Complete SketchUp Guide For Parametric Design

1. Course Trailer: Sketching is a great program where you can easily spend hours on design. However, there are some great plugins to speed up that time. Hi, I'm Brenda, and I'll be your instructor for this complete guide to sketch and productivity and automation. Now this course is to help you be very useful at automation plug-ins, different workflows that will help you streamline what you're doing in SketchUp and also how you're going through each step of the process. So you can spend more time doing what you love and grow your design career faster. I started this course by helping you go through some useful plugins and ways of working with automation. We'll also look at scripting and different ways of building modeling information through these automation methods. I finally finished this course by giving you the exercise to take the challenge to put automation in your workflow. You could share that with the course. This course is for modelers. A Tuesday has to learn more about SketchUp from any level. And you can see my instructor profile for beginner courses in SketchUp. I'm a licensed architect and designer with experience in SketchUp for over 15 years. And I loved bringing the best of industry methods and techniques to my students at all levels. This course exercise helps you learn using plugins, working with automation, both for things that are in this course and also to work and apply this to projects that you're working on. At the end of this course, you'll be a productivity master with better skill sets to streamline your modeling and design workflow. If you're ready to amplify your design and productivity skills that SketchUp them. Let's go. 2. 00 Concepts: Here are some ways to get the most from your time. In SketchUp. These are some SketchUp productivity concepts. Life figured out over time and I'll know will help you as you figure out how you're going to work with your SketchUp models. The first thing when I look at is a cycle for creating models. These are typically, of course, credit. If you're a designer or animator, you're gonna be going through these particular processes. There's gonna be a client or some project. You'll be sketching ideas. It's a place for content, Molly. It's going to go before the architectural and develop design ideas. That's the best place for using productivity. Inducing plugins also scripts. The idea is if you don't have something to help, you get these results faster, it's often going to be at the cost of the project. The ideas. That could be a very long road, especially if you're struggling with art, artists equated methods. Okay, So this is where we're going to start at. And that's going to be the basis for really having that productivity. So let's look at some concepts that will help us in putting better productivity methods in or SketchUp models. Okay, first, let's look at these productivity concept. Every workflow can be improved. It's absolutely true. Automation solves repetitive problems. We all know that plugins can actually save design time. It's not just time they use, but there's important time that's being saved. Then big projects need better functions. Of course. Then finally, scripts are designed to, let's break these down and look at how productivity will help us in being better at what we do with SketchUp. First thing, every workflow can be improved. That's talking for what? All parts of the process. Whether you're a cat drafter, designer and architect, builder or a fabricator. The fact is you have a workflow where you're doing things that can be improved. So the idea is, it doesn't mean taking some of you were giving it to someone else. It means just saying what you do, you can do even better because there's some improvement along the line. X1. The idea is that automation solves reparative problems. It's true because we have to do things and models from duplicating, systematizing, penalization, we need accuracy at each point of these. And so, rather than having these problems that takes us longer time, we can use something that is automated to solve those problems. Quicker. It doesn't take away from what we do. It actually solves problems that were actually have it. Next, there's a concept for sure about the fact that Plugins say design time. Yes, it's so obvious because ideas, It's not taking design work, but ideas we get to develop better form is because we have a plugin, because we have scripts and code. Our function is going to be better because we can accurately hit then we're going to have more time to work on things that make the design authentically ours. We also can be selecting those details ahead of time. So the idea is we're not losing design because we have productivity. Even in terms of now people are talking about parametric architect. Parametric architecture is actually making better designs because it gives designers more freedom to work on things that are important in directing, as opposed to spending all the time developing how a curve is gonna look, we use automation and plug-ins. The next thing that's really critical, of course, is knowing about the needs of bigger projects. Big projects need better functions. This is for BEM, of course, you're talking about a bigger project, general. This is also to be loosing multiple projects that are really similar. Now, when you're thinking about how those exteriors are working, you think about different types of systems, different type of components, different trades. Think about functions inside of your programs to help not just a function to draw lines, but the functions to develop different systems with windows, doors, if it's curves, if it's roofing systems, the ideas that better functions will help that project and help a company grow. Working with that. The final thing about really working with automation and all this workflow being enhances that you have to understand that scripts are designed to create a level of customization. There's a great amount of look and feel that could be put into a script. You can increase your quality because things are gonna be coming out the same each time or with the same sort of aesthetic and work. And then also you can be working on IP, for instance, how you design a particular way. It can be very much well done and so it's not letting peter take over your job. Essentially. This is just the basis for what people do when we're looking at working and being more productive. In general. When you're going through and thinking about your plugins, your productivity, just think about the fact that you are going to be doing a better job by having better productivity. As you go through this course, look at all the plugins, the different ways of working with code and you're drawing your modeling and see about how this can be taken back to your projects. Doesn't have to be very large. They can be bit by bit. But the fact is you're going to be better productivity. You're gonna be able to have more productive teams all the way through. 