This week I'm making a couple board games but before I can make them I'd like to make a couple templates. That way I will be able to use the templates over and over to create more board games in the future. The templates start out here in SketchUp. Creating 2d templates is pretty easy but unfortunately SketchUp doesn't have an excellent way to print or export only what you want. For that I typically use the Snipping Tool in Windows to grab a quick image of what I need. For plans that require higher resolution images I normally use the Export 2D Image tool in SketchUp. Then I open the image in an image editor and work from there. Here are a few of the shortcuts I frequently use:
Ctrl = adds a copy command to the move and rotate commands Q = rotate R = rectangle T = tape measure D = dimension (this is a custom keyboard shortcut I set and is not included by default) M = move Space Bar = selection command Triple Click = when triple clicking a piece of model space geometry it selects everything in model space that is connected to that item Double Click On Component = enters component edit mode G = Turns selected model space geometry into a component CUSTOM SHORTCUTS: H = Hide U = Unhide all D = Dimension
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More details on these videos as well as more content not found on YouTube can be found on my website: http://www.jayscustomcreations.com
All right, today I'm going to do some really simple two-dimensional drafting in Sketchup,
only to produce a diagram which I could take into the shop with me and create a template.
The template is going to be for a board game. So nothing crazy here. All I need is my X and Y
coordinates, which in this case is the red and green. I do not need the blue. So in this case,
let's go to camera, parallel projection, and let's go with a top-down view. I'm looking
straight down the blue axis, only to see my X and only to see my Y. Two-dimensional drafting.
I'm only going to do the pan and zoom in and out for my views. I'm not going to orbit at all.
If you see in the top left-hand corner, it does say top. So we are looking at a
100% exact top-down view. So off-rectangle, I've already determined my rectangle size,
my template size to be 28, 28, enter, 28 inches. Space bar, triple click, G for component,
enter. I do not want this size of my template to modify, so I'm just going to make it a component.
Let's find the center point. So a T for tape measure. And from one side to the center,
one side of the top to the center. And I'm making an aggravation board game. I've never
played aggravation. One of my friends wants a board game, so I figured I'd make one.
I don't know how to play it at all, but I do know how it's laid out.
So I've already looked online and figured it out. T for tape measure, let's go up three inches,
enter. Let's go down three inches, enter. Let's go left three inches, enter. Let's go right three
inches, enter. I've determined that I want to have a spacing of one and a half inches in between each
spot and a total width of six inches per leg of this board. This board game is basically going to
look like a cross. And yeah, very, very simple. So let's go ahead and draw the tick marks for the
center point for the template. This particular template is just going to have holes drilled in
it that I'll use my plunge router to plunge a marble bit into the workpiece. Basically,
leaves a little shallow dish for marbles to be used. So all I want is the little tick mark for
the center line. Let's go L for line, let's drop a vertical line that is one inches long. L for line,
let's drop a horizontal line that is not touching the first one that is one inch long. Let's grab
this line, M for move, and from the center point or the midpoint to this particular midpoint,
that gives us a intersection. Let's grab all of these, Q for rotate, and let's just make this
45 degrees. It's still selected, so let's press G for component, enter. This is a center point
for a drilling location. Let's grab it, M for move, from its midpoint, drop it off at the
midpoint here, and then the exact center of the board, there will be one of these drilled here.
Let's just work on this particular leg. M for move, control brings up copy, let's start here,
and then M for move, control brings up copy again. Let's go down the one and a half inch spacing that
I wanted, X, five, enter, that gives me a total of six on this leg, and let's grab this one,
M for move, control brings up copy, same one and a half inches, let's go this direction, 1.5,
enter, X, four, enter, I think it's four, yeah, one, two, three, four, makes five along this leg.
Let's grab this whole row right here with a window, M for move, control brings up copy,
from here to the center, we need a center line right here, and let's press X to enter to repeat
this and equal spacing over here. So this is one leg of the template, and I'm going to rotate this
all the way around, so what's here is basically going to be duplicated there, that means I don't
need that one. So I'm going to copy all of this all the way around, but I also want to, once the
board game is drilled out, I want to have a cross here, a little five piece section here for the
player pieces, I don't know how to play this game like I said, but I've seen this in the other ones,
so this particular template is going to get it as well. Let's grab all of these, M for move,
control brings up copy, let's set these over to here, and I only need this one, Q for rotate from
here, control brings up copy, 90 degrees, enter. I want this to be, what is this, 11 inches,
it's 11 inches, let's go with, I don't know, 6 inches, that way it's slightly pushed in towards
the game, so let's go T for tape measure from here, 6 inches, enter, T for tape measure from
here, 6 inches, enter, wherever that intersection is, that was awfully close, select all of these,
M for move from here to here, and I can delete this guideline and that one.
