# Google SketchUp



## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Most of us know that a good picture of what you want your tank to look like is crucial to a well aquascaped tank. It give you a better feel for what the tank will look like before hand to have a nice visual representation of what is rolling around in one's head. The problem, however is that not everyone is good enough at drawing a detailed picture. Like me for instance.

I've been playing around with Google's new software SketchUp (which is available for free at SketchUp - Home ) and have realized how great a tool this could be to the many drawingly-challanged (I know it's not a word) people there are out there. It takes all of one minute to create a tank to the size and shape you want, and most equipment can be made in a few minutes of tinkering around. What we need now are some 3D renderings of some rocks, driftwood, gravel, and plants that someone could just copy and paste right into a tank that they've created. Nothing would have to be fancy or super detailed, just some general shapes and sizes.

I'm sure that creating these shapes is not going to be easy, but I'm willing to give it a shot if others are intersted in joining me.


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## fishygurl (Sep 30, 2006)

Ill help! For the plants, and even other equipment, would it work to just extract the object from an image than paste it in there? Or does it have to be 3D?


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Don't know. I'll have to eperiment with it when I get home. I think I've come up with a process that can make some pretty good leaves, but I'll have to test it first.


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## Brie (Sep 5, 2006)

I downloaded the program, but I have no idea where to start! How do I draw the tank?

*edit: ok, I got the tank drawn. Now, how do I add substrate? Rocks? Plants? Lighting?


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Print and use colored pencils


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## Steven_Chong (Mar 17, 2005)

Nice job, this looks promising! When I get a chance I'll try to mess around with it too . . .


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## Brie (Sep 5, 2006)

dennis said:


> Print and use colored pencils


Hehe


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## Mr G (May 3, 2006)

Nice idea .....

I've just down loaded it and looked a the downloadable objects ( menu: Google > Get Models ), doing a search on 'fish tank' or 'aquarium' brings up a few models of fish tanks, stands and even some sumps.

SketchUP items

Finding plants, rocks and bogwood might be a bit more difficult !


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

To draw a tank:

1) Draw a rectangle the dimensions of the tank. A shortcut is to select the rectangle tool, click once on the screen and type the length then a comma and then the width then hit Enter. For example for a box with a 4 foot by 1 foot type " 4', 1' ". you don't have to click anywhere else, what you type is displayed in the small text box on the bottom right of the screen.
2) Paint both sides of the rectangle from the "Glass" materials list. Whatever color is fine, the glass section makes it transparent.
3) Use the Push/Pull tool to pull the rectangle to the height of the tank. You can also click once on the rectangle, pull it slightly up, and then type in the height and hit Enter.
4) Right-click on the top of the box you just made and select Erase (or Delete I don't remember which one it is).
5) You now have a basic tank.

Stands can be made basically the same way, just paint it whatever color/texture you wish. You can make it as detailed as you want I think down to 1/128th of an inch. If you want a wood grain texture select Wood-Cherry and edit it to whatever color you like.

I tried my leaf process last night, no good. I was trying to make a long leaf like a Java fern or a crypt with a slight downward curve, but they came out kind of retarded. I'm no good free-handing any lines. I will def practice more tonight though.

Rock, gravel and wood should be easy. Just a matter of putting triangles together for the rocks. A picture of gravel can just be imported to the materials list and painted onto a surface. Wood should just be cylinders stuck together. And I think objects are scalable, which means if there you make a rock one size but find that you need another size, you can expand or shrink it and still have it the same shape, but I haven't played with that tool much.

Oh well play around everyone, and post any findings or questions you may have.

Tschuss,
Kent


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## Brie (Sep 5, 2006)

Thanks Kent. 
Does anyone have any ideas on how start to draw plants, rocks, substrate etc? I don't even know where to begin


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## SKSuser (Mar 20, 2006)

Ewwww
Is it actually 3d rendering?
I've done quite a bit of that, so it shouldn't be too bad for me to help out.
I'll try to get my laptop by a wireless connection and download the program.

 Something more to spend time on... just what I need.


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## jassar (Jul 30, 2006)

Add me to the help list!
modeling and rendering high-poly plants ( as objects ) is a very slow thing to do..it also needs good use of 3d applications. Best thing to do IMO is to paste plant drawings/images to your 3d render of rocks,glass, stand..etc using photoshop ( I can help you in anything you want-3d or 2d ), that is called compositing.
Good luck!
-Jassar


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## jassar (Jul 30, 2006)

Here's a quick render of a cool looking aquarium ( if your interested )









I made it with Blender..
-Jassar.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Great to have you aboard guys.

I think we need to keep the plants as simple as possible. Nothing hugely detailed, just stalks and basic leaf shape.

On a side note here's a round rock that I banged out in five minutes:









If you want to download it, go to the 3D Warehouse and search for "APC pebble"

If we're going to save any creations to the 3D Warehouse, I say we prefix them with "APC" so that others that are going to use them can browse them more easily. Everyone agree?