3. Productive Plugins Overview: Sketchup is a great program that has a lot of great functionality. But there's also some ways to give you more for less when you're designing that we're gonna be talking about in this course as we go through some additional plugins and different methods to really get the most out of your SketchUp models. So stay tuned and make sure to keep a note in which you have enough space to download and work on these files. 4. Extension Manager Overview: You will be able to get to your current extensions in your SketchUp model. But of course go into your central window and choosing Extension Manager. There is of course, an extension warehouse, but this is where you see what's currently installed. And these ones that I'm going to show you today are going to be for helping productivity and a little bit of building information or BIM modeling sensitively. And we're going to really start with a blank model. So as I showed you to these tools. 5. Bezier Plugin: So we're starting off with the extension warehouse application in SketchUp, you can just click here, though this makes sense. And outside of this one, I've chosen actually the Bezier curve tool plugin. It's free and paid ones. And essentially, these are some ways to work with curves that typically don't see and the line modeling of SketchUp will not go into new file and be looking at just very simple way of using these curves and Beziers. Alright, so great and view for working with Beziers is the plan view. I have people here currently, I'm going to just go ahead and go to my parallel projection. And I've already installed this plugin. It's pretty simple. Once you've downloaded the extension, you can install it in your Extension Manager by just clicking Install Extension, you should see your Bezier curve. That's the first one we're working with. And I'm gonna go ahead and just start by going to my draw menu of Bezier. That's where I have it on to do is click on two points, beginning and end point. And the middle ear saying that I have this really fancy sort of curve. It's not just our curve circle. And what I'm doing is I'm adding points to this curve. And so it's sort of the control points of the curve. And it's, it's this really simple like that. The idea is that you can, of course draw more curves, but ideas. This is really helpful if you're trying to do something more than just like that. You actually can have that controlled curve. And you could also of course have your drawing lines that you're trying to connect. It helps you sort of align them so you have this tangency with the curves. 6. Bezier 3D Geometry: And one great thing about this course is definitely, you know, as you're starting to say, how can I make some interesting geometry for my model? You just can just pull it in just like that. You can extrude something. You can also, if you want to take and follow the curve fence, if you click this and you're following me, you can follow those Beziers. It's nice. And you also of course, can even have a bit of a compound Bezier where you would start to look at a Bezier and elevation. And you just sort of make it like a shell or something. You know. To maybe one of these I need to do is even if you want to offset it, it offset it properly. And pretty much this gives you a better range of things that you can do. So I just want to see when the selected from right here. Now already thinking too much about it. I have all sorts of curvilinear geometry now available, even though, again, SketchUp is not a surface modeler, you have these incredible serviceability. So I'm going go back to perspective mode and you'll see all these effects. That's what you can do with Beziers. Now, even just like a little curve that you want to do, you just have this incredible control over your model and the type of elements that you can really put in it in several geometries. Now have access to it through that Bezier tool. 7. 1001Bit Tools Plugin: Another great plug-in for your scatter models is 1001 bit tools. These is freeware. One of the things that you can do with this are just without paying and is there a lot of paid apps that do this? You can work with things like the roof. You can work on things like making stairs, making windows. And it's something I would definitely advise, really doing some examples of what you can do with this. So go ahead, install this. This works with 2015 all the way up to the current SketchUp. 8. 2D, Point and Divide Functions: Now what you see with 1001 bit Tools, you'll see the option as you go to your tray to put in the tray of where the icon bar of 1001 bit tools. And what that shows is this lofty sort of tray of icons. We're going to go through each one of those. I'll just talk about a little bit. Move the little model. The first one that we will go through. It's definitely looking at this concept is it can draw a point on the face. Now, that's really useful because sketch doesn't really let you draw points. For instance, if you were trying to, it's even worse when you're trying to align something and you have to, you're forced to draw a line. Whereas if you just want to draw a point SketchUp, because this 1001 bit to let you do that. The first thing it does, which causes gland instead of pick a phase. Then it says you pick a reference point. Then it gives you an opportunity to have a measure from that point. The understand, you see, like I just said, in two points. But if I draw a line to look at myself will help me do that anyway. So the great thing about it again, it will follow along the 0 and I can use it in my drawing. I can draw along that face and ideas. I was just using some reference points located. So again, it tells you like the instructions, how it will help you to draw points using reference points and minds. The next command that we have is divide and place a long edges. Now, this happens to really work with the geometries, like basic geometries. For instance, if I said okay, divided place, line this point, like I said, I'm gonna do ten. And I would just use in two different ways. One is evenly distributed and one is a fixed line segment. One of the evenly divided. But there's a maximum, so it gives me options. So the first thing we're gonna do is a number of segments evenly distributed. It's asking you to select the edge. So make sure to select the edge, not the point. So it did divide that arc and it will also divide this line. And the thing about it is, you could use that if you're placing an element. I mean, obviously you could of course, make something like if I want to make a box and I want it to rotate that. And I did that times ten. I would just get same point. But the idea is if you just want to quickly divide something for your organization, It's released when the ideas it starts. It's even more useful than that. Steam. Now, this does not work the same with things like these curves. That's something to note. It's unfortunate, then also does not work. As I've tried it with working with Beziers. The Bezier plug-in, some of their later tools. So however, this is a very useful tool still that you divide and work with these types of geometries. So this command is, we'll just start drawing a couple of faces. And it's called where you draw an edge perpendicular to face in 3D space. So that's obviously very useful. Where it says pick an edge or a face. And says, I get to pick my start point. And it's just going to come out. And I get to pick my edge and ideas. It's going to make sure that what I'm drawing is perpendicular. So that's a, That's useful because it's like sometimes you have to start to draw a perpendicular egging and that's bit of issue. So that is useful function with this plugin. 