Discover the intricacies of creating a clean model using Sketchup, including understanding how to manipulate walls, roofs, and guides for improved architectural design. Learn how to utilize shortcuts, the push-pull tool, and the line tool to enhance your modeling process and create efficient workflows.
Key Insights
- The article details how to use Sketchup's push-pull tool to manipulate walls and roofs for architectural designs, emphasizing the importance of cleanliness in models.
- Utilizing shortcuts, specifically for the 'hide rest of model' function, can greatly enhance the efficiency of your design process in Sketchup.
- Creating a clean model also involves the strategic use of guides and the line tool for proportionality and precision in your designs.
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Let's do the same thing over on this side so we can Push/Pull this wall up. Intersect these two faces, hold down CTRL to multi-select, and choose "Intersect Faces with Model." As you can see, I didn’t Pull this wall all the way up, so I'm going to undo and pull this wall up higher. It's going to stop me from going any further than this point. So what I need to do to go further is hit the CTRL key and go plus. I'll be able to make a duplicate of this wall. We'll have these lines that we can erase later. This will allow us to go higher than where it’s stopping me. Just go anywhere slightly higher than this roof. Then I can actually erase this line and this line, and then on the inside, erase all of the lines.
Now I can select this face and this face, right-click, and choose "Intersect Faces with Model." And now we have that roof line we had. If I go to View > Component Edit > Hide Rest of Model, you can see that when I intersect, it's intersecting these roof planes that we created. It makes it easier to work with. Personally, I use the Hide Rest of Model feature very frequently, so I choose to make a shortcut for this tool. You can modify that shortcut by going into Preferences > Shortcuts. We have that right here, and you can search for that key. I usually type in "hide, " and it's this button right here: View > Component > Hide Rest of Model. You can actually create a shortcut for what that feature is.
There are already a lot of pre-assigned shortcuts. Let's say I want to use the keyboard H. Type in H and press plus. H is currently used by Camera > Pan. If I go back to Camera, type in Camera, and check Camera Pan, you can see that H is the key for that. I’ll click Cancel.
If you use your mouse, you can type O for Orbit or use your center scroll wheel. You can also type H to go to the Hand tool, or you can hold down Shift. If you hold down Shift and use the Orbit key at the same time, it also pans. So orbit with your center scroll wheel and hold down Shift and Orbit. You can use the Hand tool, which is really handy.
So I'm constantly keeping my left-hand finger on the Shift key to pan around and my mouse on the Orbit. So I rarely use the H key for that. However, I do like to use the keyboard H for Hide Rest of Model. So I go to Window > Preferences and type in "hide." Then I add a shortcut for H and press plus. I want to reassign H to now be View > Component > Hide Rest of Model. I'll click Yes and then click OK. Now, whenever I press H, I can go back and forth and see what is being hidden and what's not. This shows only what's inside this group; everything else is outside that group. A very helpful tool to toggle instead of going up to your menu to Component > Edit > Hide Rest of Model. You can see it now says H next to it.
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So back to our roof. Let's Push/Pull to erase these solid openings, and then let's continue to draw our lines over here to fill in this portion here and here. Let's erase this and this. Now we can Push/Pull this wall, this wall, and this wall, and then go into our Eraser tool. We can click and delete all of these extra planes. Then, going into our Line tool, we can auto-heal these openings and use the Eraser tool again to erase all the additional lines that we do not need or want. We want to create a very clean model with as few lines as possible. A clean model is very necessary for SketchUp, making sure that everything is modeled on the direct axes and all the lines are erased. We know that these walls are walls.
Now that we have adjusted all of our walls, I will click out of this group and now I can delete these roof planes because we're going to model an actual roof based on the slopes we determined. So let's go to our guides and let's create some thickness along these roof angles. Using our Tape Measure tool, hover over this edge and find where it shows the magenta perpendicular line, and type in 6 for a 6-inch deep roof. Then from here, 6 inches. We'll do the same thing over here: 6, Enter. Over here again, find the magenta and type 6, Enter.
All right, so now let's draw a roof from this point to this point, and then we want this to be perpendicular to this on-line. Let's double-check to make sure that's perpendicular because it was snapping to the magenta. If I hover over the magenta, it’s snapping right there.
So that on-line is also perpendicular. Then draw a line from here to here, and then press Escape and start from here to here on-line, and then here. Now we have this portion. Then let's do the same thing over here: here to here to here on-line to the top intersection, then hit Escape to start from here on-line. Okay, then we will connect to the top.
Now I no longer need the guides, so I'll go to Edit > Delete Guides. Then I'll triple-click this roof shape and make a group, and triple-click this shape and make a group. Now I will double-click into this group. Remember I have my shortcut key H for Hide Rest of Model, so I can see the other portions. I can Push/Pull this wall all the way to the endpoint.
Now let's make some rafter extensions for each of these roofs. So let's extend this roof out 12 inches. Let's extend this portion out 36 inches. Extend this portion 12 inches, and this portion 36 inches for our roof overhangs. I will see you in the next video.
