Tutorial - Basic 3D Dungeoneering

How to use the Neath components to create dungeons and caverns in SketchUp

Version r5
 Neath
these if you are new to 3D and Sketchup.
http://www.sketchup.com/learn/videos?playlist=58

‘Installing’ your Neath Components

Dungeoneering Once you have downloaded the Neath components from
the download link sent to you via email, extract the zip

Tutorial file contents, and copy all the folders into the following
directory in the SketchUp installation folder;

..\SketchUp\SketchUp 2015\Components\
Please note that MonkeyBlood Design & Publishing is not
in any way associated with Trimble. Sketchup is a regis-
tered trademark of Trimble.

If you are reading this, then you have either just bought,
or are considering purchasing the Neath set of compo-
nents for SketchUp.

If you have purchased already, then thank you for your

support, and feel free to create imagery and share it.
‘Installing’ your Neath Template

Feel free to tell others about how you created it as well. Inside the Neath zip file is a file called ‘Neath Template
The more support, the more chance for additional com- r1.skp’. This is the template file for which you should
ponent sets in the future. create your dungeons. It’s set to use feet units, allowing
easy typing of distances and positioning of components.
If you haven’t grabbed them yet, then hopefully this tu-
torial will go someway into reassuring you that its the To use this, copy this file into the following SketchUp in-
right thing to do. stallation folder;

..\SketchUp\SketchUp 2015\Resources\en
US\Templates\

Before you start

Install the software
First thing is first. If you haven’t already got it, then head
over to the SketchUp website
(https://help.sketchup.com/en/downloading-older-ver-
sions) and download and install SketchUp Make 2015. Close down SketchUp if you have it open, and restart.
Please note that this tutorial is based on screenshots of You are now ready to start mapping…
SketchUp Make 2014, but the differences are minor.

Other Tutorials/Learning
If you want to learn more about SketchUp, then head to
the learning section of their website, and watch the tuto-
rials - they are simple and well worth watching.

The link below is a ‘Getting Started’ playlist with 4 videos

in total and will teach you the basics of the GUI and the
fundamental tools. I strongly recommend watching

2
Let’s Map
Startup
When you open up SketchUp you will
be presented with a splash-screen as
show opposite →.

Click the [Choose Template] button

and select the Neath Template r1
from the options. It should be at the
top of the list if you have installed it
correctly. If not, go back and check
the instructions on Page 2.

After selecting the Neath Template r1,

click the [Start Using SketchUp] but-
ton.

Sketchup will now open up.

The GUI
The window will open up in its default state with various
toolbars open. We are only interested in 5 toolbars at
this stage; Standard, Views, Getting Started, Measure-
ments and Construction.

You can check which ones you have available by going to

the View > Toolbars… menu. This will open the dialog
box shown opposite →

Run through the list of under the Toolbar tab, and ensure
only the 5 toolbars we need are ticked. The others are
not required at this stage. Click [Close].

You can drag these toolbars around you window to place

them where they are most comfortable for you.

3
Moving round the view
So now you should have something like this;

Make sure you have left-clicked in the view to make the window/program active.

Hold down your mouse wheel button and move the mouse left/right. This ‘orbits’ around the model. If you had a
component selected it would rotate around the component.

Roll your mouse wheel up and down. This ‘zooms’ in and out of the view, getting closer or further away from the
position the cursor is at.
Zoom Extents If you don’t have a mouse with a wheel or a mouse wheel button, you can use the tools on the
Getting Started toolbar.

Additionally, there is also a Pan tool, for moving from side to side and top to bottom, and a Zoom
Orbit Pan Zoom
Extents tool for fitting all of your model to the window.

4
Adding Components
Okay, lets grab a component from the Neath set and start moving it
around.

From the menu select Window > Components. This should bring up the
dialog box shown opposite →

If it doesn’t look like this, then click the small down arrow to the right of
the little house icon, and select Components (should be the 2nd option).

You can also click the small arrow to the right of the ‘4 squares icon’ to
display the components in the list in different ways.

Double click the _Neath Components v1.0 collection. Next, double click
the Dungeons collection.

You should now see a selection of Dungeon components →

Select and drag the component you want into the SketchUp window, in
this example I’ll select the third component from the top row. Click to
place it.

Here’s an easier way… one that I prefer and recommend;

You can also use the File > Import menu option, and select the files from the operating system file structure. This
might work well if you keep a folder of the icons on your
desktop nice and handy.

I prefer this option as the Component ID’s are clear and

obvious if you’ve used the Quickfinder and you know
what you are looking for →.

Why not try using the view controls discussed on Page 4

now you have a components placed, so you can see how
they work with a model.

