So, once the Match Photo is done:
• I turn off the photo with a style that’s just lines and no shadows.
• Export as PNG or TIFF to Photoshop
• Convert the line image to transparency with a bunch of steps (see below)
• Ad this line drawing to the original photo as a layer
• Each layer (Photo and Linework) gets a layer mask with a graded fill to taper off visibility.
I first read about gray scale to transparency conversion from Photoshop User magazine (July/August 2010, pg 40-47) as a part of a work flow for coloring hand drawn comic book art. Google it and you’ll find lots of other how-to’s, but I found this one to be good. It describes a quick and dirty method using multiply, and a longer method to true transparency. I took all those steps and recorded them into an action, so it’s just one click for me now to do.
I mentioned this elsewhere, but if you’re getting linework out of SU, you can vary the line weight by changing the resolution in output options dialog. If you dial up the resolution here and then resample down in PS, the lineweight gets lighter and vice versa.
Another example of Match Photo, my favorite feature.
Match Photo may have been conceived to make a model of something from a photo, but like I it for matching my model to a contextual photo. I actually did this just about 10 years ago. The project had full CD’s and didn’t get built for various reasons, so I used it to push myself to a higher level of SketchUp modeling, and to at least get something to show for my effort. I just pulled it out again today, and touched it up with a better shingle texture than I had in 2008. This is just the standard SU render with shading only and all brought together with layers in Photoshop.
Another project with Match Photo for the portfolio files.
This one is from 2009~2010. I thought after touching up the project above with a nicer shingle texture, I needed to fix this one too, but it already has it. It’s actually missing some windows and needs some edges hidden, but I don’t think I’m spending any time on this now and moving on to other things.
I like the way the real studs fell exactly where I had them in the SU model. There are three Simpson Strong Walls here. The SU ones are from 3D Warehouse, the real ones are being cut to length. I’d like to have more fun with this. Working it into an animation would be cool.
Copy the sky and use it as black&white layer mask, where you increase contrast (and maybe invert) until the sky becomes black (transparent part of the mask) and the branches become white (opaque). Evt. it requires some tweaking to level-out the sky’s gradient, e.g. with a darken/brighten tool or high-pass filter.
If your image editor does not have an intelligent automated feature, this is a way to go and it preserves smooth, antialiased borders between branches and sky.
I can’t remember for sure, but I was probably doing something similar with the magic wand and a color range. There is still some threshold that leaves a little blueish fringe on what’s left, and if you try to get more aggressive with the threshold, the selection gets worse. Global color range would be better for all the little islands of blue, but, not all the branches are in front of sky. Some were in front of an existing building to be torn down. That’s when I gave up and said, “Forget it, this tree is going behind my building. I’d rather see my building anyway.”
Looking back, it seems I was actually erasing stuff from the foreground mask, but I wouldn’t work that way today. I’d use a layer mask, and this is probably a good way to get it started.
Relatively new material for a change. I used a really small project, a 20’x24’ carport, to test out Medeek’s Wall Tool and Roof/Floor Plugins. I wasn’t planning to make such great looking drawings for such a project, but they turned out nice. The concept is just a deck over car parking, but we decided build it so a future owner could easily convert it to a full blown garage if they want.
Profile Builder 2 was used to make a pretty good representation of a Fiberon railing system. Like most things I do, the drawing first starts in PowerCADD, where the stair tool in Alfred Scott’s Wild Tool plugin pack worked out all the stairs.
The foundation was just modeled from 2d sections first drawn in PowerCADD, imported to SU and modeled with basic SU tools. The pitch in the slab for example was drawn in 2D first.
You can also see how I ended up using LVL’s for the rim joists to double as headers and eliminate headers from the openings. That’s why I asked for the option of “none.”