SKETCHUP STARTER HELP..?

I'm on my third attempt just to model the exisiting walls and space to get a base start for this. I'm working from interior measurements and have been through three different approaches from three different youtube tutorials and three resultant messes. Is there an approach to recommend that will walk me into this with some element of success? I don;t THINK I'm over-thinking this but it seems it should be simple. I either ended up with bizarre multi-segment walls with whacky diagonal lines and bad holes for door spaces, or walls that ended up shrinking the measured interior distances, or just non-alligned boxes for rooms with unpredictable wall-widths throughout. Much thanks in advance for help on this . I feel like something I'm doing is just backwards in approach.

John, are you asking for help with Sketchup? If so, post the skp file so we can see where u are having problems. I have a lot of experience with Sketchup and would be glad to help if I can. Don't get discouraged, sketchup is by far the most user friendly, cost effective, 3d design program out there in my opinion. -cliff

[quote="CliffParker3"]John, are you asking for help with Sketchup? If so, post the skp file thanks. here's one workign version of what I have so far. It's just a preliminary attempt to model the space. It became unworkable due to the weird nature of the walls which are apparently built wrong and don;t respond sensibly to attempts to reshape them. This led me to try other ways to model the first floor but Rather than continue, I figured I'd step back and see what others have used as a method that led to real ability to plan this. I aint giving up, but i -am- stymied at how to get this going right! I figured to show you this version as it has my attempt at modeling the space, alongside additions of other designs from this forum to compare sizes and such. I apologise that it's not well-marked, and I can follow any suggestions or requests to clarify anything here. THanks for the patience.

the first one i posted up there was teh rough idea of modifications to the space as it is. here's the first attempt at modeling with the walls for the space as it is now. tried to post this .skp file but it kicked back as too large (over 500kb) am I missing something?

upload it to a 3rd party site like dropbox.com for example. then include the link in your post here.

in lieu of teh .skp files... heres a jpg of teh before/after proposed ideas for space use.

Hi John, I'm not seeing any jpegs on your post -- make sure you add them to the post -- it's a second step after you upload it. Also just to be clear -- I am only able to give you advice on using sketchup. I don't have enough experience to comment on studio design. There are lots of posts that will help you get a better grasp on things if you do some digging. Since I can't see your skp file, here are some general tips for Sketchup that will help keep things organized. 1. Don't try to place your entire design on 1 Layer. For instance, I might create a Layer for existing walls, and another layer for existing roof, and another for existing floor. Just be logical about it. (If the layer window is not visible, go to the "Window" tab and select "Layers" it will open). There will be times while designing your space that you'll want to make elements of your design invisible, and if things are organized logically by layers it will be easy to do so -- I have found that clicking the visibility of the layer (check mark to the right of the layer name) is the easiest way to do this. Another point on layers -- when you are making a new element in your design, make sure the button for the layer you intend to place it is selected. It's easy to miss this because you can click on a layer name in the layer window and name becomes highlighted -- but this is not selecting the layer you want to draw on. You must hit the button to the left of the layer name to create elements on that layer. 2. You must make each element you create in sketchup a "component". Without seeing your file, my guess is that this is likely the reason why you are having problems. So make a box, select all parts of the box - right click and choose "make component." give it a name and yer done. Now it won't interfere, or be combined with other elements of your design. To change that component -- double click on it and you are inside the component -- make yer changes. When yer done click anywhere outside the component boundary and you'll close it. I normally make every element of a design into a component. This is also very useful when you need to make a bunch of elements that are the same -- 2x4 studs for example. So create 1 stud, select all of it, and turn it into a component. Then select it with one click (outline will be blue) and simply copy and paste as many as you need. If later on you need to change the height of the studs, you only need to double click on one of them, adjust the height, and they all change. Furthermore, if you've made a bunch of studs in this manner, and you need to change the dimensions of just one of them - right click on it and choose "make unique." This is now a unique component -- whatever changes you make to this one will not effect the others. 3. When attempting to create something to a specific measurement -- get it close when dragging with mouse, then, release mouse, and before you click anything else, click inside the measurement box on the bottom right, type the exact measurement, and hit enter -- the shape will then have the desired measurements. I do this because Sketchup can be finicky with measurements when dragging a shape into place. Much easier IMO to just type it in. 4.Use the tape measure tool to create guides when you are drawing a new element. It's so much easier to draw an accurate shape or line with guides in place. Also, most of the time I like to place all my guides on their own layer, that way I can make them visible /invisible with one click. 5. Make a backup. Sketchup does like to crash. Hope this helps. -cp

