Of all the different manipulations possible in SketchUp modeling software, designing drop shadows is one of the most difficult. However, the 3D creation software allows to design realistic digital models with complex curves and geometry. Getting to grips with shadow design is therefore essential to create an industrial design on the best CAD software. That’s why Adebeo has created a shadow tutorial on SketchUp pro just for you!
Sunshine study with Google Sketchup
Step by step shadow tutorial
First, we need to insert the geolocation of our construction in Google SketchUp. We need to go to the “Window” menu and click on “Model Info”. The Model Info dialog box appears and offers you several menus. Here you have to choose “geoposition” and select “Define a manual location…”. You must then complete the boxes in the dialog box that appears. After validation, the location of your construction site is acquired in the modeling software SketchUp pro.
The shadow in detail
We are now really interested in the drop shadow of our realistic technical drawing. To obtain the shadow of a building, we need to define the north of our 3D drawing. Here you need to use an official plan from an architect, engineer, surveyor, etc., to find the north of your building. You have to choose a top view of the model with the “top” button of the “view” toolbar. You must then place the 2D drawing/plan on your model in the same direction. Then press “set north” with your cursor in the “solar north” toolbar. You click on the center of the model and you can then stretch the line in the direction of the north of the plane, before clicking again.
Then activate the shadow correction (display/toolbar/shadow band correction) and click on the correction button. After that, you must set the date and time at which you want to obtain the drop shadow of your 3D model. We then create a scene by key time, and we export the images of the key times. After that, we create a new style and we add a watermark (30% transparency overlay) to the images created. And finally, we create a new scene with the new style. And there you have it, we have just made drop shadows without a long calculation of drop shadows!
Adebeo’s SketchUp training courses
This “drop shadows” tutorial was able to show you the potential of a technical drawing made in the 3D design software SketchUp. However, drawing in 3D and simulating realistic schematics in SketchUp can be complicated for professionals and beginners alike. Fortunately, Adebeo offers SketchUp trainings adapted to everyone, draftsmen, architects, landscapers, surveyors, developers, designers… A beginner will be able to learn the software thanks to our SketchUp 3D tutorials and trainings. These can include 3D printing, wood, or extensions such as V-Ray and TheaRender. These rendering plug-ins will be very useful for the creation of drop shadows, along with the optimization and improvement of the rendering engine.
It is thanks to these plugins that SketchUp Pro can position itself as the best CAD (computer-aided design) software. Indeed, SolidWorks from Dassault-Systèmes, Archicad, Autocad, Maya, Blender, Photoshop and the other best CAD software are surpassed by SketchUp. Whether it’s for simulating and visualizing renderings, designing and prototyping products, importing and exporting skp files to a license, image bank, or 3D printer, SketchUp is #1. You could see it with this drop shadow tutorial. So, don’t hesitate anymore! Get a permanent license with Adebeo, and a good grasp of the software with our training courses!