9. Extrude and Vertex Functions: The next thing we have is gonna be more important if I show you some contexts. Essentially, when you're drawing a shape, that the issue is that if you start moving maybe the edges or something, well, it's hard to move the, the vertex. But they have a button that lets you simply with the vertex C. You just close the mood, the vertex. And that's obviously very useful because it helps you from having to be wondering around what will help you move that vertex and ideas. He still that same issue where it starts to have a little crook there. If you move it, you just stretching it out. You're not it's not keeping the particular angle. Now, here is where you're going to extrude that profile. Right now. We see that it keeps the angular pattern. And that obviously is useful because if you're not trying to change those angles and they just want extend something, that's what it helps it. But again, be mindful about the fact that it's really a 2D. It should function versus this one because this one has a lot of different angles going in different places. So this is a useful one. This right here works because it's really triangulated and it's very small room for error. Here. It's cutting that polygon. Useful tool there. 10. Line and Edge Functions: Now for some of the really simple line tools, obviously the moving vertex is useful. Filling two edges is useful. You just got to choose that little fillet edge. Just move that. You can do a small one, you could do it a big one, like the two feet right there. Then if I want to do 24 inches, that's supposed to be. And just when you're doing it, make sure you have ten feet. Good view of your skill. That's very useful. And we also have this tool for tampering there it is. It's done in a similar way. We can just go ahead and do the same sort of process. We'll do 48 inches, 40 inches. I can be doing that at any part of my geometry. And these are some more sort of autocad inspired functionalities. If they're on the same plane, then they should work. So just click that mean edge, like the one that should go to and they extended it. And that's gonna be obviously very useful, useful in CAD and Revit. So it'd be useful here. And other sort of line tool is where you're going to be offsetting particular edge. This one is gonna be 12 inches. And the beauty about this is sometimes if you are for your SketchUp model, are you trying to offset your offset all the edges. But if you just want to offset one, and that lets you do that very simply. In the same rise as we were making, offsetting that particular edge. So can of course, horizontal slice through connected faces. Another great interesting function that you can do with one-on-one tools, and we're about to go into the 3D ones. But this one is more 2D. We can go ahead and just horizontal slice through that, select the level. So essentially, we're going to pick and start our wall and this move our reference level. Do you see now we just drew this line and those obviously one great way to just differentiating, just copy those lines down. We can use some other geometrical items there now, be honest. I think those are really the bulk of the 2D tools. 11. Array Functions: For the 3D tools with 11 bit, it's useful to have this one. Of course, the credit rate, which is almost same thing as making your general array. So we can just choose fixed number or distance. And we'll also have a maximum for how far things are apart would just do ten. And we're just going to pick that starting point or the reference point. And then when you say weirdness, go from here to here. So it's made it very close. Obviously, I could just go back here. And another way of doing it, of course, say one of my reference point to be here. I wanted this to be between these two points. And so it's sort of similar to if you are just wanting to just copy paste. So I don't exactly see that is too complex of a way to work. But when you start to think about three-dimensional arrays, for two-dimensional arrays, we're going to select that group before. Now we're going to say, what's the distance from the columns? What have I said? Okay, I want three feet between the columns, three rows. And maybe I want ten by ten. And build array. I'm just going to start my first, my second, my, my warm red is going to start. And the way it, of course did it is I chose be pretty much both my axis. So obviously, we couldn't do that again. Now, we want to do more of a regular array. We can just come here, make sure we couldn't. My reference point can have, or when you go in the x-direction and the y-direction, and they have it. And that's obviously very useful of course, if you start to make this into a component, be even more unique when you start to work on getting that component array, because everything would be related to you and you come out, for instance here, you started to say, Let's shrink this to get a nice little effects. Even if you just start to pull it and stuff, ideas, you just have that arrayed in that way. Okay, Now we're gonna be looking at making the circular array. That's going to be simple. Just use that same main component that you are, be multiplied and you choose your polar angle here, number of entities. And you can choose a hate for it to go up. And the choice ten foot here, just choose an axis that is going to be going along. And you see how that just goes up and it's a nice subtle effect there. And so obviously, I just wanted to keep it on the same level. Given the same level, I can just put a 0 here and build that array. And we'll just do that in the normal way as well. 12. Wall Maker: This next one doesn't one bit tool is the main one that really hitting around like BEM tools. And it's really about drawing walls. Would you do? And you click on here, you actually could choose just the base wall or you can use a profile. For instance, you have like a little element that you want to have as a crown or base. You just choose the alignment. So I choose right here. I just can choose that wall thickness and the wall height. That's fine right now. It's a build