Excellent advice, Cliff! All very good points to using SketchUp. Thanks for posting that! - Stuart -

Sure thing Stuart! Glad to help where I can. -cp

Cliff, Sketchup advice is exactly what I hoped for... thanks. Your help there made a few things fall into place in my head with how this all works... just what I need. I guess I'll be purposely broad, in hopes my question implies more about my ignorance and so you might see an underlying gap i how I look a this stuff. My concern is that, if I'm heading towards some real construction guides here, I need to at least get the initial modeling of the existing rooms and walls pretty right as a starting point ... yes? It's a finished space, basic US townhouse construction drywall all over studs and unknown stuff inside. Do you just estimate the existing wall thicknesses and such from 'usual practice' standards and run with that? I'm really at the first step and trying to get my model's walls and rooms to match the actual measured dimensions both within each room and comprehensively. At this point I'm assuming some wall and cieling coverings will be removed for construction, HVAC and electrical and cable additions, while some will not be removed and merely have added layers of drywall put up. I've been going through the Gervais book for a long while and reading other stories of construction here even longer. It's really startig to crowd into my head how tough it is not to mess this up!

Also... I'm still missing something as to getting a jpg up here. it SEEMS to go... upload progress bar does its thing... but It doesn;t seem to actually happen...?

GOT IT missed teh red warning banner it's too big by a few pixels.. I'll fix

THis should work.

Do you just estimate the existing wall thicknesses and such from 'usual practice' standards and run with that?

That's not so much of a SketchUp question, as an actual studio design question. Yes, initially you can estimate wall thickness, but at some point you'll have to bite the bullet and find out for sure, by actually opening up a wall, seeing what's inside, and measuring it. You'll need to know not just the thickness but also the construction materials, in order to calculate the isolation levels, and resonant frequency, so that you can figure out what else you need to do to your new construction to get the results that you want.

I'm really at the first step and trying to get my model's walls and rooms to match the actual measured dimensions both within each room and comprehensively.

That's often a problem for an entirely different reason: most buildings are not truly square and plumb! Just because a room is 10' wide at one end does not mean it is also 10' wide at the other end: it might well be out by an inch or two, due to poor workmanship, materials, or simple construction work-arounds. So measure carefully in several places, to be sure.

At this point I'm assuming some wall and cieling coverings will be removed for construction, HVAC and electrical and cable additions, while some will not be removed and merely have added layers of drywall put up.

