CSS Texas how to with Google Sketch up.

[ct ertz]

Hello everyone. Because I have been asked and because I have hit mental blocks on many of the models I am currently working on, I will attempt to layout a step by stop on how to make an ironclad. I use Google Sketch Up because it is free, and works for me. i am in no way an expert and some of you wil be scratching your heads wondering why I am doing things the way I am. Well, because it worked in the past for me, that's why. I am also not a teacher and I do not design manuals or programs, so If I fail to relate some information, my apologies. Now, that being said, I will do my best.

First you need good information and a nice three way drawing is also helpful. For this I am indebted to John Wallis. His research has provided me with many of the plans I based my models on. the CSS Texas will be no exception. First I converted his Word document into a PDF then into a JPG image, using Gimp to adjust the scale and so on. Now the drawing is in an image that the GSU will recognize. Now we can use it for a back drop in Sketch up.

But first, some notes about the Texas. Had it been finished and deployed, it would have been deadly. Notice too that the duel pilot houses are on the deck, like the Wilmington, making them hard to hit and freeing up room in the gun casemate. It is interesting that the US navy went from deck plased pilot houses like on the original monitors to putting them above the guns, and the south went the other way. Also note that the Texas had only four guns in a shortened casemate. This allowed more armor to be placed on the casemate - eight inches in this case, rather then spreading the armor out over a longer casemate with more guns. Combined with working engines and a speed of may be eight knots, this ship would have had some punch to it.

Now, on to the process:).

[ct ertz]

First open GSU, I am using 7, and you will notice that the human figure and the axis lines are all in perspective. This will not do. Go to the Cammera button up top and click it, then in the drop down you will see that "Perspective" is checked. Click "Parallel Projection" instead. i find this much easier to work in. Then go back to cammera and click on standared views and hit top. Then use the hand button to drag the corner of those axis lines into the corner of your screen, and use the magnifying glass button to back away, giving you plenty of space to work in. Now we are ready to import the picture we are using for the guide.

Go to file, go to "import" and find the file you need. In this case we are using the saved CSS Texas JPG file. MAKE sure that the Use as Image button is pressed, see the red arrow.

next place the picture and drag the edge to make it large. We will scale it in the next step. Your Sketch Up screen should look something like the picture.

[ct ertz]

Next we will scale the drawing so it will be a 1-1 scale in the Google sketch up world. We know that the Texas was a whopping 217 feat in over all length. So using the profile view as a guide, I used the "rotate" button first. I placed the cumpas on the aft of the deck and the pointer on the bow, then rotated the whole thing until the main deck was on the red axis. Then I used the tape masure button and measured the length of the ship. It was like 69 feet long, way small. So I typed in the correct measurement of 217 feet into the box and pressed enter. A box popped up asking me if I wanted to re-size the model. I clicked yes and Bamb! now my main deck measures 217 feet long in the google sketch up world. Cool, hu? now we are ready to start drawing.

[ct ertz]

OK, now we can draw. Using a combination of the tools in the toolbar I mad a 1/2 plan of the deck. Do not waste time doing the whole on something like this, (as I used to do). It will be quicker and more accurate to copy the half and flip in, the put the two halves together, but that's later. Now for some fun. I use the camera button to view that back side, then the orbit button to tilt the model, finally I use the push pull button to pull up the main deck from the waterline, a free-board of five feet. Then I click on the drawing and it should light it up with a blue outer line. Now I click on "edit" then push hide, to get the drawing out of the way. Then use the camera button to get to the "bottom" view in the "Standard views".

Now using the scale button I pull in the back and sides to fit the angles of the drawing. I leave the front alone as the pow is pretty straight in this drawing. This takes some practice using the scale button, but it is a hand tool. I also use the "front" "back", "left" and "right" buttons in the standard views to help me make it look right. Because the scale button use percents, you can probably do a bunch of math to get the exact angles. :eek:

[ct ertz]

Now by clicking "Top" in the standard views and then clicking "un hide all" in the edit drop down, you will see the model from the top with the drawingas the back ground again. Now we know the casemate is about 8 feet off the deck, so go to "view" and then click on "fase" then click "x-ray". now we can draw our casemate out line on the deck using the back drop. Afte making those outlines turn off the x-ray and go to the back view and orbit the model, slightly. Then you can use the push/pull button to raise the casemate 8 feet up.