the wall. So as soon as you put the world down, you see which direction it's going in. For instance, have this plan to the body drawn. What I'm doing is going along and following the edge. I'm just going all the way back to the center. Then I'm just doing the same thing again to right-click off. Build that wall. Actually enter the command. So you just draw that final word. Wall over here. 13. Wall Openings: So right next to this tool is a powerful one for printing openings. And one way to help us make sure we're making openings in the right places. Draw some jumps. You just help guide us, for instance. So now I have like, that's where I want that center to be. That's what helped me locate that. And one thing I will do here then it's going to go ahead and just make a bunch of these. So now we're going to start with our opening command. And what we're gonna do can actually draw doors and windows. And doors. Wanna do 30 inches by seven feet. We're just going to just do basic. This is created opening. And we would do is click on that reference point. And what we can do is we know it's fifth 30 inches, we'll just move this over 15 and we don't want to go high. So that's how we located that one. With this over 15 inches. And just keep it 0. You see it's made a nice little door there. Nothing big and it's taken it out of the groups, so it's a nice way of keeping it consistent. And we'd do a similar sort of element where we're doing a window. We're doing window. And you want that window to sort of be more like three feet, but it's going to be five feet. And when I go up and move it up two feet, we're going to create that opening and then move over 18 inches. When I come up to just see that same function here. You see how useful this is a course to just really fill out your model. 14. Window Frames: Now we're going to add the windows in this plugin. Awesome, great for adding windows. The first one we're going to use is simply the one for creating a window frame. And we have the option here is to create a regular. So the window frame, we're choosing the depth and the width for that window. And also we're going to use a bevel edge or fusion with. We also option to do this with a little bit of a profile. We also have option to this like a curtain wall. That's also the option. For a more advanced systems. We're just going to use rectangular frame for this one. The idea was collect that frame, those ungrouped. Now you see this and actually we just go in its group. Just coming in and make this the window part. So that's just the basic window. You can of course, and said that window, if you want to make it come out, you have the option. Of course, you also could have even make it bigger, but it sends as a group, you can edit that anyway. So then you have your set there. Now we're going to use the other method that you have in here I'm going to do also for door region is going to take this particular panel and this will create panels in the window. So we're going to actually just do two by two. We adoption again that beveled or recessed edge, vertices this way. Nicely like a two-by-two window. So it's nice for that's the casement style. You can always just, if you wanted to make it to be like a total adjustable, you can always just come in here for the adjustable type one half of that. And you would just do divide into phenols and just have one row. And then she just duplicate that. That's one way to work around that. And you could of course, make a frame the outside of it. So you'd have like a little bit of action of low for those systems working for you. You'd make, make it so that the frame would be sitting inside. The ability to customize things ever so slightly from that basis. Probably make that smaller. So I'm just giving you this the basic for that system. And then you'd also come out that distance. And maybe you can just shrink both of those. One of them would be coming out. So that's where the moisture just making windows here. But let's go to the door function first. We can create a door frame. And that's done simple way of just adding the rectangular here, choosing that door frame and we choose that. Of course, the depth, width, and choice for you to start deal with beveled edges and all that. If you use a beverage for this one, it's very simple. For the door frame. You see we have our nice jamb detail there. So you do the same one. We tried different style here. Pull it in, come back, just use a regular rectangular frame. A little bit. On this side. You can always just move it back in if you don't like side It's in there. We have two different types for that. Now we're on the outside, we're going to come back and work on some of these other commands. 15. Grilles and Grooves: Now we have another function for adding grooved edges here. And we're gonna do is we're just going to click on these faces and IDs to teach you how many times you spacing. Now so different ways for that group is going to work. I create that groove that we're just gonna choose where it's going to start at. Good option, too soft and it goes to the edge of that. What does turn the corner? We want to add like a little detail to something. We could do that very easily. They're just the demo, some of the other functions and is click on like a face. We're going to choose to create grills. It gives us different options. And we can set a profile. For this. For instance, we can do a particular shape. But right now, this is talking about opening. Something about the angle of opening. So we're just going to create this green space of this current dimension. It is more of a perforated TO do another one. So for this one, we're going to come in here and change the opening spacing. So we'll turn this until 11. I'm going to turn the spacing into one. That same spacing. I'm going to turn that angle to 45. I'm going to go ahead and just create that screen. Ideas. You would really just used the plane because we don't need to, of course, this other surface. With that. They create his own group. So that's what you can do with that function. Now if we want to use this growth function with profile, we just need to have a profile on x, y plane like this. You see it nicely creates a legend, just extrudes a lot already for you. So that's a very useful function. So now we'll also testimonies other functions. 16. Louver Designer: For the credit, the horizontal Louver suits want to select that face. Just selected. It has a depth and also an angle, 30, and then it also tells you where it's going to be. So click Create lovers. As you see, it just has that little face. Just like, just like a window. Now we're going to press Escape to finish that. We also choosing here, when I create a vertical livers, pretty much similar system. We choose if you have an angle or if it won't have an angle. Spacing here, we of course could make that spacing more seven inch or something graded. So it's very nice. Mind that it leaves the original rectangle. Now for more accustomed type grills, you also have like man, any type of pattern you could make. Just click all the edges. And then you'll click on crude rectangular grill from the edges. And of course, this also works with curves. So that's a great way to experiment here. So you have it there. 