Wellllll...... yes and no.... It ain't that easy, unfortunately! Here's the thing: I'm assuming you are planning to get decent levels of isolation for your studio, such as not to annoy neighbors, have the cops shut you down, etc. on the one end, and also to block out external sounds, such as traffic, sirens, aircraft, other people in the building, TV, radio, cell phones ringing, doors opening/closing, vacuum cleaners, dogs barking, toilets flushing, water running, etc. So if isolation is on the cards, you need to properly plan for that, to get the amount of isolation that you need (in real decibels, not fake STC numbers), and also to get it at the frequency where you need it. You didn't mention what your goals are here, so it would be good if you could do that, but for typical studios you would be shooting for a good level of isolation down to low frequencies. In order to do that, you need to design and build an isolation "system". Part of that will be the existing walls, and part will be the new walls that you have to build. The problem is that for maximum performance at minimum cost, the isolation system needs to consist of two "leaves". Not one, not three, not four, nor any other number. Only two leaves Not two "walls"! Two "leaves". A "leaf" is any hard, solid, massive surface boundary, such as ONE side of a typical house wall (ie, the single layer of drywall on one side of the studs. The terminology can be confusing, but walls are not leaves. A typical house wall already consists of two leaves: the drywall on one side of the studs, and the drywall on the other side of the studs. But that's no use for a studio! That's a terrible setup. Simply because the "leaves" are firmly tied together by the studs. So any sound on one side of the wall is picked up by the drywall, transferred through the stud to the drywall on the other side, and sent out into the adjoining room. For a studio, the key point is that the two "leaves" that make up the wall must be "decoupled". No mechanical links. No studs that join them together. Just air (and some type of damping, but I'll get back to that later). Here's the dilema: Your existing walls are already 2-leaf, but fully coupled, and therefore are no use. So you have to decouple. You already know that you need to build another wall very close to the existing one to create your "room within a room", but if you built that new wall the same way as the existing wall (studs with drywall on both sides), then you'd have a four-leaf wall! That would be very good for high frequencies, but very lousy for low frequencies, such as drums, bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, growling electric guitars, etc. As I said above, you need to aim for a 2-leaf wall, never a 4-leaf. So you think: "Well, I'll just put drywall on one side of my new studs, instead of both sides". And you would be wrong! That would still give you a 3-leaf wall, not 2-leaf, which is what you need. 3-leaf is still lousy in the low end. Or it can be made good in the low end, but at extra cost, extra weight, and taking up more space, which are three things that most studio builders try to avoid. Yep, you are coming to the right conclusion: the ONLY way you can end up with a 2-leaf wall, is to take off one leaf from the existing wall. And that is, indeed, the correct solution. You will need to do that. The drywall on the current walls, that faces the area where your studio is going to be, must come off, and stay off. So you were tight in your guess that " some wall and cieling coverings will be removed for construction,", but wrong in your assumption that "some will not be removed and merely have added layers of drywall put up". It will ALL be removed, and none of it will go back. Of course, I'm only talking about the side of the existing walls that faces the studio: the other side of those walls will remain the untouched. Probably. Or rather, it will remain untouched as seen from the rooms that it faces, but from the point of view of inside the wall cavity, it might well need changing. Very often you will find that you you need more mass on that "leaf", and one easy way to add mass is to do it inside the wall, between the studs. Cut strips of drywall to fit between the studs, press them up against the existing drywall, caulk around the edges, then use a few small cleats nailed sideways into the studs, to hold that in place. This is often referred to as "beefing up the wall". The other issue is when that existing wall has light switches, electrical outlets, or other huge holes in it: those totally destroy isolation, so either you have to remove them and cover up the holes, or you have to build heavy "boxes" around them, inside the wall, using wood and/or "putty pads" and/or caulk. So doing all that will get you your "outer leaf" in shape. Then you can build the "inner-leaf" for your studio, by framing up studs and joists for the walls and ceiling just a short gap away from the outer-leaf, and putting drywall on only ONE side of those new studs/joists.

It's really startig to crowd into my head how tough it is not to mess this up!

Congratulations! You have passed the first exam, and you are now qualified to be a somewhat confused home studio builder! From here on, it gets more and more confusing, and harder and harder to "not mess it up"! :) (After the next exam, I'll teach you the secret handshake and special code word....) :) Seriously, at the point where you are now it does all look very complicated, very confusing, even overwhelming, but hang in there, and you'll get to the point where it makes some sense. Also, I'd suggest that it might be time to start your own thread about your build, and keep all your questions together in that one place, so you can find all the answers with one easy reference. If you ask questions in several threads, you'll quickly lose track of what you asked where, and what the answer was. Keep it all in one place.

rough initial modeling of current (open) floor plan and then added walls for control room (1'2 of garage area and music room areas

