in mind,
if you try to jump straight into doing that in SketchUp,
you're making a huge mistake. If you're serious about why
you're learning SketchUp in the first place, you need
to take the right approach. I'm Alex Oliver, the
founder of SketchUp School. SketchUp School is the
place where professionals go when they're serious
about learning SketchUp. And in this video, I am
going to give you our recipe for reaching your goal in SketchUp. Plus, I'll show you five critical concepts that most self-taught SketchUp users don't take the time to learn. Many of the things I'll
share might surprise you. And you definitely won't find them in any other SketchUp tutorial. Keep watching. (soft music) Over the last 10 years,
I've taught thousands of professionals how to use SketchUp. I've taught advanced classes
like Photorealistic rendering, Creating Detailed Construction Documents, Organic Modeling and
other job related topics. A lot of students in these classes have taught themselves SketchUp. And almost every single one
of them really should have taken our Complete Intro
to SketchUp class first. So why do I say that? I think it's because
SketchUp feels so easy-to-use when you get started with it,
that people don't take time to stop and learn the fundamentals. But without a solid foundation, SketchUp users struggle to
reach their ultimate goal. I'll give you a recent example. I had a student who was
a residential architect, and his goal coming in was
to design things in SketchUp and then create construction
documents with LayOut. SketchUp looked easy enough to learn, so he dove right and started
trying to model his own house. He did pretty well for a while. Then he hit a snag
trying to make the roof. He searched online for a tutorial and he found one that looked good enough. And he was able to follow
the steps in the tutorial to get something pretty
close to what he wanted. But as he got a little
further in the project, he found himself increasingly looking for more and more tutorials. And getting stuck more and more often. Ultimately he got to a
point where he decided to call the model good enough. And he admitted to himself, hey this isn't too shabby for
a first go around in SketchUp. The first time he tried to use it on a job it was a totally different story. He got stuck right away. Things had to be accurate. There were design changes to be made. And he wasn't allowed
to skip over anything that he didn't know how to do. He figured he'd sign-up for
our class that helps people get from SketchUp Models to
Detailed Construction Documents. By the end of the first hour in class, he realized he was in over his head and he really needed to go back and re-learn SketchUp the right way. So what's the right way to learn SketchUp? Our approach is based
on a five-step method that was introduced to
me from a book called Peak, Secrets from the
New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericcson and Robert Pool. You need to learn the right information in the right order. You need to practice what you learn by using challenges that are
the right level of difficulty. And get constant feedback
on where you can improve. And ideally, you're guided by an expert every step of the way. Let's take a look at how this method applies to learning SketchUp. There are eight topics
that you need to learn to be able to use SketchUp on the job. Drawing and Editing Fundamentals in 2D. Drawing and Editing Fundamentals in 3D. Groups, Components and Layers. Colors, Textures and Images, Styles, Cameras and Views. Shadows, Shading and Fog. Scenes and Animations. The first topic you'll need
to focus on is the first one on the list, Drawing
and Editing in 2D. Let's take a look at the first five things you need to learn on this topic. Number one, start in 2D. When you first open
SketchUp, it starts you off in a view that's called Iso View. This is bad, no bueno. Trust me. It causes you to focus on the wrong things right out of the gate. By focusing on learning the
fundamentals in 2D first, you'll avoid a ton of pain when it's time to model in 3D later. So let's switch your
template so that you're in a Top down view and you can work in 2D. If you're a Windows user,
you'll go to the top of your menu and select
the option for Window. If you're on a Mac, you'll pick SketchUp. From there, open the Preferences window, and select the option for Template. Scroll down and pick the option for Construction
Documentation, Feet and Inches. If you're a Windows user, you'll click on the button at
the bottom right to finish. Mac users, you just close the window. Your current file's template won't change. You'll need to start a new file and then you'll be in that new template. Then what? You're ready for the next step. Number two, get a three-button
scroll wheel mouse. Everything in SketchUp
is better with a mouse. See, it's got three buttons, one, two, and the third
one is a scroll wheel. And once you have your mouse, you need to learn how
to use it the right way. I'll talk about that next. Number three, learn how
Geometry works in SketchUp. In SketchUp, all geometry
is made up of three things, Endpoints, Edges and Faces. And SketchUp's tools
mostly help you Create, Delete or Edit the position of those Edges, Endpoints, and Faces. Easy enough, right? We'll put it all together to learn all of the drawing tools in one go. Remember to have your
three-button scroll wheel mouse and be in your 2D template. Then pick one of the drawing tools. Before you do anything else pay
attention to this next part. There's a right and wrong
way to use the mouse. Click and let go of
your left mouse button, move your mouse, and
then click and let go. With nearly every tool in SketchUp, this is the right way to use the mouse. It gives you extra functionality. Most people do this wrong. They click, hold down, drag and let go. You don't want to do that. Trust me. Ok, so with whatever
drawing tool you've chosen, let's go ahead and try to
use the mouse the right way. Click, let go, move the mouse, click, let go, move the mouse. And just try every drawing tool this way. Some need two clicks,
some need three clicks. Don't worry too much just yet about that, just free draw with each
tool and see what happens. Notice the types of geometry
each tool helps you create. Some tools are for edges. Others help you create
edges and faces together. Even tools that create curves
are really just creating a bunch of edges that are connected. You should practice drawing in this way until you feel pretty
confident that you're using your mouse the right way, and that you've got a good sense for what each drawing
tool helps you create. Number four, Understand Stickiness. Geometry in SketchUp sticks
to other geometry in SketchUp. This is a good thing, You can overlap shapes and
edit them to create new shapes. So try this, practice overlapping shapes, then use the Eraser tool to delete Edges that you don't need and create
new shapes in the process. Or get rid of Faces,
right-click with your mouse on that face and select
the option for Erase. Stickiness is super-helpful for creating things quickly in SketchUp, but stickiness will hands down create the most pain you will
ever endure in SketchUp. Luckily, it's easy to avoid. Number five, Group Almost Everything. For things that shouldn't get stuck, protect them from other geometry by turning them into a Group. Grouped geometry can't get
stuck to anything else. By far, the biggest problem
that self taught users run into is not learning to use groups. And by not using groups,
they eventually end up with an un-editable mess. So be sure to group early and group often. Your future self with thank you. Hey thanks man. No worries man. So, that's the first five
things you need to know about learning to draw in 2D in SketchUp. Just by watching this video, you'll avoid a bunch of pain
in the future in SketchUp. Hey, I'm back with one more thing. Are you serious about learning SketchUp? If you are, we've got a SketchUp tutorial library exclusively for professionals. It's filled with $7200
worth of SketchUp Training. Head over to our website
and Try it for free. Before you go, do me a quick favor. Leave a comment below
this video and tell me which tip you found most useful. And if you like this
video, give it a like. And of course, be sure to
subscribe to our channel for more videos. Happy sketching.
