News: Away learning FLASH!

As mentioned in my Shoutbox - I am wholley consumed by my current work projects at the moment - both based on my SketchUp work btw!

I have another week to go until my work deadline, so my blog activity is 'on hold'.

On the plus side, my new FLASH skills will be useful for presenting my SketchUp models online.

See you again in a week or so's time - and I'll post up the resultant SketchUp related material!

Web tour: Flash version SketchUp campus model

While planning of my next hobby model goes on, one of my work projects involves making a Flash web tour using my SketchUp model of The University of Hull campus.

Over the next week I have to make a online 'virtual tour' of our campus. It's a bit of a first for me, but highlights yet another way of presenting your SketchUp models on the web.

Above: One of my rough colour tests for a map which will be included in my Flash web tour. The maps will include a variety of magnifications and locations, designed to give the prospective student a quick overview of the facilities available to them at the university.

One of the great things about Flash is that it is vector based, and so accepts SketchUps EPS file format output. This is ideal for presentations where you want to magnify your artwork, as vector graphics can be scaled without any loss of quality.

The catch is this is my very first Flash project - and I am learning the program as I go along! So do go expecting something all singing and dancing, I'll be glad if I can make a fairly modest 'click and show' presentation. :)

Additionally, here is the link to the simple HTML web tour of the campus I made from my SketchUp model (see above) - again, this shows a means of presenting your SketchUp model online: The University of Hull web tour

General news stuff: Next projects

I'm coming to the end of a couple of my SketchUp projects at the moment, and spending a bit of time planning my next models (hence the little lull in posts at the moment). However, this coincides with a couple of pieces of good news.

First of all, I am now the proud owner of a full SketchUp 6 Pro licence for my Macintosh, thanks to work. This is just as well, as Google seem to have caught on to the fact that many users - like myself - were using the free version for the majority of projects, but then also using the demo of the Pro version to output in the various advanced file formats! :)

Above: The 'missing' SketchUp manuals - basic and advanced. These books include tips on using some of the more esoteric SketchUp functions, including the 'sand box' tools. The advanced manual also covers how to use Google's new 'Layout' software which come with SketchUp Pro 6.

Secondly, along with the licence I purchased the official Google SketchUp manuals! Why? Well, despite the fact that sometime I do some SketchUp modelling techniques that could be considered 'advanced', I still make some fundamental 'bloopers' as I have never been privy to a basic manual.

So, I now hope to 'fill in' my beginner's education in SketchUp, and with the Pro version and the manuals boost my skill set to 'intermediate'. :)

Next projects...

All this comes at a good time, as I said, because I am coming to the end of a couple of projects and am now looking for some new ideas to model in SketchUp.

Well, I have been mulling over a few ideas - both in what I will model and how I will present my posts on my modelling.

Thus far I have been showing my progress with blog posts and pictures, but I sometime find it hard to articulate some of teh processes I want to show you with static text and images. So, I have started looking at a way of recording my work as a narrated movie using a tool called 'Snapz Pro 2' (Apple Mac) which record screen activity as a QuickTime movie. There are similar WIndows PC applications.

Above: Scarborough Castle, my next SketchUp project. Bereft of a proper visitor's centre, the visitor to our castle is left in the dark as to what the castle looked like when it was in one piece. Click on picture for larger version. Photo credit: Paul Davis

Hopefully, I will host a couple of these movie tutorials by way of tests over the next month to see if you find them more useful. I'd appreciate your feedback as to whether you prefer the 'old' way of blogged posts, the newer movie posts or a mix of the two.

As to my next model projects, I have started research on our local castle - a partial ruin. I hope to recreate what teh castle looked like before it was destroyed during the English Civil War.