Coming next: we will use the compass feature to add the angle of the casemate walls and the real cool "follow me" button to shape those walls. But I need to make a quick run to the doctors first.:o
CT

[Knife]

Darn it, now you're going to force me to make the CSS Arkansas. Thanks for the information, keep it coming.

[ct ertz]

Go for it Knife, your talent for coloring will be put to good use on the Arkansas's rust-rail armor.

So the Doctor confirmed that I was in fact still breathing so I guess we can continue. Next we go to the compass tool and place it on the back bottom corner of the casemate. We know that from John Wallis's research the walls of the casemate were set a 35 degree angles, so type in 35 in the box. Then draw a line along the dotted line. Next chose the "follow me" tool. Click on the fase that you just created with your line and then follow the outer top edge of the casemate around and click when you get to the stopping point. Cool! You now have the casemate out line. To double check against the drawing simply use your view buttons to go to "top" and see if all is well. You can see on mine that it easily lines up within a margin of error of the drawing. We have something looking like an ironclad now!:D

[jmr248]

CT, Glad you are still breathing. Always good to know that when you leave a doctor's. Thank you for explaining the process you utilize in creating your ironlcads. Looking forward to seeing the whole process.

[Kazziga]

CT, thanks for that tutorial. I am looking forward to the unfolding part, that's where I usually go mad :mad:

[Paperwarrior]

CT,

This is great information. I'm following and look forward to seeing more. I really would like to try my hand at designing models for a change. Thanks.

Jeff

[rmks2000]

CT - Thanks for doing this!

[jimkrauzlis]

Way to go, CT!

This is great! Thanks for showing us the way, and looking forward to more!

Cheers!
Jim

[ct ertz]

Thanks guys.
One of the interesting things about the Texas is that it had a glasis or angled shield fore and aft of the casemate. This raised the center line of the model by two feet and angling off to the deck. Most ironclads did not have this, but the proposed double ender at Richmond, as well as the CSS Virginia II did. So we will fit this onto the Texas.

Start by making a guide line on the Back side of the model in the casement, two feet off the deck. Also, mark the ending of the angled plate fore and aft as per the drawing. The I draw the faces of the angles (in red) and use a stitching pattern to fill in the edging because of the curve of the deck. I repeat the process on the front.

[ct ertz]

OK, now I took the eraser button and while holding down the "shift" button I clicked on those extra lines on the angled shield. This hides those lines from view. :D

[ct ertz]

OK, now highlight the two angled faces fore and aft and click the hide button as in picture 18. Then the deck below is visable and we can make the hatches. Draw in the 8 by 8 foot hatches (colored in wood tone in pic19). Then we once again get a back view and orbit the model so we can pull up our hatches using the push pull button, two feet should be about right. Then click the un-hide all button. You will notice those other stitching lines are back. I used the "shift-erase" combination to make them disappear again. Now we need to intersect these new hatchways with the model. I highlight the whole model and then click the "intersect with model" button. See pictures!:D

[Nh3ave2009]

This is great!! please don't abandon us like so may have in the past without finishing!
PLEASE!! :)

[ct ertz]

No worries, this will be done soon.
Pic 23 shows our model with some basic recoloring. Now for the pilothouses.
Pic 24 shows the basic repeat of the casemate design, only smaller. I mad the rectangle that corresponded to the drawing and used the push-pull to pull it up 2 feet, then I used the compass to mark the 35 degree angle, then I will use the follow "me button" to put the angles on.
pic 25 shows the model with the stack added and the hatches, as well as the pilothouses. I used the basic tools already talked about.

Now for those pesky gun ports...

[Torakaze-222]

Thanks a lot for this tutorial. Have been wanting to make models of the USS Benton and USS Chickasaw. Hopefully this will give me a workable method.

Now if only Knife would post the iron images he's been using for textures... :)

[Knife]

No problems, they're right here. Have fun!

[Torakaze-222]

Oh man! Thank you very much!

[Paperwarrior]

Ditto, Knife. Thanks.

Corey, as I stated earlier, this is much appreciated. As always I'm looking forward to the next installment. When finished I'll utilize Word and copy-paste and make my own instructional manual.

Jeff

[ct ertz]

If you do that Jeff You should re-post it in the downloads!