So now, I have basically one quarter of my board game template done. Let's select all of this,
Q for rotate, it's from this point right here, let's go this direction, press control to bring
up copy, type in 90 degrees, enter, X3 to multiply that times 3, enter, and that gives me
my entire board game right there. Yeah, that's it. So basically all I need is to turn this into a
printable diagram that I can take with me in the shop with dimensions. So a couple things to do
is just dimension this out, I press D for dimension, which is a custom keyboard shortcut,
you can go to window, preferences, and go to shortcuts to set custom keyboard shortcuts,
I used D for dimension, D for dimension from here to here. And most of these dimensions are
repeating itself. But just for the sake of having everything on the everything on the
diagram that is needed, I'll go ahead and put these out here. And then a long dimension.
And then a whoops, long dimension here. So now this guide, these guidelines are in the way these
guidelines in the way I'll delete them, the axis is in the way. But first, let's go to styles and
turn this to an engineering style. So we get a white background, let's go to view turn off axis.
And then let's also change our diagram here to what is it go to hidden lines. And that way it
just turns white that we're not we're not printing anything with color. This tells me 11 inches is
this particular row, I can set a I can make a line on the board three inches away is the center line
here three inches away is this line which is also 11 inches from this side. It's symmetrical. So the
same dimensions are here I do need to make notification of D for dimension from here to
here that this is six inches this way. And I'll move this down actually right there.
D for dimension from here to here and then drag this way six inches. So the center point for here
is six inches and we do have the same one and a half inch spacing all the way around.
Just so we know that let's go ahead and drop a text leader and say one and one and a half
inches on center for all of my center points. And see is that it we need anything else? I think
we've got all of our information here. I think we do. So now let's, let's make these numbers just
a little bit bigger that way they print and I can actually read them because I've got bad eyes even
though I am relatively young. Let's go to window model info and let's change the the dimensions
here is 12 point font. Let's change this to I don't know 20. See if that works. Select all of
our dimensions on the screen and then update with them update them with the bigger size. Yep, that's
pretty much J proof. I can actually read that. And let's also change the size of this. This is a
leader. I think it's under text leader text. Let's go to font. Let's change this to 20 as well. Maybe
a little bit too big because it is longer. So let's select all leader text, update selected
and is a little bit long. I guess I could leave that but I'm just going to change it. It's a
little bit too long. Let's drop it down to 18 and see if that works. Update selected. There we go,
we're on board. So this is basically all I need. I just need to turn this into some type of image
that can be printed or in my case I'm just going to send it to my cell phone and that way I'll have
it in the shop. There's a couple different ways to get this information off of the computer out
of Sketchup and either transferred to a mobile device like a smartphone or a tablet or to
actually print it off. Printing directly from Sketchup it prints the entire window size basically.
So if I was to print it's going to want to print this wasted information, this empty space,
the usable information and then the wasted information in the empty space and it's not
going to print to the the right size that you want. Printing to scale is a completely different
option. If you want to print to scale then you can't really do it specifically in Sketchup that
I've found. You may be able to with a plugin or something but I haven't found a way and don't
really care about it so I haven't really looked into it. But basically go to file export 2d graphic
and you'll want to export a fairly good quality 2d graphic that you can open up in a different
program such as big print. That'll work. But if you want to print right from here you'll have to
resize your window so that you are zoomed in as much as you want and then you reduce the amount
of wasted space around it so you're not really going to print a bunch of empty space basically
and then print from there. I never ever ever do that. I basically just export an image and then
use that. So if I want a good quality image for like making plans or something like that I'll go
to file export 2d graphic and then go from there. But if I just need something quick and dirty
that I can send over to my phone I use the snipping tool in Windows. There's an alternative
for Mac of course. I don't know what the program is but basically you're just going to grab part
of the screen. So if you're on a Windows computer press the Windows button type in snip and press
enter. Basically it'll bring up the snipping tool and press new and this will allow you to grab a
rectangle of what part of the screen you want to turn into an actual jpeg image. So I want to save
this particular spot. So this is the image that it just made with that boundary box and I can press
save and then save this as my template image. Now I have an actual image that I can just email to my
phone or email to myself and then use it on my phone in the shop. Or if I actually wanted to
print this I typically open it up in a, I'm going to open up this image real quick, open up in an
image editor. In this case I'm using Photoshop. It's, if you don't want to pay for Photoshop you can
use GIMP. It's basically the same exact thing just different commands. So I'm going to show you how
it works here in Photoshop. Let's first make this a layer and then press ctrl alt c for canvas and
let's change the canvas size to inches. My width is 8.5 inches, tab tab, 11 inches, enter for the
height. That's the size of sheet of paper and as you can see it's bigger than the sheet of paper.
So let's zoom out a little bit and press ctrl t for transform, hold shift and alt and scale this
down a little bit. So that's basically what I'm going to do if I'm going to print off of a piece
of paper. Like I said I don't typically do this. I normally just take this particular image and
send it to myself. So anyway, hope that helps. There's not really a super super awesome way to
print right from Sketchup unfortunately. But yeah, that's it. Hope this helps. You
guys have a great day and thanks for watching.