17. Roof Designer: So now we want to play around with creating the approves. And so one of the ways to do that, several things we could do with roofs here. We just click here. And again, it gives an option to create a hip roof from the face. You choose the ankle for, let's say 30 degrees here, create that hip roof. You see also I add the offset edge. So that was a great way for that to be done. When we have the proof. Just make two of these. See some of the stuff we can do with that. We can go ahead and do things like create a rafters and choice on the face. One thing you can do for adding your rafters, you want to make a group of a and you want to add a group. That's where you can start to say if you want the direction of the rafters B2P a certain way. And then you get to select that face and you just click on Create rafters for that face. Then you will create reference. You choose that line. And what you do is you go on each face and do that same effect. We just locate that straight line is just select that up. And I've added that in the model which is little less convenient. You always take out these. They won't be differing. Okay, So we'll come back in here. We're gonna do, is we're going to use that same method. Create the rafter direction. We'll do the same thing for each of the side just to make sure we select that face. For the rafters. That direction. Same thing. Rafter is the location. We can also create rafters, purlins. And it actually even a little more comprehensive for this function. All we do is just click one of those automatic freight rafters, purlins. And we also just take off the bands, the purlins, but it obviously, let's go ahead and just see them all together. So let's choose where the depth. So when this click on Create, nicely see how the whole system is created for you. So we can of course, just come in here and just do the rafter without the purlins. You see it took care of all that edge work already. And finally, if we wanted to do more of a complex shape, for instance, if you want to go ahead and have a hip roof. And this, you can also do that. Figure that out. So that's a nice way. And it was just, you know, if I went down there, you can easily see developing a whole side of buildings just by having a function like this. That's a very useful tools for roof making. Now let's work on some stairs. 18. Stair Designer: For making stairs with this plugin, it's useful course to calculate how many stairs are needed and used by your local code or so. What I wanna do is I have two fours here. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to go ahead and calculate and just do a basic six inch when I view it as a group. So we can have this here. And you can have what is this calculation? So this, this is 12 feet. So if we wanted these to be six, we know that six is going to be 24 feet. So if you wanna do 6.5, we just do a little bit of math for that. And that's of course important. My calculator. For instance, if I want to do either seven inches, I'm gonna do my 12, um, times 12 inches. Then if I divide by seven, gives me 20.57. So that will be how many I'm dividing into. So the only challenge, of course, is that it doesn't perfectly. So what I do is I divide that 144, divided by that 21, gets the value that it should be 6.857. So I think what we can try to do is just really not as precise. Just go ahead and do it on. Here. Are some additional array function. Actually it's gonna be over. So we have really about 73 16th, that's gonna be our size for that. That helps us do is we're gonna go ahead and put that into our function. Is, you see this different types of stairs. It's one that's sort of follows step edge. There's one that has a edge on the side for like metal rail. Then also when it has a little bit of profile at the end, we're going to try and type a. And we're going to make sure of course to get that right riser height. So we'll just again measured, again, measure twice. 73 16th. They take that, put that right back into our riser height. And even if it's a little rough, we can adjust that size. 73, 16th inch there. Okay. We we put here for a number of risers when T 21 and we'll see if we need to adjust anything. You can see the different dimensions here. They're all like identify the stringer with the handrail guiding lines. So it's, it's made for you to constantly changing the stringer depth, the handrail and slab thickness. These are all just elements that you can change based on your particular design. That again, for each decades type you'll have your own particular dimensions. Okay, So let's go ahead and take all these index iteration and just build the stair with a little thicker slab. One reason obviously is just going to make that a minimum of three inches. So I think everything else is good to build that staircase. The way it happens is we just need to select the ground plane and then just choose orientation. Just going to choose this point here. And this is a straight run according to have some landing distance. And you see that it's actually 21 starting here. And I'm just going to put that over here and then add a bit of a lending space about three foot six, then it's actually gonna be 20 stairs. And so sometimes we have fear how these work out. I'm just going to pull that down and I'm going to go, and I'm going to just subtract that dimension from the geometry here, just using a push poll. And since it's actually not at the right place, exactly it. I'm just going to pull it down. You see that merely just made that line at the bottom. Okay, so what we're gonna do now is just take that edge to make the opening for the stair. Now we need to do is pull this on over. And we'll just shoot down. This line actually is a little bit lower. We come back of course, to make sure we have everything aligning. Probably separate the real. Now that we have this, we can delete our construction information. Now what we can do is this actually is made into a group for the real open inside. And I created a profile and I just use a follow me tool that when I add a course and just made my profile and I need to do is make it a group and copied over. So I have that rail or setup just that easy right there and it's already set up to the location using the point to locate it. So I just would be attached to the wall or give it a hanger. Some sort of structure. Let's look at some of the other types of stair. We can do a dog-like stare. And one way that that's oranges. We still have like different types. Well, but you know that the riser height, the setup there, we go, right to left or left to right. So what we're gonna