SketchUp is the easiest 3D collage tool
I’ve been using SketchUp on and off for about 3 years now. I can model simple geometric things, such as rooms, bunkbeds, and building blocks. However, I use it more for 3D collage than modeling. When it comes to making detailed designs, my knowledge and interest, frankly, of the program starts to go away. It’s not that I am unable to figure it out. It’s more of the fact that I use SketchUp as a tool to visualize ideas in 3D. I am usually not creating products or unique environments with it. I am simply trying to turn a rough idea that I have in my head into a nice image that I can use to better tell a story. So I want to do it quickly to get the idea out, not spend hours making each individual piece. To do this, I use Sketchup’s 3D Warehouse religiously.
The 3D Warehouse is a huge library of different 3D assets made by people across the world and available to use in models for free. You can find almost anything you can think of in there, from corn fields to picture frames to Ancient Egyptian tombs. You simply search for what you want, select the asset and download it straight into the model. This allows for very quick but detailed designs to be made.
For example, I am working on a story that involves a young boy, who loves tv and film. For me, one of the best ways to explore a character is to create the environment in which he lives. What does he look at every morning and every night? How does he organize things? What objects does he treasure? What objects does he not? I could simply write it all down as a list or do a quick sketch, but that’s not going to allow me to really see the room. It also doesn’t allow me to arrange and rearrange things throughout the room to test different ideas about his character. SketchUp does. I can create the shell of the room very quickly, then using the 3D Warehouse, I can populate it with just about anything I can think of. Sometimes I even find things in the 3D Warehouse that I wouldn’t have thought of myself but help me get an even better idea about what I’m doing and add a detail that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. The only tools you really need to know to use the 3D Warehouse effectively are pan, rotate, move, and scale. You can get away with almost anything using just those.
Another simple tool that I use in SketchUp is the fill tool. There are tons of pre-existing fills, such as concrete, glass, wood, etc. But after a while, these start to get repetitive or simply just don’t work. However, it is very simple to add new textures, so you can just go to Google, find an image that fits better, and add it to the model. It sometimes helps to edit the images in Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch, etc., to help get a more specific image. For example, I found a picture of some hieroglyphs, but it was too small to fill the whole wall, so I took it to sketch, made a pattern out of it, then inserted into the model.
The last tool that really brings the model from an idea to a professional-looking image is a renderer. There are many different renderers for SketchUp, but most of them cost a decent amount of money or leave big watermarks on your images. However, Twilight Render is free, watermark-less, and extremely easy to use. You simply push a button and within 10 minutes to an hour (depending on how detailed you want it), you have a very usable image that you can use to show a client, post on Instagram, or just hang on your wall as inspiration. You can, of course, change settings and make images even better, but it isn’t required to make a nice image.
With only a little bit of practice of the most basic tools, you can make beautiful 3D collages for only the cost of SketchUp, itself ($299/yr or $55/yr for Students and Teachers). There’s a 30 day free trial, too. So go see if 3D collage can help you bring your idea to life.