It's hard to see which is which! It would help if you could label the rooms, and also label which walls are the current existing ones that cannot be moved, plus which are the new walls that you plan to build. - Stuart -

Stuart, thanks for the points! I had not gotten into actual wall and such design here as it was a thread on "Sketchup", but quickly: Living with the Gervais book for a while and I'm Absolutely on the 2-leaf thing. looking at using double-wall (adjoining neighbors) , wall-with-added drywall-plus- iso channels depending on where the wall is. Figured once I got a sketchup version roughed and going, THEN I'd put my first version up and let the critiques fly on actual design and build. HVAC is a big mystery and, again, I know we will get at that once I get over this basic hump of wrangling a working basis into SKETCHUP. 'most buildings are not truly square and plumb!' yep. I guess my first job is to go ahead and model a 'perfect' version of the thing just to see how it's gong to work... and not worry about reality-down-to-the 1/8"? thats not a waste of time? As to the picture, again apolgies for the mess these are. THey are fledgling and only here to show what help i need in my basic sketchup chops. It's why I tossed up a flare for help to get things started better. THe two versions pictured are looking at the ground floor from the rear of the dwelling... the more open plan (on the right) is what is here. More confusing because the rear patio door (and far end Garage door) only shows up on the LEFT image, which also has the added walls that will divide off the spaces. I was all over the place screwing up walls and trying to make openings for doors and getting frustrated. THis will get real on the next pass when I can get a proper simple start on it all. enclosed here is a roughly labeled version just for now.

OK, then... I THINK I have a fair first -basic- modeling of the rooms, walls only... as well as a similarly fledgling intended-added-walls as to how the space divides up. As this is a topic about my SKETCHUP skills, that's the immediate question, am i on the right track. When I have things in hand and move forward, I figure this conversation will graduate to the STUDIO DESIGN area. With that in mind, still I won;t ignore any early comments on studio design elements here... but don;t think it's what I oughta spend time on till I get good-enough with Sketchup. someTHings I don;t know at this point are -how to LABEL things in Sketchup with text so folks know what's what. -how to do openings for doors and windows -probably much more as will be made clear as I bump my head is it best to just send the SKETCHUP files and NOT show jpg's of the resultant floor plan and perspective wall views?

-how to LABEL things in Sketchup with text so folks know what's what.

There's two ways of doing that. One is to attach a text label to some of the components, such as the floor, walls, etc. Select the component, go to the "tools" menu, click "text", and the rest is self-explanatory. The other way (the one I prefer) is to use "layers". SketchUp allows you to assign components to layers using the "layers" window, and you can give the layers meaningful names, such as "Control room north wall" or "Live room floor", etc. You can even group several components together and assign that to another layer. So in addition to six layers that are the four walls, floor and ceiling of the control room, you can group those components together into another component, and assign that to a layer called "Control Room". So now you can control the visibility of the entire control by clicking that layer on or off, or you can control the visibility of the individual parts by clicking those on or off. There's no limit to how complex the hierarchy can be: for a full studio design, I often end up with 400 - 500 layers, or more, and I can control them in fine detail. So for example, in addition to the above, I can also click on/off the drywall, framing and insulation for each wall, or for all walls at the same time, or I could click on/off just the 2x4 studs, or just the 2x6 joists, or just the 2x8 headers, or all of the framing, etc. You can then save your different "selections" of which layers are turned on or off as "scenes", using the "scenes" window, so you can get back to a particular way of viewing your model by just clicking on that scene. You can also associate a scene with a viewpoint in space (camera location), so by jumping from scene to scene, you appear to be flying though your model. That's how you set up animated "walk-throughs", which you can play with "View --> Animation --> Play". There are several good tutorials on YouTube about how to use SketchUp.

