Resources
Welcome to the SketchUpArtists resource section where you will find some great links for sites with tutorials and free resources which will help enhance your image editing skills and post-processing techniques. There are also some useful SketchUp ad-dons, unique free software, materials, 3D models and other useful official SketchUp related off-site links.
Official SketchUp Sites
- SketchUp Home – Trimble Homepage
- New SketchUp Blog – Official SketchUp Blog
- 3D Warehouse – Free 3D Models
- SketchUp Sage – Links to other great SketchUp resources
Forums and Communities
- SketchUpArtists Community – Official Facebook community group
- Official SketchUp Community – Trimble SketchUp folks
- SketchUcation – Great resourceful SketchUp forum
- @Last Forum – a nostalgic look back in time, archive with original SketchUp content
Forums and Communities Non – English
- SketchUp Vray Resources – Nomer Adona’s excellent tutorial Blog
- ronenbeckerman – Arch ViZ Blog
- Biblio3d.com – France
- Sketchando – Spain
Google SketchUp Plugins
- Smustard – Big collection mostly pay for, some freebies
- SketchUp Plugins – Some popular SketchUp plugins
- Extension Warehouse – Extend the functionality of SketchUp with this list of sites
- SketchUp Tips – SketchUp plugins Blog by Jim Foltz
- Ruby Library Depot – Loads of plugins for SketchUp on Didier Bur’s site
Free Image Editing Software
- normalmap – GIMP plugin to convert images into RGB normal maps
- Cinepaint – Easy to use and similar to Photoshop
- Pixia – Painting and retouching software for full color graphics
- ChocoFlop – Free image editing on your Mac
- Paint.Net – Free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
- Sumo Paint – Free image editor and painter software, really cool.
- FotoSketcher – FotoSketcher is a 100% free program which can help you convert your digital photos into art, automatically. If you want to turn a portrait, the photograph of your house or a beautiful landscape into a painting, a sketch or a drawing then look no further.
- Gimp – The world famous free image editing software.
- 3DPaysage – This free software creates 3D terrain (or something else) from a picture. The mesh can be exported to different formats including .obj.
- FastStone – A collection of free image editing and viewing software.
- Photoscape – Free photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos.
Free Vector Editing Software
- Inkscape – Vector graphics editor with similar capabilities to professional pieces of software such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw and Xara X
- Alchemy – Vector-based editing application that makes use of a handful of interesting features
Free 3D Models and Textures
- cc0 Textures – Free textures
- Texture fun – Collection of free textures
- Textures.com – Free textures
- maxTextures – Tiled and seamless textures
- sharetextures – Free seamless textures
- cadhatch – Free seamless textures
- Sketchuptextureclub – textures and resources
- Coalesse – free SketchUp furniture moles for non-commercial use.
- cgtrader.com – Huge collection of excellent quality 3D models, free and paid for
- Hdri-Skies.com – Good collection of free HDRI sky maps in 4K resolution
- TonysTextures – 4000 free textures and several tutorials and other freebies for architectural visualization
- Skal Gubbar -Library of free high resolution cutout images of people
- NonScandanavia -Free Hi Res 2d Cutout people from
- HDRI-Hub – Small collection of free HDRI skies.
- Gtrove – Small collection of free HDRI’s
- NoEmotion HDR’s – Free collection of day, evening and night HDRI’s
- Krost Office Furniture – Free collection of SketchUp models
- SketchUpTexture – Growing collection of free good quality models and textures
- Knoll Office Furniture – Free SketchUp models…100’s of them
- 3drender.co.uk – Some free samples and models
- Textures Forrest – High resolution free textures
- DesignBeep – Collection of high quality and free brick textures
- High Resolution Textures – Free Textures, game textures, 3D textures, design resources
- Texturemate – Free textures, brushes and patterns
- carbodydesign.com – Free 3D car models various formats, some SketchUp models
- BIMstop.com – Free models, but you need to register first
- SteelSelect.com – Free SketchUp Component library for eaves guttering
- Landscapeforms – SketchUp library of 3D models
- CadTutor – Free collection of images, trees, people, skies and more
- Cut Out People – Free cut out people, animals, transport, nature and objects
- OpenFootage – HDRI panorama’s and more
- Graphic Mania – High quality old paper Photoshop textures
- Naldzgraphics – Free high quality wood textures,200+
- Designmoo – Free PSDs, vectors, textures, patterns, fonts, and more
- Archiforge – Textures and CAD library
- 3D Warehouse – Huge collection of free 3D SketchUp Models
- Archive 3D – Large collection of free 3D models
- Bricks’n’Tiles – Design Photo-realistic textures for high quality 3D content
- CGDigest – Selection of models from furniture to transport and electronics
- Turbosquid Free – Loads of good quality free models
- Designfreebies – Free high resolution photos of skies, clouds, sunsets and much more
- CG Textures – The worlds largest free texture site
- 3dmd.net – Free textures for 3D artists
- 3Dmodelsharing – Free library once you register, various file types
- Archweb – Free cad blocks and textures
Popular Photoshop sites with tutorials and freebies!!