do of course, is make sure that we have ten on both sides. And just get to go and build staircase from there and choose our base point and just rotate it to the side, we want it, and then we just kinda move that bottom edge. And you see obviously the profile goes down a little bit below the floor. Just be mindful that that flat plane is going to be where our starting point is. And we'll just put a little bit of landing distance. Three feet. Now, you need to just sort of create that edge of the floor. So we'll just have opening. I'm just pulling up that location right there and extruding it over. And we don't have to do it precisely this way as we could, of course, just excreted but just ideas. You have some several different types of method of opening that floor up. So let's go ahead and take a look. Obviously also, for this part, we need to have landing at the top. And what I'm gonna do is just sort of pull down this line for that height or that opening and pull that up and then we'll extrude it and there you go. Does that landing. And of course I can just move those over anytime I need. Now as we want to be placing the rail and the profile URL, we'll just go ahead and actually we want to take it out of the model. And we want is located near the model. That'll help us as we're trying to align the floor as well and just rotate at 90 degrees. Would just go in. And we're gonna do is we're gonna make a profile on each side and just make sure that we're deleting the original. So now we just have those two separate groups. Um, so I've scaled it up, so it said that exact top of that. And so what we're gonna do is on each of these is draw the profile and do that one inch diameter profile of a circle. And just use the following me tool. Next we're gonna go to that internal rail line. And we're just gonna do that same thing, do that one-inch diameter rail. And then we will do the same following the procedure, double-click to select know that edge path. And there we go. We have our set for our rail. So without of course instructor right now, because you have some little edges along the way we're gonna do is going to look at some other types of dog leg that are available when do our 12 foot high floor. And what we'll do is we'll just go back in and you can see there's pretty much all different types, but there different buttons here. So this type is put that in here. You can see I'm retired type where we have that metal rail edge and we're not really going to do too much customize it for this one. Make sure to look at that little option there. We can change that to color profile of its moreover shaped metal or it's just a box. When you build that on, select a starting point rotated in there. And you can see that as a little more complexity sets into the ground and just maybe would be for one of the more separate systems where the, you know, it's just like a room that just has a stair system going up, up, up. So simplify our method of taking out for opening. We're just going to just be shooting in from the edge. Of course, we probably have walls there instead of just the floor. But for the sake of this exercise, we're just going to show it that way. Then. I do, it does come out to the edge from that system. Now we have this one and you have that same sort of condition where you would be developing rail, we draw the profile and then just be working on that. But let's go ahead and look at the other type of dog leg. And so we saw this dog leg was pretty much is that edge. Now really get to more of a stepping form instead of the more smooth form from our previous dog-like different way of how it would be like a monolithic pour. We're going to build that on this other side. And now this again do that same sort of says. And again, you can start adding your own structure around these elements as well. I'm going to do and choose edge. This shoe that all the way back to catch that floor and get it's depending on what material you use. You can always of course, details some of the other parts of your project there. But that's essentially how you would use these sort of advanced stair function since this helps you solve a lot. 19. Spiral Stair Designer: What we're gonna do now is we're going to go ahead and start a little more advanced there because these are all in the program. So this is going to be our spouse, their spouse. There's a little more complicated. There's some different coding. Obviously. If you're trying to get a particular head height, we want to go and sit and try the same height. We also have a different options for the stair. The stairs like this one continuous thing or it's little planks that go up and up. We're just going, you know, the basic about it. But again, if your worksheet, your design, we're going to just make sure we have the right number. You look at the width, this width also the column, all this already set. So we have a lot of options for customization and we're going to choose the center. You see, it takes a little more time to process and has a complicated function. One of the things we will of course be doing is we'll be figuring out the opening just like we did before. And one way of course, to be developing that it's just just create openings from scratch. The best way, of course is two, dislocate that center as you start. So that's an important reason. I've always just having your construction lines here. But we're going to even just calculating how large that opening B. So we're looking at the width and also the width to that middle structure. And it's all do the calculation for how that should be. And I think we have something about seven foot to come in here. And we're just going to make a geometry and make sure we record that center now. And that's going to be where you are going to be basing our design for that opening. And so now we made the opening. This is simple Boolean tools and we're just going to be locating using a parallel projections that we can just make sure that that hole is in there. Again, you can just draw the construction line before both of them and where they just ordinance of those. Anyway. So now you're seeing the way this is set up. So that obviously is still a little edge there. And what we would do, of course, is start to look at how it's operating with the system here. We're going to make another style. Because as we look at the previous one, we're going to inspect, Is it working the way we wanted it? When it go ahead and do seven foot two. And go ahead and do this similar sort of attraction of that. And of course, this being a group is the way we're operating with it tonight to the group. And makes sure we're just able to select the main floor plate. And we'll just go ahead and subtract it. Now, what we can do is move this over. That's the sort of testing out more perfect locating method. Now we're going to add a little plate for the floor. She's rotated rectangle. I'm just going to display this, scale