Creating Custom Wall Art for Your Models in SketchUp - SketchUp Quick Tips

What's up guys, Justin here with TheSketchupEssentials.com back with another Sketchup quick tutorial for you. So in today's video, we're going to talk about how to create custom artwork for our interior models in Sketchup. And before I do that, I do want to give a big thank you to Michael Fetter. He's my newest supporter on Patreon. As you know, Patreon is a fan support website where you guys can support the show. I use the money that I get from that to do everything from buying new extensions and new softwares to trying out new ideas to try to make the channel better. So if you like what I'm doing on this channel, please consider visiting that link in the notes below and supporting the show. So let's go ahead and just jump into it. All right. So a lot of the time when you create an interior model, you want to furnish the interior in a way that makes it feel complete. And that means everything from custom artwork to furniture that kind of fits the space, that sort of thing. You can definitely find some like stock artwork from the 3D warehouse if you want to, or you can just kind of custom create your stuff with your own images. So this is a model I downloaded from the 3D warehouse by Ark DaviCL. You know what? I'll link to the model in the notes below and I'll also put the name right here. And I'm going to take this model and I'm going to add some artwork to it. So in this case, what we're going to do is we're going to import our art image as a texture. So the first thing we're going to do is we're just going to create a piece for our artwork. So in this case, what we're going to do, and we can just model it on this wall if we want to actually. We can come in here and we can create a piece to the size that we want it to be. So I'm going to use the rectangle tool to start off just drawing kind of a rough size of what I want this artwork to look like. So in this case, I'm probably going to make this, we'll make it two foot six by two foot. So that gives me my basic face right here. And so we could just drop the image on here just like that. But what I want to do first is I want to make this an actual framed piece. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the offset tool to create kind of my frame size. And then I can just come in here and use the push pull tool to kind of detail out the frame. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to make this whole thing a group just to make this easier and to make it not merge with the rest of my model. So and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to make the frame a separate piece from the actual image itself. And so I'm going to select this and then I'm going to use the shift key to deselect this face. And then I'm going to right click and I'm going to say make group. And so what I can do is I can rename this and I can rename this art. And then within that group, I can rename the frame to be its own group. And then my face is in here as well. And you can see how, and we'll try this, we may have to push pull this face outward just a little bit in order to have it not merge with the face that it's sitting on. But we'll try this for right now. And so what I've done is I'm inside my group and that's going to be important. You're going to want to make sure you're inside your group so you can actually click on this face. But then you're just going to go up to file, import, and you're going to find your image. So and you can see how this is asking if we want to use this as an image or as a texture. Well in this case, we want to make this a texture. And so what I'm going to do is I've got an image in here of me and Bonnie. And we're going to take that and we're going to make that a texture. So you're going to click on this little button right here and you're going to click import. And you're going to want to click on your actual image. And then you're going to click import. And you can see how what that does is that brings that in here so that you can move it around. And it's basically asking for a base point. So it's asking for where it should start using this image as a texture. So I'm going to click on this corner right here and then I'm just going to move my mouse until it's up to the top. And we'll reposition it in a second. But for right now, we just want to get the size kind of close. So I'm going to click on that and get it kind of close. And you can see how I'm having a problem here because this is flickering. And the reason it's flickering is because we have one face on top of the other face and SketchUp isn't really sure which one to show because they're occupying the same space. So all I'm going to do is I'm going to come in here. I'm just going to push pull this probably we'll try a 16th of an inch. So just enough that these faces aren't occupying the exact same plane anymore. So now this is actually sitting a 16th of an inch beyond this back face. And so that's a good idea when you're modeling your artwork is to have this out just a little bit so that it's not flush with the face in here. And so you can see how now I have my general image. Well what I want to do is I want to move this so that everything's a little more centered. And actually it's kind of funny with Bonnie right there. But we're going to go ahead and customize our image anyway. Just so it's a little more, just so it's a little more centered in the frame. And so what you're going to do is you're going to right click on this image and you're going to go down to texture. You're going to select position and you can see how when you select position what it does is it pops up. You can see how it's kind of repeating this image. So if this was like a wood texture or something like that this would be repeating this image over and over again. This is showing you kind of where it's repeated. Well what we're going to do is we're going to use these little push pins in order to move it. So you can scale it using this option right here. You can rotate it by using this one. I don't think I've actually ever used the distort. And then this is going to let you move it around. And so right now it's kind of defaulted on the corner of this image and that's okay. So if you wanted to you could single click on this pin and put it somewhere else and use that as kind of your base point. In this case we actually want it on this corner. So all we're going to do, because I just want to move this over just a little bit, is I'm just going to click and drag this pin. And you can see how when I click and drag this pin what it's doing is it's moving the texture over to the side. And so that allows me to kind of center this image in the frame a little bit better. So you can use that to move your textures around. And then once you're done you can just hit the enter key and you can see how now my image is centered in my frame. And so you can do this with a lot of different kinds of things. And you could come in here and you could color up this frame or you could make a more detailed frame if you wanted to. I don't recommend using a lot of geometry in your artwork because that can kind of slow your model down and you don't really get a whole lot of benefit there. But like let's say for example, and I've got this art piece right here, I'm going to go ahead and hide that. And again I'm managing all that using the outliner. But now I'm going to create kind of a bigger, wider image. Like let's say that I have this big wide image right here. I'm just going to push pull it out on this wall a little bit. And we're going to say that this one's just kind of frameless. So you know just one of those big art pieces that you put on the wall that doesn't actually have a frame around it. And then again I'm going to right click on it and I'm going to make it a group. Then I'm going to double click inside my group. And you could add the texture to this first if you wanted to, but you're going to do the same thing. You're going to do file, import. And then let's say I have this wave image in here. I'm just going to import that as a texture. And you can see how when I brought that in it kind of locked to the wrong axis. So you want to be careful that it locks to the correct axis when you're doing this. So you're just going to kind of click and drag to place this. And then we're just going to do the same thing where we're just going to take our texture and we're going to position it. And sometimes what you may end up doing here is you may end up repositioning your texture kind of like this. Or you may end up using these to kind of scale it down. Or even if you don't scale it down you may end up having to change kind of the proportions of your piece of art. So in this case I'm just going to hit the enter key and we're going to leave that in here. So now I've got this wave piece of artwork in here. And again I like to keep these organized. So that I can kind of see what these things are. But you can see how now if I want to I can hide this and I can unhide this. So I can look at different art pieces and you could also put these on different layers if you wanted to. And then the other thing you can do kind of the same way in this image is you could actually put a different image on the TV. So like for example right now this TV is showing an image of some kind of ocean scene. And that may fit the ambiance of the building a little bit but you may be demonstrating more of like a gathering type place. So what you might want to do is you might want to bring something in like a football game texture. And so you would just do the same thing. Import this as a texture. Place this on the corner. And then just resize it so it fits. So now your TV has more of a football game on it instead of like a nature show. And a lot of this is something that you're going to want to change around just kind of depending on what your space feels like. So that's where I'm going to end today's show. Leave a comment below. Let me know what you thought. Did you like this video? Is this something that's going to be helpful to you? I just love having that SketchUp conversation with you guys. If you like this video please remember to click that like button down below. If you're new around here remember to click that subscribe button for new SketchUp content every week. If you like what I'm doing on this channel please consider supporting me on Patreon. Every little bit helps even if it's only a dollar a month. But in any case 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.