Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Chapter 5 Rendering in SketchUp
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Add to rendered images using image-editing software (in postproduction)—You
can often easily and quickly create renderings without plants, people, and so forth, and
then add them using your favorite image-editing software (e.g., Photoshop). As long as
you master selection tools, brushes, and masks, you can very effectively add a large number
of entourage elements to a rendering without making the actual rendering process
too complex and time intensive.
A downside of this method is that the same elements might have to be inserted into various
renderings, multiplying the workload in postprocessing.
The upcoming sections mention some of the techniques you can employ to include objects
in the 3D environment and use them for rendering.
Entourage
When it comes to adding objects to your renderings, your best source may be SketchUp’s own
3D Warehouse (see Figure 5.80). This virtual warehouse of SketchUp models has grown significantly
over the past few years and now boasts an impressive collection of user-submitted objects,
brand-name appliances, 3D buildings, trees, and much more. A few years ago, even the makers
of SketchUp decided to move the object collection that beforehand shipped with SketchUp
into the Warehouse (leaving only a few sample objects behind in SketchUp’s installation folder).
You can find the 3D Warehouse at http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse.
Figure 5.80: 3D Warehouse main screen
You can currently incorporate 3D Warehouse objects into your SketchUp project in a
variety of ways:
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Browse the 3D Warehouse using the “Get Models . . .” button. This gives you a
web browser that opens right within SketchUp and allows you to load any object as a
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