5
The Move Tool
Moving a Component
With your component in your model;

Click the ‘Move’ tool,

and hover it
over the com-
ponent. You should
see that whichever
face you hover it
over, you get an ad-
ditional set of red
‘handles’. For the
moment, we don’t
need these, so hover
the move tool over
the component till it
turns blue, then click
on the component
and move around.

As you move it
around, you will no-
tice that it ‘snaps’ to
the red, green, and
blue axes when it
gets near them.

Blue is the up and

down axis, and the red and green axes are near/far and left/right depending upon how you orient your model.

If I move the model so that it ‘snaps’ to an axis, then it will move the component in that direction. At this point, pay
attention to the Measurement toolbar, which will have changed to state ‘Length’. The amount you move the com-
ponent will be displayed here.

You can even type this in while the move tool is active and it
will move it the amount entered, in the direction the com-
ponent is currently positioned away from its original posi-
tion. Try moving it 10 in the blue direction (up) - Type 10
and press enter while the component is being moved up in
the blue axis.

Pat yourself on the back… you just moved your first compo-
nent by exactly 10ft.

Note that pressing the Esc key, ends an action.

6
Rotating a component
So now, with the move tool still selected, we will hover over the top face of the component and click once on the
red handle shown below. You will now see that the component is rotate-able about its centre. The Measurement
toolbar changes to state ‘Angle’, and you can either watch the measurement bar till it reaches the desired angle or
type one in and press enter.

Rotate the component 90 degrees (type 90 and press enter).

Important Note: The further you move the cursor away from the
component at this stage, the more fine control you have over the an-
gle. The closer you are, the easier it is to rotate in increments of 15
degrees.

Also, the angle measurements are absolute, not relative, so if you use
the 180 degree component red handle, and type 5, enter, you will not
get 185 degree, you will get 5 degrees. 0 degrees is on the red axis (3
o’clock).

For the most part, rotating components is easy enough to do by eye

whilst keeping your eye on the measurement toolbar.

7
Mirroring a component
Sometimes a component needs to be mirrored, rather than rotated. For this, you will need the Scale tool from
the Getting Started toolbar.

Select the Scale tool, and then click your component. You will see
that it now has a number of green handles.

Hover over a central green handle in one of the faces, and it

should turn to red. Click it once.

You will see that the component can now be scaled.

If you press and hold the Ctrl key, it will scale about the centre of
the component.

Keep Ctrl held down and move the cursor to scale the component
till the measurement bar reads a scale of -1.00 (this is the
reverse/mirrored version). Click to accept, and let go of Ctrl.

You now have a mirrored component.

8
Scaling a component
Now, scaling a component is pretty much the same as Mirroring, but you need to be careful, as the sizes of the com-
ponents and scales of the textures are such that they are designed to follow the 5ft game square rule-of-thumb. As
soon as you scale something greater or less than a scale of 1, it could product undesirable results.

For this reason, we are leaving that out of this tutorial, but feel free to play with this element later.

Copying a component
Okay, let’s switch back to the Move tool again. You might
want to zoom out a little bit (mouse wheel or Zoom tool) for
this. Click the component as if to move it in the red axis by
100ft.

Press Ctrl once. You will see that it leaves the original compo-
nent in place and moves a copy.

Type 100, press enter.

That’s it… it’s now created a copy such that the same points
on both the copy and original objects are now 100ft apart.

Deleting a component
If you need to delete a component, choose the Select tool, click the component you don’t want, and press
Del.

Copying multiple copies of a component.

Delete the component you just copied in the ‘Copying
a component ‘ example. Select the move tool again.
Zoom right out. Select the component, click Ctrl, move
in the red axis, and type 400, press enter.

Before you do anything else to end the command (such

as pressing Esc, clicking in the window or selecting an-
other tool), type /3. This will create component copies
in between at 3 equal spaces. This is perfect for plac-
ing pillars and such.

Also, you can use the tool in the same way, but in-
stead of typing /3, type *3. This will provide copies
every 400ft, three times.

It’s even possible to do this using the Rotate tool to

create circular arrays of objects
(http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/94896)

9
Aligning Components together.
Okay, so delete all the copies of the object and just leave the one again. This time we will grab a new component as
per the second method mentioned on page 5. Go to File > Import…

If you need to, navigate to the _Neath Components v1.0 folder of components, and into the Dungeons folder.

Select the component D001, and click Open. You should now have a
new component to place in the model. Click to place it in the model.
Once there, select the Move tool, and hover the tool over the new
component as shown. The cursor should snap to the vertex with a
purple dot.

With the purple dot

on the point shown,
click once to move
the object using this
point as the move focus.

Move the component to the original component, and click the point
shown (again a purple dot should snap to the closest vertex). That's
it, you just lined up two components. Just pan round the view a lit-
tle and
make
sure it’s
lined up
and looks good.

Now, make a copy of the

new component - click
the new component with
the move tool. Move it
to a clear bit of the mod-
el space. Press Ctrl (to
make a copy), click to
place it.