-how to do openings for doors and windows

Here's one way of doing that (there are several): 1. Make sure the wall is a component. 2. Double-click on the face where you want to create the hole for the window. It should now be highlighted all by itself, with little blue dots all over it, but nothing else should be highlighted. 3. Use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle on that face, roughly where you want the window hole to be. 4. Use the "push/pull" tool, click inside that rectangle that you just drew, hold down the mouse button, and "push" that rectangle into the wall until it reaches the other side. You should see a pop-up notification that says "on face". Release the mouse button. Done! 5. Now you can use the same push/pull tool to adjust the sides, top and bottom of the window hole, as needed.

is it best to just send the SKETCHUP files and NOT show jpg's of the resultant floor plan and perspective wall views?

It's better to show the jpg's! At some point the SketchUp file will be too large to upload to the forum, but your jpg's will always fit. - Stuart -

THanks ... just tried to get jpegs up and ended up inadvertantly closing the reply window, lost the whole thing. Here's 2 jpegs of what I have... they were printed, sketched on and annotated for my own use (mostly for what still needs to be modeled!), and so a bit cluttered, but the best I have done so far getting a handle on things.

I keep going over old and new designs here (as I have for years) and folks' drawings, even first-timers and such and look at my fledgling efforts here... as long as you don;t kick me out for initial low standards, I'll keep getting better at it! How do you attack something as basic as wall framing... a stud at a time? The reference to 'inside-out walls' was yet another revelation.

How do you attack something as basic as wall framing... a stud at a time?

It's much easier than that! :) Make one stud. Make it into a component (not a group!). Left-click on the "Move" icon. Left-click on the stud to select it. Hit the "Ctrl" key on your keyboard. A small "+" sign appears next to the move icon, which means that it is going to move and copy at the same time. Drag the stud in the direction you want to make copies, and you'll see that there are now two studs: the original stayed where it was, and you are moving the second one. Click again, and the copy will stay at the spot where you had it at the moment you clicked. Now here's the magic: assuming you want standard sixteen inch framing, before you do anything else, type ' 16" ' and hit enter. The new stud will now be exactly 16" spaced from the original one. More magic: let's say you wanted seventeen of those studs, spaced the same, to form a wall. Before you do anything else, type ' *17 ' and press enter. Magic! You now have 17 copies of your stud, all spaced 16" from each other. Now for the best part: Let's say you made your studs 8' long, but you now realized that they need to be 8'6". You only have to change ONE of them, and all the others will change too! It's powerful software, once you get used to it. Look for the tutorials on YouTube. There are many of them. - Stuart -

While re-doing my design model, I seem to have a layer that is now assigned to two layers. I did a roof system layout. In the process of adding a window to the gable end, which I wanted to be on the layer with the other doors and windows, the roof system somehow got associated with it. Is there a way to edit the layers? I tried sending the windows back to Layer 0 and then re assigning. But that took the roof system with it. The roof system has it's own layer, so it's associated with two layers. Very frustrating. Any tips for cleaning up layer assignments? Thank you. W