As for those gun-ports I had done them wrong on a number of my first models! That is why there is some mis-alignment on the CSS Palmetto State's bow gun port. With the Texas we are going to click on the back wall and then go to "hide" so we can see into the casemate (pic 26). Then I make some temparary virtical lines as in pic 27, and these form temporary vertical walls as in pic 28. Pic 28balso shows the reminder window that will pop up because you have that hidden wall.

Sorry to leave you hanging but I have to go to work. I will post more tonight, along with links to get Gimp 2.6 and Google Sketch Up 7, both free!:D
CT

[ct ertz]

Google SketchUp (http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/download/index.html)
Google SketchUp - Download (http://google-sketchup.en.softonic.com/)

http://uberdownloads.net/apps/gimp/index.php?brand=uberdownloads.net&s=google&country=US&c=uber.net_gimp&k={keywords}&pk=7000

Download The Gimp 2.6.11 - FileHippo.com (http://www.filehippo.com/download_the_gimp/)

So there you have a couple of links to gimp and sketch up. I have not tried these downloads so...:confused:

OK, pic 29 shows how I clicked on the rest of the angled casemate walls and then pushed the "hide" button. This way we can see our temporary vertical walls. Pic 30 shows my gun ports. On the Texas they were quite small and higher on the casemate wall then on my other ironclads. My gun ports are 2x3 feet. The opening will be bigger because of the slant of the casemate walls. These ports are 2.5 feet off the deck, so we may end up making the rails on the pivot guns thicker.

In pic 31 shows how I used the push-pull button to draw out the gun port shapes to the outer edge of the casemate.

Now I pushed "Un-hide all" and the casemate walls pop back. Then to make the gun ports hold their shape, we do the intersect with model button just like for the hatches. See picture 32.

more later!
CT

[Knife]

I'm doing a "test build" of CT's instructions, and have ran into a roadblock. I'm using the latest version of Sketchup (8.0.3117) from the links above. I import my top and side view drawing, but when I go to rescale the image using the tape measure tool I'm unable to get the window where I can edit the length. I left click at the bow, get the measurement when I put the end of the line over the stern, but when I click to fix the length the line measurement just disappears. If I don't click then the line just moves with the mouse input and there's no way to get to the edit box. I tried this on two different computers with the same results. Anybody else having this problem, too?

[ct ertz]

picture 33 shows the gun ports after erasing all of the extra stuff and coloring them black.

The next step is to open a second sketch up window and draw an out line of your paper. In this case, I want the ship to be 1/250 scale so my paper is 229 feet by 177 feet. (11 by 8.5 inch times 250). I already have the template, compleat with a scale bar. I also imported some common parts I use on my models, such as the guns, and davit, anchors and so on...

Now we are getting ready for unfolding. I use the "ghetto" version of the unfolding tool because I have good control. I do not use wayBe. I think you can find it here:
Jim's SketchUp [Plugins] Blog: Plugin: Unfold Tool (http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2007/08/plugin-unfoldrb.html)

CT

[legion]

Knife, when you click for the second time while measuring, type the new length immediately, without moving your mouse.

[ct ertz]

How frustrating Knife. (it took me forever to get it to work as advertised) You click, draw out the measurement, click a second time at the end point, then without moving anything, start typing in the measurement and push enter. That is the way it works for me. I do not know what to tell you. Remember, click, drag, click-then do not move a thing, just, start typing. If that still dose not work, try using the pencil, but I am sure it is the tape measure, but may be the something changed in the upgrade.
CT

[Knife]

Nope, that doesn't fix it. Doing everything just as the "instuctor" shows, but immediately when I click the second point, the measurement disappears. I'll keep playing around with it, I was just wondering if anybody else has had the same problem.

[Knife]

Just after posting the above message, I went back and now it's working normally, with the pop-up message about resizing. I swear I'm not doing anything different, except posting messages that make me look dumb. Anyway, back to work!

[ct ertz]

I believe that Knife, as I said, it took me forever to get it to work as on the video I was learning from. If you do it just a bit off, it will not work. Touchy. Luckily, you only need to do it once.

OK, pic 35 shows how I extended the smoke stack down to the deck. Next I will "hide" all of the angled shield and casemate sides so I can click on the deck parts. This way we can select all of the main deck, the copy it, and paste it onto our other sketch up window (pic 37). Notice that the deck parts are white. These for some reason are upside down. Don't know why. I will highlight them and push edit, then reverse the faces. You probably do not need to on the deck, but later when you use the unfold button, any backwards faces through a monkey wrench int the works! Anyhow, pic 39 shows the result I was looking for.

