Hello everyone. I’m brand new to SketchUp but have made a few things in other user friendly 3d modeling programs.
I was hoping I might ask what tutorials are recommended if I want to learn how to extrude/pull 2d vectors and then how do I pick areas to soften/push/pull so I can "sculpt it to be more realistic.
For example, I have a vector of a sailfish. I would to extrude it, but then soften some of the edges and push/pull the face of the object to make it more realistic. Then I want to be able to wrap this sailfish model around the edges of a ring.
I believe I will need a plugin or extension in order to wrap things around edges like a ring and in order to extrude curved surfaces?
Thanks for the links and reply. I will begin there.
And yes a vector is only 2d but all I need is to extrude the top of it and then round the edges of the top. Can’t I import a vector and then extrude it creating a face and edge? So I was wondering what tutorials show that. And It was my understanding that you can raise and lower different sections of a face. Thus it would be a way to sculpt the face.
Yeah. But after reading more it looks like people import adobe illustrator files to do this which I also have. In other words instead of drawing in sketchup before extruding I want to import my flat sailfish outline, then extrude it up. Then soften the edges. I then want to wrap this around a ring.
Your imported outline will form a face in SU. As the profile will be 2D, all you need to do is trace over one edge and a face will form - as long as the profile was an enclosed loop. There are several ways of softening the edge, one is using the Follow Me tool as you probably want to give it some thickness.
The bending around a ring could be done with a plugin, like Shape Bender. But it may be do-able with the native tools too.
You could also import a sailfish image and trace around it with the native tools, creating your own profile and learning how to use SU in the process. One way to do that is to find an image you like in a support file type, like JPG. Have the window with that file open over the SU workspace. Drag that file into the SU workspace. R-click on the image and choose to explode it. It is now a planar file with the sailfish painted on the geometry. Draw your outline around the fish, paying attention to the tool tips that your pencil and arc tool is on the face. If all goes well, the face outside the profile can be deleted. The video link Dan gave you is a great start.
How about reviewing the videos, try to do something toward your modeling goal in SU, get stuck and come back to the forum with an attached SKP file to the post so someone can help?