- Obsidian Dawn – Loads of free Photoshop stuff
- Free 4 Photoshop – Free Photoshop brushes, styles, patterns, shapes, psd and more
- PSD tuts+ – The mother of all PS sites for tuts and freebies
- Tutorial 9 – Tutorials (check out School of Photoshop)
- PSDFAN – New kid on the block, with great tutorials
- PSHERO – Great set of unique tutorials and tips and tricks
- PhotoshopStar – More tutorials and resources
- Smashing apps – Free hand drawn style icons, brushes, textures and fonts
Brushes for post-production work
- WeGraphics – More free stuff
- Pepsized – Free Photoshop brushes
- Photoshop Tutorials – More free brushes
- InspirationHut – Variety of free brushes
- Hejbrush – Free Photoshop marker brushes
- FGD – Free Photoshop brushes
- CreativeNerds – Free Photoshop brushes
- BrushLovers – Free Photoshop brushes
- BrushKing -Photoshop brushes
- Bonehaus – Photoshop dry brushes
- carbodydesign – Collection of Photoshop brushes including some colored pencils
- Premium Pixels – Some high resolution oil pastel brushes
- DesignM.ag – 500+ watercolor brushes for Photoshop
- Naldz Graphics – Free vintage brush sets
- Bittbox – Great brushes and tutorials
- PS Brushes – 500+ high-quality brushes classified by categories
- Get Brushes – 150+ brushes categorized
- Brusheezy – Cool Brushes
- DeviantArt – Some great free tree brushes and much more
- Premium Pixels – High resolution acrylic sponge brushes
- Spyrestudios – 600+ light effect brushes
Software and other free goodies!
- Evermotion – Forum, tutorials and downloads
- LuxRender – Free physically based and unbiased rendering engine
- Kerkythea – Is a free standalone good quality renderer, using physically accurate materials and lights
- Blender – Free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems
- MyPaint – Free open-source graphics application for digital painters
- Artweaver Free – Free painting program which is suitable for beginners but also suitable for advanced users
- DraftSight – Free CAD software for your DWG files
- Meshmixer – Free tool for making as they say “crazy-ass 3D stuff” without too much hassle
- ngPlant – Free plant modeling software suite
- WebInpaint Beta – Remove one or more objects or persons from your composition
- An Ivy Generator – A small tool allowing a virtual ivy to grow in your 3d world
- xNormal – An application to generate normal / ambient occlusion / displacement maps
- Color Palette Generator – Enter the URL of an image to get a color palette that matches the image
- Window Studio 10 software – Generate 3D Dynamic SketchUp models (Andersen windows and doors)
- GML Matting – Cutout tool to extract object from background
- GE Light*Beams 3.0 – Powerful lighting design aid for GE directional reflector lamps. Has a complete database of GE IES files
- 3D Canvas – Real-time 3D modeling/animation tool that incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop approach to 3D modeling
- Great Buildings Online – 1000 great buildings with images, drawings and 3D models
- The Blueprints.com – Exactly what it says
- Wings 2 – Aircraft plans/drawings
- CB Model Pro – Free rapid 3D organic modeling software
- DoubleCad XT Free – Works like AutoCAD LT
- yED – Powerful free graph editor
- Sculptris – Free 3D organic modeler
- ShiftN – Automatic correction of distracting converging lines in your image
Social Networks – check us out
If you know of anymore useful free resources for the SketchUp design community please contact us or comment below and we will add it to the list.
Just found your link and am I impressed this so great, But can’t get RSS into my Igoogle page
We have a website which offers some free sample textures and models aimed primarily at high quality architectural visualization.
The address is – http://www.3drender.co.uk
I thought your readers might find them useful.
Regards,
Tim Barrett
Added you too our list Tim, thnx
Check
http://www.texturequalitypro.com
for some good free textures !
Andrea
Thnx for the link Andrea!
James
Hi !
You have really good refence site !
I have one to suggest too : http://www.cgtrader.com
CGTrader is an online marketplace where 3D artists and engineers can buy, sell or share 3D models.
Maybe it will be usefull for the users too
Regards,
Diana
Hi there,
maybe our website project may also useful for your readership. At http://www.tonytextures.com we provide over 4000 free textures and several tutorials and other freebies for architectural visualization.
thank you!
tony
http://eyakdesigns.weebly.com/sketchup-textures.html check out my textures
Hi,
We have a website free 3D models library, provide over 50000 textures, models, vray material, 3d works, and plugins for using in CG projects.
We have an excellent SketchUp plugin for rendering. Maybe it will be usefull for your users.
http://www.renderwow.com/views/Download.html
HI Team,
Love your work. I’m just a beginner in Sketchup based in London and looking for Sketchup training suited for Urban Design and Planning
All the courses here focus on essentials of Sketchup and none specifically for Urban Design – Please can you suggest if any of you @ SketchupArtists are based in London and are available to train in person.
I just created SketchUp Shortcuts (http://sketchupshortcuts.com/), a complete list of keyboard shortcuts for SketchUp.
Hi, i would like share also a great 3d modeling website with models in .skp https://hum3d.com/, they also has a lot of other formats. Actually I know well their 3d cars.
I built this web app that lets you create and edit seamless textures: https://architextures.org/create
Please feel free to add it to the list!
Cheers
There’s also this new CC0 3D Model library!
If you are still updating this. You could maybe add it as well!
https://www.3dmodelscc0.com/
Here’s another graphic organizer tool that you can add to general resources. Hope this helps.
https://creately.com/diagram-type/k12-graphic-organizer