More soon! Time to cook.
CT

[rmks2000]

Knife

I'm trying this tutorial also. I had a little trouble with Sketchup 8 in that it crashed for some unknown reason. However, I was finally able to resize the model. Not sure why the compass was used.

[ct ertz]

I used the compass to get the exact 35 degree angle of the walls, if I understand your question right. Sometimes my 7.0 will try and re-start my windows 7 for me too...not sure what the conflict is.
CT

[Torakaze-222]

Oh man! This is so much fun to see it take shape.

Here's two pics of what I've followed so far. I want to make CSS Atlanta and CSS Richmond so bad. hehehe

[Knife]

Here's the Arkansas so far.

[Torakaze-222]

Knife,

Super nice! How did you tightly orient the overhead and side views like that?

[ct ertz]

Great jobs both of you so far. Nice work Knife on that lay out.
What Knife did was re-import another picture and maneuver it on another plain so that he could have both views available to line up his model with at the same time. If you have a three (or four way)way drawing you can actually make kind of a picture box to work your model in.

On the main deck I in our second sketchup window, the "parts" layout, I have been using the circle and line tools as well as the off-set tool to work on the deck layout for the guns. you will note that I used the offset tool to layout what would be the casemate walls if I were going to make them double sided. The walls were about 42 inches thick so I mad my offset 42 inches. Then I laid out some basic tracks for the fore and aft pivot. I also laid out a track for the broadside gun.

On the Texas, I am going to make the gun-deck "new" looking and color and plank it. I also steel planked the fore and aft armored decks as well. And I cut in some grates. I will also include grates as parts but this way the model maker can decide if they want to leave the grates flush or add a 3-d layer to them.

I also added color to the pilothouse placement points and to the deck hatches.

All of this is optional really. A basic wooden interior would do but I just like trying to lay the thing out and you get a real feeling for how cramped it was.

Now that the deck is all done, I flip it along the green axis, mode it to the edge of my "paper" and then copy, paste, flip, and put together the other side. Now I have the complete deck.:D
CT

[legion]

Oh yeah, Knife, you might want to check out the Dimensions tool in SU, it should keep the measurements on screen.

[ct ertz]

Now we move on to the shields and casemate parts, and basically everything above main deck. I ALWAYS make a copy of my model to work from, something I am going to disassemble as we go, so I have the original digital model intact.I went to my plugin tools and picked the unfold button then unfolded the shield one plain at a time, in following the numbers indicated. Then I push "Cut", then I push "Paste" over at the parts page. Now with the whole shield highlighted, use the unfold tool in the parts page and click on any flat plain. This will insure that the part is now flat and on the same plain as the rest of your parts. If everything is right, you should be able to use the view button in the parts page and see the shield as a long thin line in the left, right, and front views. Also, you should be able to erase all those other internal lines, rather then hide them, as the piece is all one plain now.

Now I highlight the whole part and use the rotate button and put the top edge on the red axis, this way I can copy, paste, and flip, to make the whole piece.

Now I just had a "bugsplat!" and my google sketch up has shut down:mad:. I will get it going again, I hope. This has happened before, but hay. it is a FREE program so no complaints from me.:o If this happens to you, you will not loose too much of your work as sketch up backs up itself regularly.

CT:rolleyes:

CT

[ct ertz]

OK, my Sketch up had an auto save file waiting for me so no worries. I had to re-copy, paste and flip my part to get the full shield again, but now we are back on track. You will note that when the shield was completed, we have a hole for the hatch. Close this off using the line tool the use the off set tool and make the hole 3 inches bigger all around. This way the hatch piece will fit with out the need to trim.

Next I decided to get rid of the last two lines on the shields. I would guess that in construction the 1 inch deck plating would have been bent to shape rather then cut in separate pieces. So I made a pattern of 12 inch lines (the original iron plate would probably have been 6 or 10 inch) and will now place it on the part.