it, so it will be there. The right length. I'm just going to go ahead and pull it out and use the Boolean tools to increase the plate. Now, mind the thickness here. Again. Someone might actually made that whole set even right here. That is still some people would have enough head height below. This. Be mindful. Even as we look at it, you can see it's getting pretty cramped going up the staircase. So one thing I've done also has gone up about 9.510 inches for a second spiral. So you see the second spiral, even for this height, it's still pretty tight. From the bottom of the top step to the top of the step below. So as I rotate this in, it's something you're going to have to deal with with these type of stair. So just be mindful of that. Let's you see, they look very similar, but experience is one thing. And it's good to just measure that. That's matching. I think. Really. That's why I've reduced the height at the top. Because it's really about six foot six is what? Minimum head height should be above those steps. And that's just the way it is. But this is us putting together a couple different interesting stairs and ideas. Whatever you need for your project, you can be figuring out what's tools. And so this plugin that will be great on this paid plug-ins, but these are ones that do some great tools and effects. I hope you and your projects. 20. Surface Bender Plugin: Now I want to actually start to do multitasking a little bit. We want to create pretty much 20 by ten. Just draw the size here by 20 feet tall. And she really come in over ten feet. And the way we're gonna do this is we want it to really hit like a Bezier. And when to use these tools, right? For this. And we want to use the create window frame. Now I'm going to go ahead and show the plug-in that can be used to this because what if we can't and we say, oh, we want to make a divided set of panels, the four-by-four. And maybe these are a little more profiled. So it's like a curtain, curtain wall. And that's gonna be what we're going to use here. Now. What if we want to come over and act like this? So what I'll do is I'll go ahead and just separate that line and say That's what I want to really hit this type of profile. And because they look at this and I like the length is about 24, Pull it down a little bit, get about 20. So that's why I have my 2020. And what I'm going to use is it's great plugin called shade vendor shipping or is not actually in the warehouse. You can download it separately from Schedule cations so you sign up with education. I have like great plug-ins as well. You just click on this one and you can just download it and you'll install it and get it set up the same sort of way. So I already have that here in my Extension Manager, this shape vendor. And you can see right here, what I do is just, here's the icon. You can find that trace and tumor. Put that precisely on the edge. So click that. Click that and very close to it. Now, this one, I just press enter. Now you see where we have now a curved wall. And so you can add this with any type of geometry. You can do this vertically to rotate it. Of course, the windows are made this way, but you can just come over and rotate it. So that gives you a lot of options if you want to create some sort of funky shaped from the above. Yeah, that's some great ways for another plugin. And you just use the multiple plugins. And you can make some creative geometry that is not standard. And your SketchUp workflow. 21. Introduction To Rubyscript | Editor Plugin: It's important to know that in SketchUp. Addition to plugins, can also be making your own scripts. And I'm gonna give you a little overview of this process. Essentially, I'm actually able to make scripts since any one from actually go into the essential developer. And the BBA documentation and Ruby consult will give you what you can put in here. For instance, you do print. That's one of the code. However, there's a great plug-in and it's called Ruby Script Editor, and I'll show you where to find it first. You click on extension warehouse and you just The type in Ruby code editor. The sum of the first ones that come up are going to be the Ruby code editor that's free. That would be console. Just really found it useful to use the Ruby code editor. And I've already installed it, and it has this little button where you can just click it open. And ideas, you have to understand a little more about how objects work in SketchUp to run this, but putting into like an overview and I'll give you some sample scripts so you can get up to speed. Especially every script starts by entering the model into your script. So you could be opening what's in the model. It can be opened on what's selected. And then you can pretty much break that down. That's looking down into the B edges, maybe faces, maybe points. And you also have the ability, of course, to put different snippets in here. You can do it if and or. That's the great thing about this particular plugin because it just will put all the things you're programming in ideas. You can do some very simple things. For instance, this will add a face and using those location, you just click Run. And you'll see in your model and it's made that face. So it's really great. If you're just starting to be able to just create something like that without doing too much. Even this one gives you the ability to write a message box. And you run the code and you might give you an error if you need to figure out what it should be. So that's a useful way of these to work. So what you can do now, of course, is thinking about how you will use and learn because you will definitely need to know about different things forming code. But I made it easy for you. You also have the other languages that you actually can use. I've actually made it where I've put in several different example scripts in this, as well as the things that you've found. You can also look at the example scripts. And I've created a couple of different things. For instance, using a message box where it talks about with shrinks, it'll add numbers. You can go into these and really do some operations with both. Just looking at what the coke can do on its own. Just put these numbers and do these calculations. But you also can do some interesting things. For instance, I have a loft line command where I've put two lines in. And pretty much this is the code. One thing. I was always interested in. It go up a little bit with a line. How could I lofted? I've created a function that just creates a bit of a unique way of dealing with these multiple points. So the idea's, you'll see it all in here. How I break down what's in the model to what's in the code. Again, this is something that of course it will take some time, but in terms of giving you the base ingredients to get started with the interests is gonna be there. Essentially, you're gonna be using those same type of components that are going to be discussed