Singapore Shophouse Study

DESIGN :: I was looking for a Singapore-style shophouse in the SketchUp 3D Warehouse and couldn't find any that were suitable so I set about building a model (3D Warehouse model here) myself. The best reference I could find was in Dezeen Magazine's article "55 Blair Road by ONG&ONG" which included photos of both the interior and exterior, as well as floor plans and elevations.

I set about designing the outer shell and a few of the interior features. I wanted to render it as well, both inside and out, so I used the Ong & Ong design for the first floor.

Despite the 3D Warehouse model featuring the Ong & Ong interior on the first floor, the basic shell of the shophouse will be easy enough for those seeking to modify and develop their own designs. Everything is done in components so even major sections of geometry can be modified or entirely redone.

The basic process of building up a shophouse have now been established as have the methods of rendering them under different lighting conditions. While Singapore's shophouses come in many shapes and sizes, future models can be tackled with greater efficiency -- the very purpose of going through with this shophouse study.

See more renders below of the SketchUp 3D Warehouse model and don't forget to visit the original article on Dezeen which served as a reference. The actual SketchUp model in the 3D Warehouse can be found here.

SketchUp for Interior Design :: 3 Basic Aspects of Workflow

Design :: SketchUp is an invaluable tool when it comes to visualizing. Its intuitive interface is easy to learn and quickly becomes second nature leaving your energy entirely to the design process. With the 3D Warehouse, you can quickly populate an empty scene and do everything from space planning to exploring real world objects you cannot see or handle in person.

SketchUp allows users to quickly visualize ideas in 3D and present them in a wide variety of ways -- from photo-realistic renders to basic floor plans used for space planning.

Assuming that you don't need to be sold on using SketchUp and instead are looking for some potentially new methods to incorporate into your workflow, the following are 5 basic aspects used at Helios Works when doing interior design visualizing. This, mind you, is our workflow, and is one of many possible alternatives that may work depending on your preferences and requirements. If you feel you have a better way of handling an interior design project, let us know.

1. Starting Out :: Most of our interior design projects start out as a CAD file (easiest) or a scanned floor plan in the form of a .jpeg file (slightly more difficult). Sometimes even that much is not available, and instead we are given site pictures from which we must make an approximate floor plan (the most difficult). It's good to be familiar with the dimensions of common interior features such as doors, chairs, and tables to get a sense of scale and to double check your work as you go along.

To import a CAD file, you must go to File>Import and then navigate to the folder your CAD file is in. Then you need to scale it. This is done by making sure your imported CAD lines are in a single group, entering the group by double clicking on it, and then picking a line you are certain you know the dimensions of. Usually this is a doorway (the standard doorway is about 900mm wide).

Whether a CAD file or a .jpeg of a floor plan, resizing it inside the component using the tape measure tool is a quick and easy way to get your dimensions accurate. Here I am "exploding" the .jpeg and then preparing to regroup it using "G" and "enter" before resizing it. This also works with CAD files to make sure they are proper components before attempting to manipulate them further.

Use the tape measure tool and click from one side of the doorway to the other. In the bottom right of the workspace you will see dimensions. These are probably not going to be anywhere near 900mm. Before clicking anything else, simply type in 900 and hit enter. This will then prompt you with the following, "Do you want to resize the active group or component?" You will click "Yes."

Technical Illustration :: Stingray Tank

DesignTutorial :: Technical illustrations are both interesting and informative. There are also many different kinds. A basic and more subtle version that is very easy to do using SketchUp involves taking a Vray clay render, and combining it with an x-ray view exported from SketchUp. Meshing these together can be done a number of ways in GIMP or Photoshop, and involve changing the opacity of your layers, and perhaps even apply a gradient opacity mask to give a transition from solid to more transparent.

Below is how the tank (uploaded onto SketchUp's 3D Warehouse here) looked after it was done being modeled and had some basic materials applied.

 

Next, go to Global Switches in Vray, and choose override materials. This will give you what is called a "clay render" as seen below. 

You're next going to want to go into "Styles" in SketchUp and change to a "hidden lines" template and under "edit," click on the x-ray option under "face." This will give you a a look at the inside and backfaces of your model, mimicking a technical illustration.

SketchUp + Vray Animation :: SpaceX Dragon

DESIGN :: In order to expand your skill set as a designer of products, interiors, architecture and more, eventually you will have to tackle animation. A properly done animation can greatly enhance your ability to communicate your design.

There are many different approaches to producing animations, and the approach you take depends on the tools you have available to you. In terms of rendering, I generally use Vray, though I do have Kerkythea as a backup and for experimentation.

Over the weekend I produced several animations - one using the Proper Animation plugin together with the free, open source rendering software, Kerkythea, and 3 using standard scene transitions inside of SketchUp along with Vray. Additionally, you can just export scene transitions directly from SketchUp and splice them together in a video editing program, which are included in the test animation.

The video below is the tutorial I used, showing the proper settings that worked with my version of Sketchup (8 Pro) and Vray. The most important steps are that you check Global Switches in your Vray options window, "Batch Render," and under Output, check "Animation," as well as designate where Vray will save finished frames to. Under View>Animation>Settings, you should also enable scene transitions, set an appropriate transition time in seconds (the tutorial used 3 seconds, I used 8), and ensure that "Scene Delay" is set to zero. Other tutorials will have you change a host of options, and these may work in certain instances, but not on my computer.