Now we have a part...of course its made wrong but its a part. I should have added the lines from the biddle out on the 1/2 piece, then everything would have been centered up. Oh well. I am not going to re do it now.:eek:

CT

[ct ertz]

OK, now we have the front shield, and everything is centered. Don't forget the enlarge the hatch opening.:)

[Knife]

CT, when you said back in post 25

"The next step is to open a second sketch up window and draw an out line of your paper. In this case, I want the ship to be 1/250 scale so my paper is 229 feet by 177 feet. (11 by 8.5 inch times 250). I already have the template, compleat with a scale bar. I also imported some common parts I use on my models, such as the guns, and davit, anchors and so on...",

does this mean you run two sketchup programs simultaniously, or do you use one of the "view" windows in the sketchup program running to paste the parts to?

[ct ertz]

I run two sketch up windows at once, one labeled "CSS Texas" and one labeled "CSS Texas parts". It will show up as two seperate tabs, just like when you have two web pages up at once. On the second page I set it up the same way as the first, by going to "parallel projection" and Top view, but I also went to "windows", "Styles", then "back ground", and I edit the back ground to be all white.
CT

[Knife]

Thanks, I give it a try.

[ct ertz]

OK, not sure if I will get to more tonight or not. I was enthusiastically drinking my first beer tonight and accidentally snorted some of the bubbles. The resulting explosion created a big mess for me to clean, and it was a tragic waist of beer. Wow, my noise hurt. The pain lasted almost to the end of my second beer. With that being said, I think I will mellow for the night, and maybe in a bit I will be back up and going. I hope these posts are helping some of you out.
CT

[Knife]

Now that's what I call a drinking problem. Hope you recover soon :)

[Knife]

I've got the Arkansas pretty much finished up. I spent most the day unfolding her, but in the end just erased everything to start over. The problem I'm running into is when you unfold, the individual pieces are all at different heights above the x-y plane. Am I correct in assuming they must all be on a single plane before you can export them as a 2-D graphic for your graphics program? Have you found any good techniques to do this? There's a sketchup plug-in for $10 that will flatten everything down to a single plane, anybody has any experience with this?

Just trying to learn from other's mistakes, since I don't have time to make them all myself.

[ct ertz]

Awesome job. Actually, when you export the top view, it will not matter if the individual pieces are at different heights as long as you use the Parallel projection mode. I will do some of that tonight for you.
CT

[Knife]

One other question, I wanted to make the hull red 1 foot up from the waterline. Is there any easy way to mark the curved hull side exactly 1 foot above the X-Y axis? If I mark the line 1 foot up the hull surface from the edge of the hull waterline the line is bowed.

[ct ertz]

OK Knife, to answer your question. On the backside or center line, make a line up 1 foot from your bottom point. Then make a large square around your boat. Then use your intersect button to intersect your new plain. Now you can get rid of the square and your line should be on the hull.:)
CT

[ct ertz]

Ok, it took some doing but using the tools already mentioned I got the casemate laid out and detailed. A not on the coloring for Knife, you may already know this, but if you go to the rusted metal color and go to the Edit button, and you can change the size and coloring of the rust!

[Knife]

You can also import the rust images I posted earlier into your materials folder and use it for any future models. The procedure is:

1. Open new sketchup program
2. Draw a rectangle anywhere on the page
3. Click "File", "Import"
4. In the pop up menu, make sure "use as texture" box is checked, then select the rust .jpg image (or any other texture file you want to use) and import it over the rectangle you drew earlier.
5. Open the "Materials" window if it is not already open by clicking on the paint bucket in the tools window.
6. Click on the home icon in the Materials window, you will see the texture you just imported as a thumbnail (along with all the other textures in the current directory)
7. Right click on the thumbnail, and save the file in one of the sub directories in your Materials directory (usually in "C drive"/"Program Files"/"Google"/"Google SketchUp X.0"/"Materials"/"Metal"

Now, whenever you start Sketchup, you can access the new textures just like the installed textures.

Apologies to CT for taking up so much of his thread, I've tried to ask the questions I thought other inexperienced designers might have. And thanks CT for the tip on how to finish the hull sides. I could tell by your other models that you had "broken the code" on how to do this properly. I'll try to be quiet now and learn from "the Master".

[ct ertz]

Thanks Knife, that is awesome. I have a number of textures that I would like to use as primary coloring in Sketch Up. This will help. I still do much of my detailing in Gimp, but the more options the better!

