John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

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. I was so worried about keeping my stuff straight that I inadvertently used a feature! Don't 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 -