How to Use FREE Manufacturer Architectural Models in Blender! (Doors, Windows, Etc)

What's up guys, Justin here with TheCGEssentials.com back with another architectural modeling tutorial for you. So in today's video, I wanted to talk about how we can download some windows and bring them into our Blender models without having to manually model everything out. So let's go ahead and just jump into it. All right, so the thing about windows is a lot of manufacturers make 3D models of their windows available for download so that designers can actually use them in their models. And so the first thing I wanted to talk about is the format that those are usually in. So I'm starting off with Pella window and doors website just because Pella has 3D models of their windows available. A lot of the time if you just go to a manufacturer's website and you look around, they have those models sitting around somewhere. So in this case, for example, let's go ahead and jump into their windows and maybe do like the double hung for right now. So if you pick a double hung product, so in this case, I'm going to pick the Pella Architect series and then you scroll down, there's usually some kind of resources on the manufacturer's page for designers. So sometimes that's going to be things like 2D elevations and cross sections that you can download as either like a DXF or DWG file. But a lot of the time you can find these 3D and BIM models. And a lot of the time designers make their models available in either a Revit format or a SketchUp format. So sometimes they're in as like DWG, occasionally you'll see them as something like a Collada file or something like that. But most of the time you're going to see something kind of like this. So let's say for example, and what we're going to do is we're going to focus mostly on the SketchUp files because there's actually a way that these two programs kind of talk to each other where with Revit, it gets a little bit trickier. So what we're going to do is we're going to start by just downloading a SketchUp file of a window. So in this case, for example, you can just click on the button for SketchUp. And what that's going to do is that's going to download a zip file, which we can look at. And so what we want to do in this situation is we want to extract that, right? So I'm just going to right click on it, extract it so that it's not in a zip file anymore. And you can see how there's a number of different SketchUp models that are in here. Well, what we want to do is we want to import this in to Blender. Well, there's an importer that's available that allows you to import SketchUp files into Blender. And so there is an importer for SketchUp that you can download and use in order to bring those SketchUp files in. So I will link to both the Blender artist posts as well as the link to that importer. It did just get updated for Blender 2.93. So basically what you do is you just download this. It's just an add-on. So it comes down as a zip file and then you jump into Blender. So in Blender, what you do is you do an edit preferences and you just install that zip file from the link that I'll have in the notes down below. And you want to make sure that you've enabled the import export SketchUp importer. So what that does is that allows you to import those SketchUp models. So in this case, what we want to do now that we have that enabled, so we just want to go to file, import, and it's going to add the option for import SketchUp scene. Well then you can go find the SketchUp file that you want to bring in and you can double click in order to bring it in. So let's, for example, bring in the, let's go with the double hung equal sash. So I'm just going to click the button for import SketchUp file. Well notice what that did is that brought in this detailed model of this window into Blender. And so because we have this detailed model that's in Blender, we don't have to model this out ourselves. So a couple quick things about this. So first off, what you can do when you bring all these in, because notice how they get brought in as separate parts and pieces, right? And so it's really hard to select because you might drag a box across this and pick up all the stuff in the background. And so what I want to do is I want to pick up all these parts and pieces. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to come in here and I'm just going to tap the H key to hide, to hide my background model. And so what I want to do is I just want to select this window and do a control J. What that's going to do is that's going to allow me to join all of these into a single object. So now I can move that around just like this. Notice how now all those little parts and pieces have been put together into a single object and you can just move it around really easily. So I'm going to turn my walls back on. And then the only thing we have to do is we have to make this so that it cuts an opening in our exterior walls, right? So if we place this right now and I'm just going to do a shift tab and I'm going to turn on vertex snapping so that I can kind of align this with an object. But notice how right now there's no opening in my wall where my window is, right? Well, what we want to do is we just want to import or we want to create a Boolean that aligns with this window. So all we have to do to do that is I'm going to do a shift right click in order to put my 3D cursor right here and I'm just going to do a shift A and I'm just going to add a cube. And so I'm just going to scale this cube down and all I'm going to do is I'm just going to align the parts and pieces of this cube with my window. So I'm just going to tap in edit mode and I'm just going to tap the G key and move this around. And so what I'm doing is I'm using the snapping along with inference locking to the different axes in order to set my box size up. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to tap G and X and notice how this is going to let me snap to these ends. Then I'll do a G, Z. I'm just going to snap this to the top right here and all I'm doing is I'm making this box the size of my window. So that's all you really need to do because then we're going to turn that box into a boolean that's going to cut an opening. Alright so now what I want to do is I want to use that box that I created in order to cut a hole in the wall. So first off I'm going to clean this up a little bit. Somehow my wall geometry got dragged into my SketchUp mesh objects folder so I'm just going to drag this into my original collection right here. But then when I move this around what I want to do is I want to right click and I want to select all the objects in the collection. So we're going to move this over so that it aligns with the wall. Alright so we do have a problem with this. Notice I moved my window over aligned with the wall right here. The problem we have is we don't currently have an opening because we haven't set up our cube to actually cut a hole in the wall. So in order to do that what we want to do is we want to click on our wall and we want to add a boolean modifier. So when we add a boolean modifier what that's going to do is that's going to allow us to intersect our wall with this cube that we created. So we're basically using the cube as a hole cutter. And so what we want to do is we want to click on the little eyedropper right here. Then we want to click on the cube. And so notice how it didn't really do anything. And so the reason for that is not because the boolean modifier isn't working. It's because our cube is still being displayed in here as actual geometry. So what it's doing is it's blocking the hole that's being cut by showing up in our scene. So what we want to do there is we just want to select our cube object, jump over into our object properties, and we want to set our viewport display for this cube to be wire. So when we set this to be wire what that means is that means that we're going to see just the bounding of the object but we're not going to see all the faces so it's not going to block this hole. The other thing we need to do is we need to scale this along the x-axis just a little bit more so we can be sure it's cutting through our wall. So the nice thing about the cutter here is we do want to make sure that it's aligned with our window but it doesn't really matter if it overlaps our wall a little bit because literally it's just there to cut a hole. And so what that's done is that's allowed us to bring this window in here. Let's say we wanted to duplicate this. So we had multiple different copies of this window. So all you would do is you would just go up to this object. I'm going to go ahead and call this something else. I'm going to call it window one. But if you wanted another window you could just right click in here and do a duplicate collection. Notice how that gives you a second copy of this window. Well then you can come right click on this and you can select all the objects and you can move them along your wall. Now notice how right now though the only thing you're going to have to do is you are going to have to add an additional Boolean modifier in order to do this. Or the other thing you could do theoretically is you could put all of your cut geometry into a single collection and set this to be a collection Boolean but I don't think we really want to do that. What we want to do is we just want to add a second Boolean modifier and we just want to link it to our second cube. So now you can add as many copies of this window as you want in order to do this. Now one thing to note is some manufacturers, so Milgaard's a good example, if you come in here and you want to download a copy of a model. So for example like their aluminum double casement. Notice how there's options in here to open with Revit or to open with SketchUp. And so again the easiest way to do this is going to be to download this with SketchUp. But notice how in this case they're actually hosting all of their stuff in the SketchUp 3D Warehouse. So if I click on this what this does is this brings me a link to the SketchUp 3D Warehouse. Now you can log in to the SketchUp 3D Warehouse by creating a free profile and you can download these windows just from this page. So for example I can click download and we'll talk about the version that we want in a minute. You actually don't want the 2021 version. And then you can import that the same way inside of Blender. I'm not a giant fan of doing it that way but that's where they're hosting all of their windows so that's where you have to go to get these model files. And so one thing I do want to note is when you bring this in I recommend downloading it as a SketchUp 2017 model. So for whatever reason the 2021 models don't always play very good with the importer. The 2017 is kind of a fixed format that has been around for a long time so you generally know that's going to work. So I would download that as a 2017 model. You just do the same thing, right, file, import, SketchUp scene. You would just go find that model and bring it in. So I'm just going to click on import SKP. And then same thing happened, this got brought in as a window with these individual pieces. Well then you could just right click and do a select objects and you could do a control J in order to join them. So same kind of thing but this gives you access to a very large library of manufacturer window files. One thing I like about the manufacturer window files is they're actually modeled to scale. So these are going to be to a real world size. Alright so leave a comment below, let me know if this was helpful, if you bring in windows like this or if you have another source for windows. I just love having that conversation with you guys. I will link to some other architectural modeling tutorials on this page as well. If you like what I'm doing on this channel, please consider supporting me on Patreon. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to watch this. I really appreciate it and I will catch you in the next video. Thanks guys!