I have been carrying on with the unfolding and detailing of the deck parts. On the rear pilot/spotter house I eliminated the eye slot facing into the muzzle of the rear facing gun. The people inside the USS Monitor's pilot house would go deaf if the guns fired any closer then 30 degrees off the center, so the same would be true here. On the front pilot house, which is further away from the casemate than the aft house, I added a simple shutter, to help block out much of the muzzle flash and noise, but still give the pilot the ability to take a look back if need be.
CT

[Nh3ave2009]

CT I just want to thank you for keeping you promise to not abandon us! You are a man of honer!
Ka-Plagh!

[ct ertz]

OK, here I am unfolding the hull side. But there is a problem. The red hull line that I made for Knife. If you are using the unfold tool I have, the tool will want to unfold the hull in two separate faces, a gray and a red one. To keep the gray and red face connected, use your shift key. Click on the gray piece, then while holding the shift key, click on the red. Then click on the face next in line. Both red and gray should move together. Now hold the shift again, click on the red, then let up and click on the next gray piece in line and everything should move as one. And by the way, by working frm the aft foreword, the piece was already one one plane when done, so all I need to do was go to view, top, and then rotate my thin blue line onto the red axis, then click view, left, and rotate the line 90 degrees to the left. Another top view shows the flattened part ready to be placed onto the parts page.:)

So I added the anchor hole thingy and copied, pasted, and flipped the second side. Ohno, another problem. The sides are too long for the paper. What I did was draw a conecting line between the two parts to use as a handle, high light both parts, then rotate then 37.7 degrees up. Now they fit neatly onto the paper.:D

CT

[Pat_craft]

Thanks for all you teach to us, ct ertz.
Your post will became a reference in papermodeling !

[Knife]

Thanks CT, using your excellent instructions the CSS Arkansas is done and unfolded. The only major headache is the unfolding program. Sometimes instead of aligning the two items on a single plane next to each other, it would fold them onto the same plane overlapping each other. It's like if you took a sheet of paper with a bend in it and instead of flattening it out you fold it in half at the bend. I worked around it by copying the rouge piece somewhere else on the drawing, and then using the rotate tool to get it on the same plane as the piece I was trying to match up.

One other issue was joining the various pieces after copying and flipping them (since only the left side of the model was actually produced in 3D) The way Sketchup snaps the selected pieces on the background, I could not match the mirrored pieces precisely. This might have to do with the fact that the pieces are all at different heights above the X-Y plane. Anyway, its an easy fix once I export the pieces to my graphics program.

[Knife]

I found the solution to snapping left and right side pieces together, reference the previous message. Yesterday when I was having problems joining the pieces into one item, I was selecting the pieces then grabbing them by any place in the middle of the image to move it. The proper procedure is the highlight the piece, then grab it by an end-point, then move it over to the adjacent end-point on the adjoining piece. Had I discovered this yesterday, I could have saved me a lot of aggavation and time. Now if only I can fix the unfolding problem . . . .

[rmks2000]

Lots of great info on this thread. I want to try designing the Texas again. I got a little lost so I have to start over.

[APA-168]

Great tutorial CT! A quick question (and this goes for anyone using the unfold tool) have you ever encountered the dreaded "disjointed faces problem" where you have two faces (usually triangles) that don't line up when unfolded? The variation is too small to fix, and there's no way real way around it. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[Torakaze-222]

The proper procedure is the highlight the piece, then grab it by an end-point, then move it over to the adjacent end-point on the adjoining piece.

Thanks so much for this. Had been driving myself bonkers trying to line up the two sides.

Here's a picture of my texas interpretation so far.

[ct ertz]

OK, here is some thoughts. When connecting pieces after copying and flipping, place the piece a bit away first. Then place the curser over the end pint of the un-highlighted part for the count of three, then click on the corner or end point of the highlighted part and drag it to the un-highlighted part. This usually helps the program understand what connecting points you are wanting to use.

On the triangle question, yes, I have had that happen where the unfolded piece seems just a pixal off plane with the rest but there is seemingly no way to fix it. If it can be "faked" by leaving the piece butted up next to the other piece then I just do that, so it "looks" right. if this is not possible, you can always redraw the whole piece by taking angles and line measurements from the original. By re-drawing the piece manually on a single plane it will come out flat. Then delete the warped piece and replace it with the re-drawn piece.

Wow, y'alls models are coming right along!

I will add some more soon.
CT

[ct ertz]

Now for the formers. First I draw a plane on the aft or front end of my model. This way I can use the section pane button to space out and create my formers. I placed the section plane on the plane and will mode it in a set number of feet. Then I right click, hit "create group from slice", then click on copy. Now I switch to my parts page and paste the section plane in place. I had to use my rotate button to get it into place. notice how it is a group. We will fix that soon.

