> Sketchup Components for Recording Studio Design

I am just starting to learn Sketchup and though I would start by some rough layouts to determine approximate floor space for my next home studio. I looked around the internet a bit and did not find a source for components of things like Drum kits, amps, keyboards, speakers, mic stands, gobos, computers etc. . . I also did not see anything specific in a couple of different searches of this forum. . . It sure would be great to have a place to exchange components/models specific to our purposes. It probably already exists and I am just missing something. Any suggestions on where to look? Thanks!

I spent some more time looking and found some useful components, by downloading and opening models, then saving internal components to the Sketchup Components folder (created a sub-folder named Studio. . . There are also some detailed models of computers and LCD monitors. . .however many of these models are too detailed and I think my computer will end up running into performance problems. Most of my time so far was spent at: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse Good night!

for a start - create a good and accurate 2D floor plan make it a group. save it as your base template. create new version from the template. label each new version so its easy to keep track. its not unusual to have 100 versions when you're doing it yourself... then add simple boxes or simple shapes based on equipment dimensions. (use lots of groups or component-tize objects). save components of your boxes to your disk so you can re-use them in new versions of the design. this allows you to rapidly build new version as you get ideas and to place things without a lot of overhead and upload the sketchup to here (if desired) without having a large file size. keep materials to a minimum. use tools -> stats -> purge unused often to keep things neat. 8)

On this note: I was wondering if anybody has a link to some great tutorials or something. I've looked over a lot of the basic tutorials on the Sketchup site, and they've enabled me to do some basic sketcing, but not really what I need to make a detailed plan of what I'll be doing. And I'm certainly not going to be wasting people's time in here on software problems, when there are so many good projects to be made great here. I really want to learn how to use this software to its full potential, but I'm kind of stuck right now.

gullfo - Thanks for the advice. I am going to pick up the Sketchup for dummies book, I think it has videos with it as well, and hopefully I will not feel like a dummy for long. Sketchup looks like a great mock up tool, and much more for people that really know what they are doing. I just need to get to the point where I feel productive with it. . . Your advice on versions to be able to start back at intermediate points with minimal effort makes a lot of sense. I am touring this weekend and should have some hotel room time. . . hopefully I can make some progress.

YouTube has a bunch of videos by folks w/ varying degrees of complexity - basic drawing through photo mapping and terrain maps. i've been at CAD now for around 25 years so Sketchup is actually a nice break from the more linear stuff like autodesk or floor plan type programs.

YouTube has a bunch of videos by folks w/ varying degrees of complexity

I saw a bunch of the videos on YouTube were bootlegged from the Sketchup for Dummies book/CD. I also found a bunch of vids on Sketchup.com, although the streaming versions work, the downloadable .mov versions freeze my computer. I am generally traveling and when I have time to play around with stuff like this, and I often don't have access to the internet in that case, so a DVD or CD would be great, plus I like to support people that write so I will pickup a book. What is the best reference info for Sketchup, or does it become a non-issue once I have had a bit of time with it?

These were made for sketchup 5 - but still THE place to start http://sketchup.google.com/gsu5vtvideos.html

I didn't know there was a book, but I'll definately look into that, as well as the other info. Thank you all for the info. And thank you, Howard, for your attitude. Being a writer myself, I really appreciate that sort of attitude towards writers (I sort of have to, since I don't want to die of starvation/lack of studio). Cheers, guys.

Jan Holm wrote:

These were made for sketchup 5 - but still THE place to start http://sketchup.google.com/gsu5vtvideos.html

The downloadable videos do not work on my PC. QuickTime just hangs up. . . I have quick time 7.3.1 installed.