Guru-G

Sketchup is an amazing 3D modelling tool. It's not just easy to learn, but also has lots of customization option and plugins that can be very helpful. Site Modelling Although you can just draw a few rectangles and lines to extrude and form a skyline or a block model, SketchUp by default allows you to interact with Google Earth , where you can find lots of existing 3d Sketchup models available for download. You can also set the geo-location of your project and select the region you want to import into your model environment. Doing this can help you in 3 ways: You don't have to worry about the scale of the site, google earth imports the site as a texture laid on a surface This can help with the existing contours of the site if any. You can use the existing models of the surroundings and without having to worry about the orientation of that model You can find the add location tool in SketchUp at File > Geo Location > Add Location, or you can use check the Go...

Being able to create a time-lapse of a building construction process or the interiors & exteriors of the building would be an added benefit in the architectural field. There are many software's that could help you with the time-lapse creation, like SketchUp, Autodesk 3ds max or even Autodesk Maya could be used. Although 3ds max and Maya could create stunning videos with proper talent in modelling, it would be tough to learn and master them. So for a beginner stage, Sketchup would be the best as it is pretty easy software to master. I found many tutorials online that could help you with the creation of a time-lapse in SketchUp. But unfortunately, I'm not sure how to create a video out of it yet.This video is the best example to show the possibilities and you just need a basic knowledge of using sections & views in SketchUp . Sketchup Building Timelapse Animation The following links are to show how can we use 3ds Max and it's scrip...

Artisan is a SketchUp plugin that let's smoothen the polygons in SketchUp. If You're familiar with the Smooth Mesh tool in Maya, this tool(Artisan) is similar to that. For those of you who don' know, Smooth Mesh Preview lets you quickly and easily see how your polygonal mesh will appear when smooth.

In Sketchup, the default rotation command lets you rotate either in the plane parallel to the object (line, surface or group) that your cursor is on or on the default world axis . But, what  if you wanna rotate in a custom axis of you own. And especially what if you wanna rotate in a plane perpendicular to the object plane. For example if you have a surface (circle) in this case, and rotate it perpendicular to its plane, the usual way anyone would guess to do is, 1. either create a plane in the direction we want and the draw the circle on it, or 2. draw a circle and create a plane for referencing the rotation of circle. The following video illustrates rotating a cuboid in a custom axis