Three weeks ago my loving father advised a client we could produce 3D visuals in support of his technical drawings. Great - only, by 'we', he meant me, and by 'me', I mean someone who didn't have a clue what she was doing...
I'd not really played around with SketchUp much previously; I'd started building up a model to include within my development pack for my second module at Uni, but this was very basic and still remains unfinished. So being told I now had to complete real three dimensional visuals for a real client scared the life out of me a little, to say the least.
So, around three weeks ago, I began the journey of creating various 3D visuals which were to be presented to the client today. Anyone who has dabbled in the self-teaching of computer aided design software will understand that the 120 hours spent on this project felt, at the time, like the most stressful hours of my life so far. This may sound somewhat like an exaggeration; however, blood (ok, so this may be an exaggeration), sweat and tears have gone into making this model work. It comes as a surprise that I had any hair left for meeting with the client today, as I've quite literally been pulling my hair out over the ins and outs of SketchUp.
It's definitely been a journey - and a difficult one at that. The model I've created may not look like much, but had been designed in Autocad with a great deal of complexity. And this teeny weeny triangle which seems somewhat minor and of little importance has taken over my life.
I cannot even begin to describe the frustration that this has left me feeling - I tried, tried and tried again, until it became apparent that the roof of my entire model would not work, unless this stupid triangle was 100% correct. I'd say at least half my time spent on this project revolved around this - I never thought I'd see the day whereby I would be sitting at my desk, shaking my computer screen and swearing like a bad ass AT A TRIANGULAR SHAPE. It's safe to say I felt like I was ready to be carted off to the local mental health ward numerous times. My anger and frustration had reached another level.
I think one of the main reasons I have found this project so difficult is due to my lack of knowledge on the architectural side of things. My father had designed the building - however, he has never used SketchUp before and so it became extremely frustrating for us both as he held the architectural knowledge whilst I held the so-called SketchUp skills. It was difficult for me to understand what needed to be done, whilst I think my father found it difficult to understand what could be done in terms of SketchUp's functionality.
After feeling like this project has taken over my life, it's impossible to convey in words the feeling of relief I am experiencing right now, after successfully handing over the visuals to the client today. It's as if I've had a rope around my neck, getting tighter and tighter as more problems arose, which has now been removed. I can finally breathe.
Usually, after a stressful situation such as this one, I would want to stop and relax at this point. However, I'm so amazed by what I've been able to learn and accomplish over the past few weeks that all I want to do now is learn more and progress further onto bigger and better things! And I'm determined not to stop until I can produce high quality visuals at lightning speed (or as close to that as possible!) As I study via distance learning, I am a member of the NDA forum which allows us students to interact with one another since the course is not delivered in a classroom setting. Many of my fellow students have shared their 3D work within the forum, whilst I sit many miles away at my own computer screen in awe of their work. They are all so talented, and seeing their work has given me the encouragement and determination needed to give it a go myself. I'm obviously still a long, long way away from being anywhere near as good as them - however, I'm so proud that I've actually been able to accomplish something as it's not often that I manage to!
So, I'm going to crack on with practicing the skills I have learnt so far whilst attempting to develop them further. The one thing I cannot get my head around, no matter what I read, watch or listen to, is the rendering process. There are so many buttons with so many abbreviations within each piece of rendering software I have gained access to - and I have no idea where to start. If anyone can recommend any tutorials for dummies like myself, please please please do!!!
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