really in here. And I'm just working with faces and groups. And I also have some more fancy things. And it's pretty much if you know how to click different sizes and you know how to work with geometry using grids just like your model. You should be able to understand how to basically code and automate. That's one of the great things about automation. Of course you see a big trip like 1001, but you can do a lot of things yourself. Just takes a little time, a little calculation. You can check my instructor profile for more coding classes. But these are gonna be really basic here. But the idea is you need that to get started. You need to be playing around with what is needed to grow in your skill. Also, I'll go ahead and give you this, do this. The set here for populate surface. So that's actually a really cool one where I will choose a surface and I'll just run the code. And actually I've sort of pre-made surface and it will do that same sort of thing. So either I can create it inside the surface, can make it, but I have some random items here. So that's also a cool set of functions. Again, you'll be looking to look at the API documentation and just good to get familiar with how to really go through a Code, Scripting, figure out what's gonna be the input and output and also just really saving it. That'll help you as you're figuring out. I'll give you some resources to deal with that and grow in that skill set. So you can really start to maybe not immediately, but over time be able to make your own codes as well. 22. Dynamic Components In SketchUp: One of the important things about SketchUp is the ability not just to create just regular geometry, just like a box at maybe one meter by one meter. By one meter. He's sort of start to manipulate it. But you can also actually, besides making this into groups or phone it, you also can actually make dynamic components. So we'll just take away the model. And you see right here, this one would be where we start with our dynamic components. Dynamic components are essentially an object, it's in the model, but it has specific attributes that you can actually edit and change by a drop-down dialog. That can be as simple as box changing Scale, Rotating, changing color to as complex as a Windows system or a fence. So we're going to look at just some basic ways of making the attributes and getting you started on your road to dynamic upon it. I'll also show you as is also very useful, the SketchUp Help Center, which also has a lot of information about dynamic components that you could look into. You can find out how to do the math and other types of functions that are available. Let's just get started. Right now. What we have is a component. Have particular width, height, and length, and there's some basic attributes, but until I click on the nine components from this pop up, you will not see all these. So now we have it. What we do is we can click on component options. Right now there are no options because we haven't set them up. So I'm going to right-click dynamic components and click on component attributes. And you can see from the component attributes dialogue, there's Info and there's functions. From this place, we can start to add in some information. When we click on box, we have different options for the location, the size, different type of coupon F0, description of the pier. Also in terms of rotation and behaviors, you can scroll down. We also can see there's a couple of other ones. If we make this window larger, we're going to just work on the ones with length, the length Z. So this would be a similar set if you're working with some of the other ones. So it'll follow along that way, will work with the length and we'll work with the rotation on the y-axis. So you can see now we have this length and that'll link for this object. And we click on it. We see that we actually can change it. So what we've done is we have the length of added, of course, XYZ. So you can see all the sizes that everything is. So what we can do is actually go into the length versus this sort of setting. We're reacting could come in here and change it. Change it. It's not really a variable yet. But if I click on this little details window, we come into another section. And it gives us the ability to first choose the unit and then also say if this is going to be editable, then we have functions. I'll go ahead and make this editable from a list that you also can use it as a textbox for people to put in a value or just visible to users. I'm going to turn it into a list. And it already gives me the title. And I'm just going to make a few entries. Alright? So I just click those low entries and it's already in there. I haven't made any functions to it, so it's fine. I'm going to go ahead and apply. Now that setup. We can go back to our opponent options. When you click on it, you see we have our Lindsay and I could just change it here. And click apply. And it's 200, and click here, and it's 300. So this is really cool because I can make two of these. They both would behave the same. And it doesn't damage the original geometry, which is great, and they're both based on the same object. Now here's where it gets. Nurse can start to get interesting. Right now. This is just Lindsay. But if I come in here and turn it into a variable. So we've made it where users can see this as a textbox or an attribute. And I think that's even better. We're going to go ahead and just apply. So we've finished that out. But instead of doing this as its own linked, but I can do is I use the equal sign and actually click it on a Lindsey. Now, every time I will change the length of the z, I can actually change that y as well. So it's nice sort of way of changing having these features set just to match each other. They go back to two hundred, two hundred. So the similar sort of thing will happen with working with rotation. So users can select from a list, this to 4590, and also add option of 0. So now you see that's loaded up in our dialogue. Now, the zero-point were rotate run. That's something too. Can be done by choosing the location. And that's actually done. I'll go back to 0. That's actually done from choosing the attribute for that position, x, y, z, that will set where your base point is. Okay? So that's just basic editing for a dynamic pointer. That's very simple. 23. Conclusion: Congratulations on completing this course for scheduled Protestant. You've achieved a great deal by putting in the effort to make better models and occlude your workflow. Great plugins and workflows for automation. If you're even bold, you will also have worked on some of the class projects and you'll be sharing them if you have any questions, feel free to share them in the course, as well as your activity to get feedback from the class. If you enjoyed this course, please leave a review, check the instructor page for more helpful classes and Modeling and Design. See you in the next course.