sketchup for modelling?

rooster

just been messing around with sketchup free, seems like a really nice and quick method of prototyping level design and buildings (hello there unearthly challenge). however, since the free one doesnt let you export to a usable format i've no idea what kind of mesh comes out the other end. anyone had any experience with the pro version? is it worth the dosh?

specifically is the mesh hideous or is it usable with some cleanup?

jrs100000

I dont know if they still offer it, but there used to be free trial of the pro version. I used my copy to convert some premade models and they did come out very very polygon heavy. I didnt make these models tho, so I couldnt say if its the artists fault or Sketchup's.

Michael Knubben

I'm fairly sure there's a way to convert the proprietary models to something more common like obj, though. Ofcourse, not having used it, I can't say more about it. Sketchup's nice though, especially for levels.

Here are some things I found while googling: http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2007/01/wavefront-obj-exporter.html
http://update.multiverse.net/wiki/index.php/Model_Conversion_Tool#Converting_Google_Sketchup_Models
http://www.alice.org/community/showthread.php?t=314
http://www.blendernation.com/2006/05/11/import-sketchup-and-google-earth-files-into-blender/
http://alexvaqp.googlepages.com/sketchupblender

Kmz format (Google Earth 4) is in truth a compressed file with the 3D model format "Collada" inside, textures and other information.

Just rename to .zip and import the resultant collada, I suppose.

Let me know how that goes, alright?

rooster

pea you hunk of a man you, fancy that! it works like a charm!

model looks fine too, comes in triangulated but with a bit of tweaking here and there it's fine. Edges are pretty much as you'd imagine an automatic process to make them.

I'm actually going to use this for modelling architecture.. (although I would leave the circular booleans to whatever native program you have, no control over the number of sides)

thanks a bunch!

EDIT: oh for anyone who tries this, remember you need to export to google earth 4 format not the default setting (i thought it didnt work at first)

Jeremy Wright

One tip I can give is to watch the front/back faces if you're exporting/importing from SketchUp to Max (or whatever). SketchUp has an option to set them as different colors so you can keep up with them (you don't want the back faces facing out).

I've done a pretty good bit of exporting from SketchUp and most of the time all that is required upon import is some vert collapsing. Sometimes, though, faces get created inside of models and have to be deleted.

Good luck!

rooster

hey 8ft, yeah I remember that mech you posted from sketchup a while back. the high poly you were working on looked pretty pimp btw hope its still in the works!
cheers!