Tutorials

Welcome to our tutorial section. As you go through this great selection of tutorials you will learn how to perfect your post-processing skills with easy to follow step by step instructions provided by highly talented professional contributors.

Visitors are also invited to submit tutorials to give other users a chance to benefit from them. If you have the skill to write and produce a unique and impressive tutorial then we’d like to hear from you and you’ll have the honour of being published on the best SketchUp post processing tutorial site around! Please contact us here.

Our Current Tutorial Library

Making of Hillside House by Ibon Enriquez

Ibon Enriquez is an architectural student from San Sebastian in northern Spain. This is a model he rendered for a rendering competition over at the Spanish SketchUp forums. Ibon uses a suitable 3D SketchUp model, TwilightRender and Photoshop for post-processing in this tutorial.

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IES Light Tutorial using V-Ray for SketchUp by Nomeradona

The latest version of V-ray for SketchUp (ver. 1.48.66) has the new added feature of IES Lights and Spotlights. V-Ray works within the SketchUp environment allowing users to be able to efficiently incorporate the task of rendering within their current workflow. In this simple tutorial we are going to set up three basic pin lights.

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Perspective Drawing from SketchUp by Jim Leggitt

Drawing perspectives involving planning projects can be challenging and somewhat intimidating. A great method of visualizing master plans is to simply build a SketchUp model, determine an optimum view and then trace over a print of scene. I call this process the “Overlay and Trace Method” and is easy to do and very accurate!

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Creating Perspectives with SketchUp by Jim Leggitt

Constructing models may be easy, but establishing the right kind of perspective view can be tricky. When establishing scenes in SketchUp, an identical visual “checklist” must be considered so you can present your design concepts in their best form and avoid 3D digital disasters!

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Making of Black Hawk by Jacques Cleghorn

This was probably the most anticipated advanced modeling project I had ever undertaken which pushed SketchUp’s limits more than I had ever imagined it would ever go to. This project took me about two and a half months to complete. I actually thought it would take a lot longer since I was doing this after hours in my spare time.

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Simple Overlay and Trace Project by Jim Leggitt

“Here is a  simple “step-by-step” technique for creating an illustration using a Google SketchUp model as a base, your creative imagination and a splash of color markers. Here we are mixing 3D Graphics with hand drawing skills”.

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Add a Rotoscope Effect to Your Image by Rocky Vezeau

A quick and simple method in achieving a Rotoscope effect for a rendered image by Rocky Vezeau, aka ‘xrok1′. A regular contributor on the SketchUcation, Twilight and Podium forums to mention a few and now here at SketchUpArtists. ‘Rotoscoping’ is the term used when artists paint or trace over live-action film, frame-by-frame, to create an animation and it is being used in everything from television commercials to Hollywood movies.

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The Quasi-Clay Style by Oliver Shea

The image I am using in this tutorial is part of a housing project I am presently working on. We are going to try and achieve a fake or ‘Quasi Clay Style’ effect in this tutorial. You will need Google SketchUp, SU Podium and Photoshop.

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Blender to SketchUp – A Workaround for Texturing Organic Shapes by Michalis Zissiou

Although Google SketchUp is one of the easiest and fastest applications for architectural modeling when it comes to organic forms, texturing and rendering organic shapes it falls short and has not as yet solved this issue. The major problem of SketchUp is that it triangulates things thus making it difficult for smoothing and UV mapping of textures. Check out my tutorial for the workaround!

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A  Watercolor and Line Drawing Ink Effect by Nomeradona

This tutorial is not about rendering but how to compose a watercolor and ink effect using a few simple steps. I am using a rendered image in order to add depth, particularly on some main areas. I use a couple of styles and V-Ray for a render image in some of the steps.

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Making of H.M.C.S  Snowberry by Jacques Cleghorn (AKA `silver_shadow´)

I was always fascinated by the way some people built everything in models in such detail and decided to start the ‘ Candy’ series, trying to emulate them, but by only using Sketchup with no other external applications for modeling. This tutorial is a quick overview of  ‘Eye Candy 3′  The H.M.C.S. Snowberry. I go through some tools that I used and how some of it was built. All the plug-ins used in this tutorial are widely available on SketchUp sites and forums.