Now, click on the plane with the arrow button, it will turn blue, now we are ready to do it again. Choose the "move" button and move the plane back another 25 feet. Do not worry about your model disappearing, it is still there. Now when you have moved the plane back to the 50 foot mark, right click and hit "create group from slice button" again, then copy, then go to the parts page and hit paste.

Keep going every 25 feet. Next we will "explode the group" which sounds more fun then it is, and edit the parts to make them into formers.
CT

[APA-168]

Well look, now you've gone and taught me a new trick! Actually, several! Just when you think you know everything about a program, someone shows you otherwise. Great tutorial, keep it up!! :D

[Paperwarrior]

Corey,

That is a great "trick". I'm really enjoying this thread. ...more, please.

Jeff

[Knife]

I cracked the code on my unfolding problem. I had some of the surface faces reversed. Make sure all surfaces are the same color before unfolding. If you have one surface blue next to one that is white, it will unfold the two on top of each other. A simple solution to a very frustrating problem. I know Corey already knew this, just posting this in case any other newbie has this problem.

[ct ertz]

OK, back from vacation and ready to continue with the Texas. I have to get my poop in a group and get my computer back up and going and we shall continue on. mostly, we just need to do more of the same, with a few small tricks for fitting. i will have this and more up tonight, I hope.
CT

[ct ertz]

In the following pictures you will see the formers I have made using the "make group from slice" button in combination with the copy, paste and rotate buttons. Then I had to highlight the groups, and in the highlight you can see the box around the "group". I used the edit and explode group button on these so I can use them as pieces instead of groups, making them easier to edit and change. I erased all of the casemate and deck parts that may have been part of the slice and then drew over one of the existing lines so that the piece would fill in as a solid plane. I now have five left hand formers, but we are not ready to copy and flip yet.

Before I forget, back on your model, we have those five groups intersecting with your model. Highlight them, then go to edit and "intersect with model" so that these internal frams become a part of your model. You can use the hide button lader to hide the lines that show, but for now we want them. You can get rid of the waterline mark now, as we are done with that plane. Highlight each full compartment on the center line using the shift key with the pointer and then copy. Now paste it somewhere one you parts page.Use the rotate to get it facing the right way.

Now all these former parts need to be shrunk down slightly to give way for the thickness of the card stock. Coming next!
CT

[ct ertz]

OK, the shrink to fit formers are next. I used to try to enlarge the side hull pieces but this way works better for me. Knife even made mention on one of my latest models on how well it fit. My biggest issue is remembering to do this step. Simply use the offset tool and offset the edge of the formers by 3 inches. this works well for heavy card-stock such as Wal-Marts 110 pound stock. This give the needed shrink to accommodate the deck and base for vertical measurements, and it will allow for the double with center-line former as well as the side hull plates horizontally. I then just leave a not for folks who with to use 1 or 2mm formers to "trim as needed". But at this scale with five formers and large casemate the double thick formers do the job just fine. You need to offset each former and erase the outer edge.

The center-line former is done the same way, but do part by part. Eliminate the outer edges and the un-needed lines, then reconect the centerline parts into one part by redrawing the connecting lines. This will leave spaces for the "rib" former placements.

Now just rotate your new former and place it on the page, and oh yah, copy and flip those rib formers to make the right side ones now.

CT

[ct ertz]

Now go and do the same copy and paste method for the bottom or base of the model. Be sure to use the before mentioned offset tool to shrink the part, then reconect the outer edges, and you will have the outline of the base complete with guide lines for the formers. Copy, paste and flip for the other half. Then erase all extra lines.

Next I put all of the double up pieces on one page and rearrange all of the parts to fit nicely. I will next continue will odds and ends, such as the stack and steam whistle.
CT

[ct ertz]

OK, after getting a few more parts done I copied the model over to a the parts page for a diagram. If the model was longer then the paper, then I would have done pictures and copied them in at a smaller scale using gimp. Now, speaking of gimp, that is what will be next. We are almost done with sketch up for this model. If the ship was smaller I would make a simple display base of simulated water but not on this one. Next up, exporting and gimp!
CT

[Knife]

I was wondering if you could touch on how you make up the base for you models. I always thought that the bases were a special touch that made your models stand out from the others. Thanks.

