In frustration I am posting this topic… I expect that it has been posted before, but can’t find any reference to my particular problem, so here goes.
I am a TV producer and often use my client’s logos as an extruded 3D animation in my work. I have been using Sketchup for the last couple of months, and would like to integrate it in to my workflow… BUT, I cannot seem to successfully be able to create a simple coloured logo in 3D with the Sketchup program.
I am importing a DXF file into Sketchup which gives me the outline of the logo. (the DXF is generated by Inkscape from a png of the logo. I don’t wish to trace around the image in Sketchup, so I do it this way). Then I turn those vectors into actual faces, so that I have something to texture.
Then I get stuck.
Although I now have the 3D shape, I have tried to lay the colours of the logo over the top of my newly created 3D shape, with no success whatsoever. I have tried Photo Match, I have tried a Projected Image, a texture, but I get messed up colours, or inaccurate placement of the mutlicoloured shape.
Please, is there a simple way that I can accurately place an image of the logo, directly onto the logo shape I have created in Sketchup? At this stage I don’t believe there is.
I am hoping someone must have successfully done this in the past,… or is Sketchup not the program with which to be trying to do this.
I trust someone out there may have an idea.
Without seeing the logo and your model it is very hard to tell you what you need to do to solve it.
However, for a start I would suggest you look at Fredo6’s Plugin called ThruPaint, which is part of FredoTools available from Sketchucation.
As Box says, hard to see the issue without an example. Once you have the faces I would import the logo texture as a “texture” and apply it to one area/section of the logo (if you try to fit it to all it seems not to work). Once the texture is in the model on a section, use the right mouse click “texture/position tool” to scale it to that one area, now if you use the eye dropper on that area it will change into a bucket and you can then fill the other areas and it should paint the textures into the remaining areas in the right positions?
The problem with variable textures (not solid colors) in SU is that when you start extruding you will get messy sides, and they may need to be filled with a solid color as the texture will not map to those extrusions.
If the logo is made up of solid colors it would be better to paint the areas with a solid color. See attached. (these I did quickly in SU and rendered with Thea) Additionally as gsharp points out, sketchup’s curves are segments, so you may have to increase the segment count on curves to get a smoother look. IThere are other programs that might be better for this kind of thing, I might choose after effects.
Once it’s all done, SU isn’t the best at rendering accurate colors, depending on the light (sun and shadows etc) so it may be better to render it in a third party app (Thea, V-ray) so it looks better with soft shadows and the right color.
We use SU for signage design all the time and the only real limitation is curves are simplified to segments , re mapping I will often do my 2d setout in powerpoint or coreldraw - do a screen capture and save as an image file, then apply as texture to a face, its all pretty simple and quick - but it is not final setout for fabrication, but a pretty good approximation for concept design.
Without more detail, difficult to say, but I might know what the issue is… the DXF import and then the subsequent extrusion has resulted in the adjoining faces not being physically connected, they look joined (even when you over zoom) but they miss and have not ‘melded’. This results in all sorts of issues and the rendering behaving with a mind of its own because you have not managed to create a solid 3 dimensional object.I am just going through exactly this same identical issue!
With regards to using other packages, for sure there are better ones, more suited BUT if you are like myself I am getting to the point where constantly maintaining being an expert in Corel, 3DsMax, Adobe Creative Suite etc (and umpteen programming languages) is just a full time boring tedium and I enjoy other things in life which is why we should give Sketchup a chance. (See my post on snapping).
Thank you all for your very quick responses to my problem, it’s very much appreciated over this side of the world!
Box, I downloaded Fredo’s Thrupaint but I cannot make it accurately paint across my logo shape.
Whiterabbitdesigncompany, I tried the texture/position tool, however it seems to be much too fiddly to operate accurately, and I really couldn’t “spread/position” my image over the top of the shape evenly… so that is not really an option for me.
As you say, one option is to use solid colours (nice work on the NBC logo BTW) and paint my shape up to match, and this is possibly the most straightforward method (although some of my logos are multicolored and then it wouldn’t work),… my problem with this method though is how do I sample the colour I need to apply. (Dare I say, I am also colourblind which definitely doesn’t help in manually matching colours!)
When I import the logo as an image, and I try and sample the colour, all the eyedropper tool does is sample the whole image as a texture. Is there a way to color pick individual colours from an image in Sketchup? Can’t seem to get Thrupaint to do that.
Regards RED
One last thing, PaulMc, you are correct in assuming the DXF import and the subsequent extrusion has resulted in the adjoining faces not being physically connected. But clicking on the other “pieces” does seem to allow the image to flow through evenly across the whole model (in most instances!)
Looks like you just need to scale the image o the right size and line it up then project it.
But it’s only guessing without having the model to look at.
Agree, have a look at some video’s on projecting a texture- its pretty simple
Also its hard to determine if this graphic is along a 2d X,Z plane or the curved straps are rotated to also have Y depth [green axis].
If it was me I would just map the logo colours directly onto the 21 and subdivide your straps surface to map the lighter and darker green [ assuming this is really a 2D shape] onto them.
You don’t have an object to map the gradient Circle, but again you can create a simple gradient image and apply that to the circle object.
Thanks Box and gsharp. I will try projecting it, but I’d need to scale it perfectly, I shall try. I’ll post my attempt. Gsharp I would like to map the colors directly onto the shape… how do I sample the correct color from the image?
OK… I have endeavoured to match as close I can… see pic below.
I placed the very bottom left hand corner of the model on the centre of the axes, and then scaled a texture in exactly the same position over the top, then adjusted/distorted it little by little.
As you can see I sort of got close, but the outcome is barely acceptable. In this case I should simply colour the pieces manually to match the logo colours… if I could colour pick from the image??? …anyone!..
However in the case of a multicoloured logo I’m going to have to go back to my trusty 1991 copy of 3D FX… which only runs on Windows XP in 32 bit mode, but at least it does what I need it to. Maybe I’ll give AfterFX a try… thanks very much again for your indulgence, and taking the time to reply to me.
Cheers
RED
In the Material dialog in the Edit tab there are two eyedroppers, one says Match Color on Screen, use this one to pick from your image to paint the various sections of your Logo.
Yes, thanks Box. I picked the colours from the image and filled them, so that’s all I needed to do.
As far as the multicoloured logo is concerned, I’ll play some more and see how it goes
