white rabbit design company
The tireless work of Steve Hardie
  • Home
  • Film & TV
    • Mulan
    • Pure Genius
    • Film Listing
    • Lord of Illusions
    • Standard Operating Procedure - page1 >
      • Standard Operating Procedure II
    • Nightbreed
    • My Own Worst Enemy - main sets >
      • My Own Worst Enemy - Other episodes
    • The Fog of War
    • Detroit Rock City
    • Denial AKA "Something about Sex"
    • The Brylcreem Boys
    • Tabloid
    • An Ungentlemanly Act
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Waxwork II
  • Commercials
  • Photography
  • Architecture
  • Sketchup
    • Layout
  • Graphics
  • Web Design
  • Interrotron
  • Digital Portfolio
  • Motion Graphics
  • Illustrations
    • Products
    • Film & TV Sets
    • Miscellaneous
    • Architecture
  • Misc.
    • Return of the Jedi Delivery pouches
    • Medinah Project
    • Ames Room
    • Flash Animations
    • White Cyc.
    • Antics
    • pre-viz
    • Awards Designs
    • In development - No Access
  • Contact
  • Print
  • Animatics

Sketchup

So much of my work is done with Sketchup in one way or another these days that I thought a dedicated page was appropriate.  I wish this tool had been around many years ago.  The beauty of the program is its simplicity and intuitive operation which belies it's power as a very comprehensive modelling tool.  It's companion program: Layout also has become a great aid in presentations that incorporate Sketchup models and other content. If one adds to the mix a decent rendering program it always amazes me what fantastic results emerge. Again, as I mention in my opening comments in the film and commercials pages, we are not usually making the illustrations public because it is the film one ultimately sees but Sketchup allows us to produce totally accurate scaled spaces that can be previewed in 3D, 2D, as animations, scaled drawings and rendered with lighting to give almost photoreal views of the designed spaces before anything is built.
Picture
This is a random image I used to represent a space. (A photograph of an apartment)
This is the sketchup model I built to match closely the elements of the scene and lighting to match the overall feel. 
This is the Sketchup model (from left) rendered with v-ray to show how it is possible to achieve convincing images of proposed spaces

Here are a couple more reverse engineered examples of Sketchup's ability to model render real world spaces. Again I have used random photos from the internet and reproduced them as Sketchup models and rendered them with Thea to demonstrate how real environments can be reproduced fairly easily.
Picture
random photo of a room
Picture
random still life photo
Picture
Sketchup reproduction
Picture
Sketchup reproduction.

Picture
Sketchup model (not rendered)
Picture
Sketchup model from above rendered in Thea.
Picture
Sketchup model rendered in Thea Renderer for previz of book prop for TV commercial. Purpose to emphasize size of document. Book was made and was very heavy, it also contained the full text of the Affordable Care Act!
Picture
This was done in preparation for a Target commercial. I modeled the basket in Sketchup and rendered them in Thea. We never actually did the commercial but I was happy with the results of this model anyway.
Picture
Sketchup model of wedding ring, (half gold half silver) rendered with Thea. Addition of shallow depth of field and a scratch texture to make it more realistic. Reflection map as a separate channel.
Picture

Sketchup Animatics

circular track as alternative to spinning the room
use of physics to show motion down slide
Sketchup raw version
rendered version
Previz of oversized dominos falling on map for the movie "The Fog of War"

Picture

Picture

Picture
Picture
Used another designer's mesh and adapted to 2 possible use renders.

Picture

Using Skatter in Sketchup to get dimensional texture 
Picture
Picture

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

Before and After

Side by sides of model & renders and final set build on right.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

see more in the illustrations page
Copyright © Steve Hardie 2022