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Pencil Overlay by Sid Porobic (AKA `Sepo´)

This tutorial has stemmed out of the need to produce attractive “hand made” images which are to be used when discussing architectural projects with clients and planning authorities alike.

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Making of a Classic Room by Ricardo Cossoli

The ‘Classic Room’ scene was fully modeled in Google SketchUp with the help of some free available plug-ins. It is a classic style room with details of moldings, illuminated with natural light from the scene and only the light support in the middle of the room is a resolved V-Ray emitting material.

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Image Post-Processing in Photoshop by Teofilo Pardo

This tutorial has been designed for those people who are not using Photoshop as much as they should in their post-processing workflow or not using it on a regular basis. It incorporates lots of hints and tips and shows what can be done in the post-processing of a V-ray output image of a SketchUp model.

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Tradigital Drawing Using the Simple Composite Method by Jim Leggitt

The following Tradigital Drawing was generated for academic purposes and does not represent any actual project. I built the SketchUp model from components found in the SketchUp 3D warehouse and from FormFonts.

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Fast Way to Achieve a Nice Digital Watercolor Render by Majid Yagenegi

In this tutorial we are going to achieve a nice digital watercolor render using SketchUp and the new render engine ‘Twilight’. We will also do a little post-processing with Photoshop (or your desired photo editor).

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Create a Fake Render in Photoshop by Majid Yeganegi

This tutorial is going to show you how to ‘fake’ a render using Photoshop. It is very simple and straight forward and I hope you find it very useful as it could be one quick option in your work process…

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A Quick and Simple Render Technique by ‘Mr Wip’

While trying to evolve in the cruel world of virtual rendering, you may have seen many tutorials, all presenting super advanced master techniques, but you can’t  stop feeling that their starting point is always a bit above your current skills, and their goal far away from your current needs.

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Making of Hotel Room by Mateo Soletic

How to create a right mood in your interior design presentation? Obviously SketchUp can do some things but if you want to investigate further and create a real life photo-realistic environment you will have to use real life materials, light sources or simply you will have to post process it with a renderer.

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Finer Shadows and Edges in Podium Renders by Majid Yeganegi

Podium renders are really very nice and you can make them even better with a few little tweaks. Sometimes fine details are missed during the render process, and maybe you need to have them or by adding this further detail would improve your renders. If this is the case then this tutorial is for you.

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Making of Beauty Salon by Do Phu Hoang Nguyen – Phunguyen

In this V-ray for SketchUp tutorial I will be covering the use of materials and light to create this interior lighted Beauty Salon image.

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Photomontage Tutorial by Teofilo Pardo

This tutorial is going to show you how to blend a render into a real photo. This is my post-processing method.

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SketchUp to Artlantis by Mr Wip.

Let’s take a simple SketchUp model: several colored boxes, a plan, a texture…here we are, the stage is set…

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Lesbian Vampire Killers Tutorial Part 2 by Alex Jenyon

I posted a tutorial on one of my background paintings for ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ a little while ago, which seemed to go down really well. Here’s another from the same series – ‘part 2′ if you like…

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Drawing Clouds in Piranesi by Snoopywang

We have yet another great tutorial by Wang. He uses a brush technique he has developed to draw clouds with giving a beautiful watercolor effect to them. Follow Wang’s tutorial and achieve some great clouds in your images..

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Pencil Sketch Tutorial by Snoopywang

We are delighted to add to our growing list of tutorials this tutorial by Wang (AKA Snoopywang). It is a short tutorial on using a raster brush you maKe yourself and then using it to create a pencil sketch drawing in Piranesi. This technique could also be used in other painting software and as Wang states “In fact, the brush is not important, the most important thing is your imagination.

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The Making of Bahamas by Nguyen Tran Huy Vu

In this tutorial we are featuring “the making of the Bahamas villa”. A competition work by an architecture student from Vietnam, Nguyen Tran Huy Vu. In his tutorial he demonstrates the basics of SketchUp to 3DS Max & Vray workflow.

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Making of Marina by Mateo Soletic

I hope that this tutorial on my evolving SU post-processing techniques proves useful to you. I have received some positive feedback and e-mails from people asking me how this is done. For some time now I have been experimenting on various techniques in the aim of producing high quality CG professional render output, yet one with a subtle brush and line work touch that resembles the natural effect of SketchUp.  Here is then the basic process…

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