- Have you ever gotten stuck or felt lost trying to model something in SketchUp? If you know the feeling, you're not alone. Just remember, anything you can imagine can be modeled in SketchUp. From organic shapes used in terrain, to curved shapes for custom furniture, to complex architectural forms, and more. We've helped thousands of
professionals, like you, learn what it takes to conquer the toughest modeling challenges in SketchUp. I'm Alex Oliver, lead
instructor at SketchUp School. The place where professionals go when they're serious
about learning SketchUp. And today, I'm gonna share with you the seven key concepts you need to know before tackling advanced
modeling in SketchUp. Keep watching. (ambient music) - You've probably heard someone say it, "SketchUp is the easiest 3D
modeling software out there," and there's some truth to it. If you're like me, you remember
that feeling of satisfaction the first time you used
push/pull to create a 3D object. SketchUp felt so intuitive
and user friendly. But like all SketchUp users, there comes a time when
you inevitably hit a wall. Needing to model something
difficult and asking yourself, "is it even possible to
build this in SketchUp?" If you're self-taught, you'll
likely search for a tutorial and hope you can make it
work for your situation. Depending on what type of
roadblock you're facing, sometimes this will do the trick. But this approach doesn't really address the root of the problem, which just means you'll find yourself in the same situation again and again. It's like baking. If you find a recipe that exactly matches what you wanna make, you're fine. But you don't actually learn
the fundamentals of baking. So, if you deviate from the recipe, often the results are pretty bad and nobody wants bad cookies. So, why not invest now in
learning the fundamentals? Your future self will
definitely thank you. (soft upbeat music) The thing is, most answers to the toughest modeling challenges aren't found in a few magical settings
or predefined set of steps. It's often more important
to take a step back and understand the fundamentals
of how SketchUp works. That's why I put together this list of seven key concepts that if you master, you'll be confident you can take on any SketchUp modeling
challenge that comes your way. Now, before we jump into the list, I should warn you. To get the most out of this video, you need to have a solid
foundation in SketchUp first. At a minimum, you should be familiar with everything we covered in our watch this before you get
started with SketchUp video. So, if you haven't
already, go watch it now. Okay, we're gonna discuss
a lot in this video. Starting with beginner level concepts about how SketchUp functions and then moving on to
more advanced concepts. Including material I haven't
seen taught anywhere else. It's a lot of ground to cover, so I put together some notes for you to help you remember every thing. Stick around at the end of the video and I'll let you know how
you can get a copy of them. So, what are the seven key
concepts you need to know before tackling advanced
modeling in SketchUp? let's start with number
one, SketchUp uses polygons. Everything you draw in
SketchUp is made up of end points or vertices, straight edges, and flat two-dimensional faces. Taken together, each
face along with its edges and endpoints is called a polygon. So, all of the drawing tools
in SketchUp help you create the endpoints, edges, and
faces that form polygons. And all of SketchUp's editing tools help you change the
position and orientation of those endpoints, edges, and faces. And that pretty much sums
up everything you need to know about how SketchUp works. Everything you've ever seen in SketchUp from a simple 2D triangle all the way up to a more complicated structure is made up of anywhere from one to millions of these flat 2D polygons all stitched together in 3D space. So, as long as you can master how to use SketchUp's basic drawing
tools to create polygons, and then master how to use
SketchUps basic editing tools to change the position and
orientation of those polygons, you can create pretty much
anything you can imagine. Easy enough in theory, but in practice you need to understand
a few more concepts. The next one is number two, connected polygons create meshes. Whenever you have two or
more connected polygons you have a mesh, which can be
used to represent a surface. There are two ways to create a mesh. One way is to add new
polygons to an existing one. The other way is to
subdivide an existing polygon into two or more smaller polygons. Whether you're adding new polygons or subdividing existing ones, you can use SketchUp's basic
drawing tools to create meshes. And then, you can use
SketchUp's basic editing tools to change the position and orientation of the endpoints, edges, and
faces that make up the mesh to create more complex 3D surfaces. The trick is knowing which
drawing and editing tools can be combined most efficiently to get the result you're looking for. Take a surface like
topography, for example. You could use only the Line
tool to create the mesh and then use the Rotate
tool to manipulate the mesh, but that would be a slow
and painful process. A better tool combination
would be to start with the Rectangle tool and
then use the Move tool to copy your rays for the
width and length of the mesh, and then use the Move tool
again to manipulate the mesh. Now, of course, there are even
better tools within SketchUp for more efficiently creating and manipulating a mesh like this one. Not to mention extensions
that can be added to SketchUp that can do the job better and faster. But stick with me, there's more to know
before you sprint ahead, and try to use those more
advanced features and extensions. That leads me to the next concept. Number three, the shape, orientation, and
number of polygon matters. Let's back up to a more simple mesh made up of four polygons. It could be made up of four triangles or made up of four rectangles. The shape of the polygons
that make up the mesh matters, since moving the endpoints,
edges, and faces of one mesh will produce a different 3D surface than you can get with the other mesh. There's no right or wrong
answer for what shape your polygon should be just yet. It's only important to notice
this now before you tackle more complicated modeling tasks later. Take the mesh with four