I seem to have a layer that is now assigned to two layers

Nope! What you have is a component that is assigned to two layers! :) You cannot assign layers to other layers, but you CAN assign components to other components, and you can also assign any component to as many layers as you like. This is a powerful feature of SketchUp! It's an excellent way of controlling visibility, navigating your model, and working on only some parts of it. So you could, for example, assign all your framing to a layer called "Framing", then also assign just the 2x4 framing to a layer called "Framing: 2x4", then put the the 2x6's on yet another layer called "Framing: 2x6", etc. You could then also assign all of the framing for the control room to yet another layer, called "CR: Framing", and split that up further by two more layers, called "CR: Ceiling framing" and "CR: Wall framing". That gives you excellent control of being able to see, or not see, various parts of the model as you are working on it. That's exactly the way I do it, when I'm designing studios. It keeps things neatly organized, and makes visualization a snap. So what you did is not a bad thing: it's a GOOD thing! :) If you want to "undo" a layer and put it on a different layer, all you need to do is to select it and use the "Entity Info" window to assign it to another layer. If you don't want it assigned to any layer, then assign it to "Layer 0", which is where all unassigned geometry, groups and components go by default, in SketchUp. If you can't see to select the component you want, then you have probably grouped it with other components in a sub-hierarchy. For example, you might have all of the components in your entire control room on a layer called "Control Room", but within that you might have sub-layers called "CR: Walls", "CR: Ceiling", "CR: Furniture", "CR: Soffits", etc. So if you click on any part of the control room, the entire thing is highlighted in blue, instead of just the component you wanted. To go "down" one level into the hierarchy, double-click on the component you want (or right-click ---> "Edit Component"), which will open up and highlight just the component you want, or if you have a hierarchy that is several levels deep (I often do that), then it will highlight that group of components. Keep on double-clicking until you get just the component you want. Each time you double-click, the name of that layer will be shown in the "Entity Window", along with the number of copies of that component in the entire model, and other useful information. I'm surprised that you are asking this, though: It's one of the basic things that are shown in MANY of the tutorials, both on the SketchUp website itself, and also on the numerous YouTube tutorials that I mentioned. Using "components", "layers", and "scenes" in SketchUp is the key to controlling your model and making it simple to navigate and modify. - Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote:

I'm surprised that you are asking this, though: It's one of the basic things that are shown in MANY of the tutorials, both on the SketchUp website itself, and also on the numerous YouTube tutorials that I mentioned. Using "components", "layers", and "scenes" in SketchUp is the key to controlling your model and making it simple to navigate and modify. - Stuart -

Thanks Stuart, I didn't realize that that was what I did. :oops: I was so worried about keeping my stuff straight that I inadvertently used a feature! Don't :wink: know what I was thinking...I guess. W

Back with some progress. I have finally gotten a set of wallas with measurements that make consistent sense throughout the whole basement level. this was a confusion for awhile, but after re-starting the SKETCHUP model 4 times I have a floor plan, both of the existing walls and the proposed added walls, that works. Problem is that I am having issues cleaning up the 'extra' lines so that all the walls are one single element push/pull. IN addition the big outter walls of the entire townhouse are somehow disconnected from th einterior walls, I can;t seem to grab and pull them from floorplan lines into extruded walls. I CAn do this with teh interior walls (althought they are not all one entity...) I have an initial idea what I need for added AC power (and where to put a sub-panel) While teh garage area is THE quietest place in the house, I have made a few rough SPL measurements so I know what I want to accomplish as regards the music room which will be a new-added-wall away from the HVAC fan and burners. . At this point I feel stuck not with the concept , which seems to make sense, but with the logistics of how to decide how to do any one wall treatment/rebuild considering the work cost and time. I need to get through the ignorance (beyond reading Gervais and other folks' stories here) of how to get the needed HVAC changes done so that the music and control/edit rooms can maintain what THEY need despite what the rest of the house is doing with Regular People. THis seems a slow start here getting my head around this as a PROJECT and planning the attack and execution. thanks for your patience .

Problem is that I am having issues cleaning up the 'extra' lines so that all the walls are one single element push/pull. IN addition the big outter walls of the entire townhouse are somehow disconnected from th einterior walls, I can;t seem to grab and pull them from floorplan lines into extruded walls. I CAn do this with teh interior walls (althought they are not all one entity...)

The process is very simple: Do not ever allow any geometry to be separate from a component! Every single time you create a new "wall", immediately make sure that all six faces of that wall are grouped together into a component. Even better is to make them into components even before that: As soon as you draw the rectangle that will become the wall, already at that stage make it into a component, THEN extrude it up to be a wall. If you leave loose geometry laying around, sooner or later it will get attached to something unexpectedly, and then it wont do what you expect any more. You do not want to unite all the walls so that they "are one single element"! Leave each wall as a component all by itself. If you want to make the entire house taller, then select each wall in turn and extrude it to the new height. Some people do join walls together, but I don't recommend it. It just complicates things later. There are many tutorials on YouTube that show you how to do these very basic operations in SketchUp. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... +beginners - Stuart -