** You can adjust Play Speed to faster or slower playback in Settings!! **
Hope everyone is being responsible and staying safe, I also hope you’re making the most out of your time if you’re self-isolating 🙂
This is part two of my last video with 5 more free plugins 🙂 I’ve been using these extensions for years and I wouldn’t be recommending them if I didn’t think they’ll actually help you!
If you don’t know how to install Sketchup Extensions/Plugins, follow this link.
All plugin download links will be available with each description below. I’ll be giving a brief demo of every plugin or extension as we go along. Kindly play the video for a better understanding of how each plugin/extension works.
Solar North
No this is more of a hack for realism than anything. To view your ‘North’, click on the ‘Toggle North Arrow’ and your north will be an orange line.
Now I want sunlight to come into my space directly through the window. However, since my window is facing north, this is impossible.
To fix this, I’ll move my ‘North’. This will make my window face a different direction. I can do this without rotating my model by clicking ‘Set North Tool’.
Just place the tool on a flat surface, click once and then move your mouse and click again to apply. Now I can have sunlight shining directly into my space!
Laubwerk
It basically creates very high detail trees that are render-ready for you + the trees are added into your model as proxies so your model doesn’t get too heavy.
You can get more than one variation per plant, as well as 3 growth stages per variation.
Think the tree is too thick? Change the leaf density! This in turn will lower a tree’s poly count so it’s not as heavy to render.
This is witchcraft in display guys; thank the developer of this plugin for your saved time.
Groups to Components
The name is self explanatory and the purpose makes a huge difference in workflow.
I can just right click a group and make it into a component, but this will take too much time if I have to do this to every pre-existing object in every model.
So what I’m going to do is select all the groups that I want to convert, go to Extensions and click ‘Convert Groups to Components’.
Now I can copy my objects and create as many sets as I want knowing that when I change something about one set, changes will be applied to the rest.
Eneroth’s Merge Layers
I bet you’ve been in the situation where you imported a lot of objects into a model and then taken a look at your Layers window and freaked out at how many Layers you have.
You can always use the purge option in your layers window, but that only purges empty layers.
And Since it’s always a time saver when objects are assigned to proper layers, the easiest solution here is to merge these layers into proper ones.
To merge your layers, all you have to do is go to Extensions and click on ‘Eneroth Merge Layers’.
A small dialogue comes up that will ask which layer do you want to merge into what layer.
Now all your objects will exist on layers of your choosing.
CleanUp3
Best tool out there to cleanup your model from all those extra materials and other nasty hidden glitches that can cause serious damage to a file. Not to mention it reduces your file size after it’s done, so your PC will thank you.
There is more than one function to this tool, and it’s all aimed at a thorough cleaning of your file.
Of course, this can backfire if you don’t know what you’re doing so I suggest sticking to the settings I have here till you get a better handle over things.
And be careful of the ‘Erase Stray Edges’ option because it wipes out my Vray Light widgets so it may do the same for you.
Before you use this extension keep in mind that it will take its time. I’ve had models take 3 hours to get cleaned up. So use this wisely.
Make sure you like the video if you found it useful and subscribe to my Youtube Channel to get notified whenever there are new tutorials.
I welcome any questions or suggestions for new tutorial videos, so what do you want to learn next?
Leave it in the comments below or message me on any of my social media accounts 🙂 (Links are below).
Your Support would make my day!
Software Used
- Sketchup 2018.
- VRay Next (4.00.02).
- Photoshop Cs6 Extended.
- Materialize 1.78
Join the Family
HDRI: HDRI Haven.
Video Production: Camtasia 2018.
Music: Urban Lullaby
Leave a Reply