triangle polygons, for example. If you move an edge up in
the blue axis direction, you'll have the start of a crude looking terrain that has a hill. But if you erase the
edge you had moved up, then draw in the diagonal edge connecting the other two endpoints, you've changed the orientation
of the underlying polygons and you end up with a valley. The takeaway here is that when you're working with meshes in 3D space, you often need to flip the
orientation of a polygon to get the result you need. And of course, the number
of polygons in your mesh matters as well. Take a surface representing a small piece of terrain, for example. You could use a mesh of 25
polygons to represent it, but you could also 100
or even 400 polygons. So, which is the best option? It depends. On one hand, you need to pick the option that gives you the best
resolution or smoothness of your surface relative
to what you need to show. On the other hand, you want to choose the lowest viable option as SketchUp runs more smoothly the fewer polygons you have. Now, before you make your choice it's helpful to know about SketchUp's Soft and Smooth feature. That's where SketchUp hides the edge and shades the connected polygons as if they were gradually
changing orientation between them, rather than having a hard contrast and shading at the hidden edge. You can soften and smooth
a single edge using the Eraser tool and holding
down the Control key on a PC, or the Option key on a Mac. Or you can soften an entire
surface by selecting it and then using the Soft
and Smooth edges dialogue. PC users will find it in the Default Tray and Mac users will find it
under the Window menu option. Then be sure to check both smooth normals, and soft and coplanar, and slide the slider until you get the results you're looking for. As you can see, while
the lower polygon option seemed out of the question at first, perhaps they could work in some scenarios so long as you use Soft and Smooth. Of course, you can opt for the highest polygon option when needed. Just think of it like
you have a polygon budget to spend on your entire SketchUp model. The exact number depends on your computer and the version of
SketchUp you're running. But here's some rules of thumb. On most computers, SketchUp runs smoothly with models under 250,000 polygons. Models ranging between 250,000
and one million polygons may start to present problems, and models over one million polygons are tough to use on most computers. Managing higher polygon models
is a topic for another time, but you can keep an eye
on your polygon count by looking at the face count found in your model info's statistics pane. Okay, let's take a step back to review what we've covered so far. Endpoints, edges, and faces form polygons; connected polygons form meshes; and meshes are manipulated
to represent 3D surfaces. We've seen a little bit about
how all this works together starting from a single 2D mesh, but what about more complicated objects? That's where the next concept comes in. Number four, every 3D
object is wrapped in a mesh. let's say you need a simple box, that's pretty straight forward. Just draw a rectangle and
push/pull it into a box. But what if you wanna give
the box a slight twist? To figure out how to do that you need to think of the box
as being wrapped in a mesh. Right now, that mesh is made
up of six rectangular polygons. In order to twist the
top of the rectangle, you'll need to subdivide the sides. If you take the Rotate tool and rotate the top of the rectangle, SketchUp will use its auto-fold feature to automatically create fold lines. Basically, it subdivides
the surfaces for you, but the result doesn't look quite right. That's because auto-fold subdivided the surfaces in opposite directions. To fix, you can erase
away two of the edges and draw the diagonals back
in between opposite endpoints. Still not very twisty looking. But remember, you can Soft and Smooth the subdividing edges on the sides, and suddenly it's looking a lot better. Knowing you can subdivide
flat faces like this is pretty awesome, but there's
another related concept that will unlock even more power that we're ready to cover next. Number five, wrapped
meshes can have edge loops. let's go back to our box. Around each side you have a series of four connected edges that form a polygon, but forget about the face of
the polygon for just a moment and focus only on the four edges. And you have what's called an edge loop or a set of connected edges where the last edge meets up with the first. Edge loops allow you
to modify your objects in more predictable ways. That's because you can
select an entire edge loop and then manipulate the
position or orientation using Move, Scale, or Rotate. But here's the cool part, you can set up strategic edge loops when you subdivide your mesh that make it easier to manipulate later. Of course, one way you
can do that is by drawing the edge loops manually
with the Line tool. Or a faster option is to select an existing edge loop
at the top or bottom, and then use the Move tool
to create edge loop copies along the perpendicular surface. then move, scale, or rotate the edge loops to experiment with the
control they give you. AlL right, edge loops are pretty helpful, but we need to know how to use them to make and manipulate
more complicated objects. That's where our next
two concepts come in. Starting with number six,
Follow Me creates edge loops. You might've used the Follow Me tool or at least seen what it can do. In case you haven't though, here's a quick primer. If you have a path of
connected edges and a polygon, you can use the Follow Me tool to extrude the polygon along the path. The path can be open-ended
or a closed loop of edges, and the polygon can be any shape you want. With a little imagination
and just a few clicks, you can use it to create all sorts of useful and complex models. But here's another thing, the edges that formed
your original polygon can be thought of as an edge loop and Follow Me will create new edge loops along the path wherever
it changes direction. Just turn on Hidden
Geometry to see them all, and you can get even more control to manipulate the shapes you make. Okay, working with the
Follow Me tool and edge loops can be a lot of fun, but there are many common situations that require a different approach. Fortunately, the next