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## Mr G (May 3, 2006)

_"If we're going to save any creations to the 3D Warehouse, I say we prefix them with "APC" so that others that are going to use them can browse them more easily. Everyone agree?"_

Excellent idea ! Much easier to find ..... even if searching on 'APC' does bring up a few 'Armoured Personnel Carriers' 

I wont get time to look at this fully until the weekend, I was planning on downloading some of the trees/plants at the 3D Warehouse and distorting them to try produce aquarium plants. There were a couple I found that should be easy enough to modify into amazon swords, java ferns etc.

There are also some 'grass' models on there that should be OK for simulating carpeting plants like U. graminifolia and others for use as hair grass.

For me the objects dont need to be 100% accurate, but close enough to use as a method of visualising my intended scape.


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## RoseHawke (Jan 4, 2005)

Finally! It looks like this is the nice, simple, easy, FREE 3D program I've been searching for. All the free/shareware I've downloaded either doesn't do what I want, or has such a huge learning curve that it's just not worth it for the occasional rendering I'd like to do.

_Blender_ looks very nice. But after looking at the tutorial on "How to Model a Tennis Ball" I don't think I even want to go there.


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## kentucky (Jun 5, 2006)

I have a bunch of experience using sketchup. I model subdivision and office buildings for architects and other engineers using skethup pro. IMO the best thing to do for plants is use a 2d plant that always faces the camera, although this won't work for a plan view. It is very difficult to model high poly components such as plants and driftwood, much less for someone who is just starting to use the program, although a simple piece of driftwood is not to bad. If you want 3d, I would suggest downloading some of the 3d trees and using the branches from those as a starting point for your driftwood and plant leaves. Also there are several rocks that should be a part of the landscape architecture library, where the trees and plants are located. Any plants like hair grass and moss will be difficult to model and you will be best using a material. For materials it is best if you can find seamless materials to use. Also for larger rocks, I use tga image format files from quake and import them in as a texture. Do a google image search for tga quake or another variation about tga rock and you should find some stuff.
Also, for the plants you might consider having someone do watercolors of the plants and placing these in the models, this is something that I often do iwth better looking results than using photorealistic images.
Good luck, you are off to a good start.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

I'm going to be working on a rotala style plant over the weekend if I have time. SHould just be a matter of glueing some 2D leaves at different angles around a short section of stalk, then copying and pasting the sections together at different angles. I'll post if/when I'm finished.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions or requests for something that they don't want to try to make, like a certain style of rock or driftwood/bogwood, go ahead and post it. It'll give us something to practice on.


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## jassar (Jul 30, 2006)

RoseHawke said:


> Finally! It looks like this is the nice, simple, easy, FREE 3D program I've been searching for. All the free/shareware I've downloaded either doesn't do what I want, or has such a huge learning curve that it's just not worth it for the occasional rendering I'd like to do.
> 
> _Blender_ looks very nice. But after looking at the tutorial on "How to Model a Tennis Ball" I don't think I even want to go there.


LOL! this isn't a beginner's tutorial! i know this is off topic but to learn the amazing program "blender" look at easy tutorials  ....after all, it's a very strong free 3d application, and once you learn it you will love it!
Cheers!
-Jassar


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Here's my "rotala" so far:










I've found that it's easier to "grow" the stalk as you go, rather than try to paste short lengths of stalk together. Meaning; draw a circle, pull it up, rotate it slightly, then pull it up again, rotate it slightly again, and so on and on and on.


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## Anti-Pjerrot (Mar 12, 2006)

WOW schaadrak - thats looking great!


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## Craig Tarvin (Jul 26, 2005)

Yeah, good job schaadrak. This looks very cool.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Here's the rotala










It's saved under "APC Rotala" at the 3D Warehouse. I left the basic components in there as well, since I know people will want to add more to it than just two stalks. The colors can be edited by changing the last three green colors in the In Model Materials List, for those of you who want a redder plant. I'm trying to make a model of what I want my tank to look like, and I'm taking pictures of each step as I go so that I can make an instruction sheet. I need to make more plants, though, so I think I'm going to make a crypt/java fern style plant next.

Tschuss,

Kent


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Awesome!!!


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

I made these drawings with a very old program that doesn't have the sophistication of Google's program. Even so, I think they capture the different appearances of _H. polysperma_ in high, medium and low CO2.


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

schaadrak said:


> Here's the rotala
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That looks amazing. Adding lighting textures will definitely make it look more amazing! Just need to upgrade my computer then once the polygon count goes up!


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Here's the crypt / java fern that I'm working on.










It's not really taking that long, but I can only work on it for maybe one or two minutes a day. Then the baby usually wakes up.

Speaking of which...


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Okay, I had a few more minutes so here is the finished product.










It's saved in the 3D Warehouse under "APC crypt/java"

Just as I did with the Rotala, I left the leaves and the rosettes seperated as well as together, in case anyone wants to change anything. And the colors can all be edited to change both sides of the leaves and the stalks if wanted. Enjoy!

Tschuss,

Kent


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