I’m very new to Sketchup. What concepts do I need to get my head around to achieve the following:
For now, I’d like to just model a basic exterior of a house and play around with wall heights, roof pitches, locations and sizes of verandahs etc to settle on a design that looks pleasing to the eye and ‘proportionally correct’. I want to be able to quickly change the pitch of the roof or the width of the verandah, for example, easily, without having to delete and re-draw each time.
If there’s an existing tutorial for this please point me in that direction. Thanks.
start here: SketchUp Web Fundamentals
You need to understand the design principles for house design. There might be some tutorials on YouTube. Better yet search for house plans on line and find something you like and try to emulate it within SU
It would help if you have a working knowledge of construction techniques in whatever region you are in. For instance understanding lumber and material sizes so you are using materials easily available. What is your exterior wall construction going to consist of? Exterior finish material, stud sizes, interior finish material. Standard stud heights, etc. Select a window and door manufacture and design and install windows from their catalog (some window manufactures have their catalogue in 3D warehouse. do this for everything you want to be in your design.
Take a look at this site https://www.nicksonder.com/ this is one of the best home design sites on the web and it has a lot more details that what you want but it will give you an idea of the things you need to consider.
You might also consider the Pro version of SU as there are a lot of extensions that can help with things like roof design. They can help with things like what type of roof (hip, gable, dutch hip) slope, eaves, soffits and much more.
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