[ct ertz]

OK, no getting lazy with this crew. To make the base I simply copied and pasted the base onto another "page". You will not that I have little room to work with for a base, but enough. I ran the base ends all the way to the edges of the "paper", then added fold down front and back borders, in wood tone. I had to do the end boarders in seperate pieces, they are also wood tone. Because the base is large, I also added a center brace and three cross braces. I manipulated the "water" texture in size and color to get the basic look I wanted, the wake will be added in gimp. The text was added in with the "text" button. The back ground boarder in 12 feet high so I used letters 9 feet in height. Anyhow, there's a base, not too bad. This ship is almost too long for a single sheet base!:)
CT

[ct ertz]

Ok, open up your parts page in Sketch up and your gimp and lets make parts!
zoom in aon a page, in this case, my diagram page and make sure your "paper's" edges are visible. Then go to "file" and then to "export" Export the model as a 2-D graphic. Go to options and choose a size that works for you. I always pick something like 6400 just because I know I will be croping and shrinking in gimp and want as much clarity to start with as possible. It may take some time to export it, also, it will try to save to documents. I prefer it to save to a file folder on my desktop, in this case, one named CSS Texas. I export all five "pages" to the Texas folder. We are now none with sketchup for now. Everything now will be done in Gimp!:)
CT

[ct ertz]

Anyone still with me??
OK, in Gimp, open up your pages. I use a separate Gimp page per page. You should come up with a copy of your sketchup export. We will have to crop the page to your "paper" edges. Take care here, so the sizes come out the same, this way, when printed, each page will be in the same scale with each other one. After cropping I use the image button to transform the page from horizontal to vertical. Go a head and do this to all five pages.
CT:)

[rmks2000]

Still following and enjoying this thread. I need a true step by step "Design for Dummies" before I can tackle my own design, but this thread is very helpful.

[Knife]

The way I have been making sure all parts are to scale, is to start with a blank template for each scale I will be making. On the blank template, I start with a white rectangle to represent the final size page after shrunking. For example, if I want a 1/250 scale model, I will make the rectangle 2750 inches (250 X 11 inch) by 2125 inches (250 X 8.5 inches). I then use "WorkPlane" under the tools drop down menu (you did download the Workplane plug-in, didn't you?) to add a workplane to cover the white rectangle (2750" X 2125"). I then move the WorkPlane above the white rectangle. The purpose for this is to keep the model parts that will be pasted into the template separate from the white rectangle representing the final page boundries. I have found that if I don't do this, some of the part's textures get lost in the white rectangle. I also add a thin rectangle 2500" X 4" on the workplane split into 10 equal segments of 250" X 4" each. This becomes the ruler on each page that can be used to make sure the final printed sheet is the same scale as all the other pages. Save this page as "Blank 250 Scale Template", so it can be used as the starting point for all other parts pages. If you want to be fancy, you can also add a border inside the white rectangle to make sure parts don't get too close to the page edges and be in danger of being chopped off by your printer.

Now you can cut parts off your design, and after unfolding they can be placed directly on the blank template. Just make sure you rename the template before you save it. If fact, I rename it immediately after I put anything on it, because SketchUp does an automatic save every few minutes and it might mess up the blank sheet you will need for other pages.

After I finish placing the parts where I want them, I will use the ruler tool over the 2500" rectangle and resize it to 10", reducing the size of the parts from full size to model size. I then save the page as a new file. It can then be exported as a 2d image at 300 pixels/inch.

[ct ertz]

To avoid the texture loss, I make the background white and "cut the plane created by my "paper" boundary. Otherwise, the same general idea. I run a acer mini laptop so any programs or plugins I do not absolutely need I avoid downloading. I want my big computer back!!
CT

[Ironcladman]

Hi,

When is the next lesson? I attached a pic of my first attempt at the CSS Texas! I need to know how to create a backdrop pic box with all the views so I can make an accurate 3D model? And, what type of picture file format works best with GSU, my backdrop images are fuzzy with JPG, should I use a BMP, I don't think GSU can use GIF? I have very accurate 6 view line drawings of ironclads but when I convert to JPG and Import them into GSU the edge of the lines blurr.

This tutorial has been Grrrrrrreat so far! I guess I can't expect to master GSU in one day!

Sincerely,
Ironcladman

[Werner Smuts]

Nice going.. Thank you so far!