concept will give you edge loop super powers. Number seven, use Intersect
Faces to create edge loops. When polygons on different planes pass through one another in SketchUp their faces don't connect, so they're not part of the same mesh. SketchUp notices that the faces intersect, but without a shared edge those two faces aren't connected. So, why does that matter? Well in SketchUp, there are many modeling
challenges that are best solved by figuring out how to
overlap two or more shapes, and then either combine them or delete one or more of
the overlapping elements. The problem is that if
you just overlap things, SketchUp doesn't automatically
connect the polygons into one mesh you can
edit into what you need. Fortunately, SketchUp's
Intersect Faces feature has you covered. You can select one or
more faces, right click, and select Intersect Faces With Model, and SketchUp will add edges
at all of the intersections. This leaves you with geometry
you can more easily edit to get what you need. Now, there's a lot more
to learn about using the Intersect Faces
command to do things like combine shapes or cut
one shape into another. As well as about the three types of Intersect Faces you can perform. With Model, With Context,
or With Selection. Those are topics for another time though because right now I
want you to consider an often overlooked feature
of Intersect Faces that will help you solve
lots of useful problems. With Intersect Faces, you can easily add otherwise hard to create edge
loops wherever you need them. Whenever you have a shape that you need to subdivide with an edge loop, just follow these steps. First, make sure your shape is made into a group or component. Then, outside of that group or component, draw a rectangle that is
bigger than your shape and use the Move and Rotate tools
to move it into position. Then, go back into your shape and get into Edit Group or Component Mode. Select all the faces that
need to be intersected, then right click on the selection and pick the option for
Intersect Faces With Model. And it will draw in
edges that just so happen to be a handy edge loop. After closing the group or component, you can delete away the rectangle. Then back in edit group or component mode, you can use the edge
loop to gain more control over the shape you need to modify. This works great with adding more than one edge loop at once. You can just set up a number of rectangles before using the Intersect Faces command. And you can set them up with even spacing or rotate it an even number of degrees by making an array of copies
using the Move or Rotate tools. And that's it! You've made it through
the seven key concepts you need to know before tackling advanced modeling in SketchUp. Of course, it will take a lot of practice, review, and experimentation
with these techniques before you're completely comfortable and confident with them. But once you've got a firm
grasp on all seven concepts, you'll know what it
takes to solve almost any SketchUp design challenge
that comes your way. That being said, I've got
one more bonus tip for you. There's an app or extension for that. It's true. The concepts we covered
will set you up for success when tackling the more advanced challenges you'll face in SketchUp, and it's incredibly valuable
to have first hand experience with doing things the manual way. But whenever you face a challenge that you can sense will take a lot of time, especially if it's something
that's pretty common for professionals in your line of work, chances are there's an extension that will help you get
the job done faster. Take building a roof, for example. You could get the job done using Follow Me and Intersect Faces plus some basic SketchUp
drawing and editing tools, but it would be a time intensive process. Thankfully, there are
a number of extensions that automate roof creation for you. Just a few clicks and
you have an amazing roof. So why not jump straight to extensions? Why bother with all of the manual ways of doing things in SketchUp? First, there may not be an extension for exactly what you're
after and even if there is, I always remind my students that it's important to understand, at least at a fundamental level, how the extension works. Otherwise, you're just
crossing your fingers and hoping the extension
will do everything for you and do it exactly right. This can lead to frustration as you'll waste time tinkering
with extension settings you don't understand or
you'll be totally lost trying to figure out how to edit the results to fit your needs. But if you understand the
manual building process, which is at the root of how
the extension actually works, you'll have a better sense of how to interact, customize, and work with the results from the extension to achieve the final
design you're looking for. That's it for the bonus tip. Congratulations, you made it through the seven key concepts you need to know before tackling advanced
modeling in SketchUp. Did you learn something new in this video? Do me a quick favor and tell us which tip you like the most in the comments below right now. Or just let us know you like the video by giving it a like. By watching this video, you've already done your
future self a huge favor and gotten yourself started
down the right path. From here, it's definitely possible to learn everything on your own. However, if you want to
invest your time wisely and avoid picking up bad habits, then I recommend checking
out our Video Course Library. It's filled with $8,700
worth of SketchUp courses exclusively for professionals, including our Complex and
Organic Modeling course. Head over to our SketchUp school website and try our courses for free. And if you're not ready to try
one of our courses right now, make sure to at least review what you learned in this video right away. I put together some
notes that make it easy to review everything we covered. I put a link to them in the cards. Oh, and one last thing. If you don't want to miss our next video, make sure to subscribe to our
YouTube channel right now. Just click on the subscribe
button below this video. Until next time, happy sketching! Mix them together. Be careful not to over mix at this step. As I like to say, you can't make an omelet without cracking some eggs here. So, we'll just go ahead and drop one in. We set that timer for 20 minutes. Oh, there it is. Those look delicious. (soft upbeat music)
