This article outlines the process of importing components, such as a carousel, into a digital design project, with an emphasis on file management. It also shares tips on how to efficiently organize files using tags, and how to add finer details to your digital design.
Key Insights
- Components like a carousel can be imported into a digital project, and then be rotated to match the angle of the existing design using the rotate tool.
- File organization can be improved using tags, which function like layers. These can be used to group certain objects together and hide them as needed, which aids in keeping the model organized and clear of clutter.
- More details can be added into the digital design, such as painting a planter box with grass, adding more materials to the park, and introducing people and cars, making the design look more realistic and complete.
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Welcome back! Alright, in this video, we are going to bring in a few of the components that we created: the carousel and the welcome sign. We are not going to bring in the fountain because we are using a different profile than this one, and then we're going to talk a little bit more about file management and how to organize your files. So, without further ado, let's go to File > Import, and let's import the carousel that you created. I'll click 'Import, ' then click off to the side, and then click the middle button at the top of your carousel, and then click here.
Now we're going to want to rotate to match the angle that this is currently at, so we'll go to your Rotate Tool and then hover over your open space to infer the blue axes. Hold down Shift to lock that, click this point in the middle, click the angle you want to reference, and then move it to the desired angle, just like that. There we go, and now I will select the old carousel, which is the white one, and I will delete it. I just have my previous one, and let's do the same thing for our community park so that we have our correct name.
So, I'm going to File > Import, and I'm going to bring in the Welcome Sign DM for Derek McFarland, and I'm going to import that. So again, bring this in and click it into space. It does not matter where you drop it. Then click on a point to match the existing size. We'll click right here and then go to your Rotate Tool, click this point again, click your first line, and then your angle of reference.
Go back to your Selection Tool, click on the old park sign that's different from the one that you brought in, and then delete it. Zoom out, and feel free to add more materials to your park and anything else you want.
I'm going to add a little more detail. I'm going to double-click into my component for my park, and I decide that I want to paint this planter box with the same grass. So, I'm going to go to my Paint Bucket Tool, holding down ALT to reference this grass material, and I can paint this. I'll click out.
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I'm going to Zoom Extents, and I'm going to save my file. Now, for project organization, it's best to use tags, which are essentially the layers. Think of layers as various groups that you can place certain objects under. Each group allows you to hide certain objects as needed.
For example, if I click this building here and right now, if I go to my Entity Info, the tag is currently set to 'Untagged, ' meaning everything in this model is under the 'Untagged' tag. If I click this eyeball, you cannot hide the current tag, but if I create a new tag and call it 'Architecture, ' I can move the clubhouse under Architecture and then hit 'Hide' to hide the actual object. When we're using tags, make sure that you only put groups under tags and have all of your individual components or parts of your components under 'Untagged.'
If you start being very specific about certain things, you can hide parts of your overall component that you may not want to see. Also, if you double-click into your geometry, make sure that all of your geometry is under the 'Untagged' layer. That is the cleanest way to organize your model. So, your overall object should be under a specific tag.
So, for this case, let's go select other components that are under the Architecture tab. We'll do the carousel as well under Architecture, and I will turn off Architecture so we can hide those from our model. Now let's go add in Landscape.
I want to add all the plants, trees, and the fountain—anything that's landscape-related—to the Landscape tag. So, I'm going to click all these things, but what I can do is I can pan down and then use a selection window, dragging to the left to select all of these that are within that window, and I will put these all under Landscape. Now I will hide Landscape.
Again, I will put the fountain under Landscape and let's make an additional layer for Entourage. For Entourage, we'll use people and cars. Right now, I don't have any people in here, but I do have cars, so I can select them, and then, holding down CTRL, you can select both cars and add them to the Entourage tag.
Next, let's add another tag for Furniture. This is going to be Site Furniture, which includes everything else in the component besides the site plan. But if I were to do a selection window, I would select a lot of my site plan components.
So, first of all, what I want to do is make my site plan a group. I can triple-click all the site plan elements, making sure that none of my other components are selected, and I can right-click and select 'Make Group.' Now I can do a selection window, dragging to the left, to select only the objects inside that selection window, and then add those to the Furniture layer.
Then, I can hide my Furniture layer. And now, I want one final layer. I will call this Site Plan. That is what I will use for the site plan.
I will move this site plan to the Site Plan tag and deselect it. Now, if I were to uncheck the visibility on each of these, you can see that I can turn things on and off. I can also adjust so that the fountain is now under Architecture and not Landscape, and I can adjust that right here.
Let's go back to our components, and let's add Neeraj to our site. Once you click it, you can see that you can change where he goes right away. So, move him to Entourage.
Again, I can place Neeraj over here by the fountain, changing him to Entourage. Then I can go into this dialogue box again and go to People, and I can find all the various 2D people who SketchUp has to offer.
I can scroll down and see 2D silhouettes. Then, I can scroll further down and see 2D objects that have more personality, faces, and colors. I'll find 2D Man Singing Ryan. I'm going to bring in Ryan.
Click 'Yes.' I'll put Ryan right here and put him on the Entourage tag. Again, I'll go to People 2D, scroll down, and this time, I'll find a woman.
2D Woman Walking. Excellent. I'll bring this lady here.
I want this lady to be rotated, but as you can see, because this is a 2D object, I'm not able to rotate it and use my quick commands.
And as I can see, I'm not able to do that because this is a component, and it's locked in this direction. I can, however, right-click 'Flip Along the Green Axes, ' and it will flip.
The Green Axes would be, if I'm looking at this model, in this direction, so it's going to flip it along the axis inside here.
I'm going to Zoom Extents. I'm going to save my file. I'm going to look in my tags and see if I decide to turn off Entourage that all my people go away except for this last lady that I did not change.
So, I'll go back and click her, put her on Entourage, and then I'll double-check and make sure all my components are turned off as they are supposed to. And I will save my file one last time, and that completes our community park. In the next video, we are going to look at setting up various styles and scenes and create animation for our park.
I'll see you in the next video.