Rotate it 180 degrees (using the Move tool, and

the little red handles).

Now using the same method as above, (use the

move tool), select a point on the third component
and move it to the position on the first component
as shown below.

You now have three separate components connected together as

a series of rooms. Well done.

10
Selecting multiple components
Now, in order to select multiple components, you need to use the select tool. Click the select tool.

Select the first component. Now hold down the Shift key (you will notice the arrow cursor now has a little + and -
beside it. Select the second component and third component.

If you click a component twice, it will firstly select it, then secondly deselect it. This is useful if you accidentally se-
lected something you didn’t mean to select.

You can also use the Select tool, to left click, hold and drag a window (from left to right) enclosing all the compo-
nents you want selected. Only components fully within the window will get selected.

If you click and drag from right to left, then any components fully within AND partially touched by the window will
be selected.

Important - With all three components selected, choose the Move tool. Hover over the selected components and
notice that you DO NOT get the little red handles that we have previously used to rotate a component. We explain
how to rotate multiple components in the next section.

The Rotate Tool

Rotating multiple components
So, select the three components again as noted above. Now select the Rotate tool .

Click somewhere in the middle of the floor of the largest

component. You will now be asked to create a start point for
the rotate.

Click anywhere to start the rotate (sometimes it might be im-

portant to select a specific point).

You will see that the three components are now rotating to-
gether.

Type 90 and press enter. This will rotate the components 90 de-
grees from the star position you selected. Note that unlike rotat-
ing components, the number you
enter is relative (NOT absolute).

Well done, you just rotated a bunch

of components.

11
The Push/Pull Tool
Using Adjustable Components (Floors and Walls)
Delete all the components in the model. Another little tip is that you can press CTRL and A to select all the compo-
nents, and the hit the Del key.

Now, some of the components in the Neath set are adjustable. Specifically;

C900 - Adjustable Cavern Floor

D900 - Adjustable Dungeon Floor
D901 - Adjustable Wall Section Free Ended
D902 - Adjustable Wall Section One Ended
D903 - Adjustable Wall Double-sided 5ftW Free Ended
D904 - Adjustable Wall Double-sided 10ftW Free Ended
E001 - Adjustable Outside Ground.

We will now adjust a couple of these components to show you how

to do this. Using File > Import… place a D900 and a D902 into the
model.  You should get something like this →

← Now see if you can place the wall onto the floor like this (using the
Move tool).

Now its time to adjust the floor section (which by default is 100ft square.

Now its important to note that components are not editable unless you
‘double click‘ them. This prevents accidental moving of parts of a compo-
nent and also prevents other bits of components accidentally joining to
others in undesirable ways.

So, let’s double click the floor using the Select tool. You will see that the
other components in the model have greyed out and the component we
are editing has a bounding box around it. →

Now its time to select the Push/Pull tool .

← Hover over the face on the left hand side of the
component till it shades in blue.

Click on the blue face once, and then move the cursor and you will see the floor start to
stretch in the direction you move the cursor. Move the cursor towards the opposite face of
the floor and we will reduce it by 50 feet, so type 50 and press Enter.

← The floor has now become 50ft narrower making it 100x50ft.  Use the Select
tool to click in the model space away from the component (or simply press the Esc
key) to come out of ‘component edit’ mode.

You can do the same with the wall too, by making the
right hand side 35ft smaller OR you can start to move it,
but rather than type in 35 and Enter, you can snap to a
point on the floor component to make it the same size.

12
The importance of making components Unique when amending copies of components
Using the floor and wall sections as an example we are going to explain a fundamental consideration when adjust-
ing components as you did in the previous section. Its important to understand this, so please take some time to
digest.

When you make copies of components, they are linked. This means that changes to you make to one component
(in ‘component edit’ mode) are made to all other instances of the same component.

In some instances this can be desirable, such as having thirty 10ft high pillars that are copies of the same compo-
nent. If you go into ‘component edit’ mode for one pillar, and change to the height to 20ft, then all thirty pillars be-
come 20ft high.

When you are copying floor and wall sections, this is often not a desirable happenstance, as generally you are plac-
ing specific wall and floor components for unique needs. So, lets see how this works in practice.

← Using the floor and wall in the previous
example, I am going to make a copy of the
wall, by using the move tool (and pressing
the Ctrl key before I place it).

I will place it at the opposite end of the floor

→.

Now using the Select tool, double click the

closest wall to go into ‘component edit’
mode. Select the Push/Pull tool and move
the cursor.

← You will see that it is now editing both wall components. Choose the Select

tool, and press Esc to stop editing the component.

If this is not what you wanted, then

how can this be prevented?

The answer is to make any copies of

components that are to be unaffected
in this way, unique.

To do this, chose the Select tool and

select the far wall. Right click on it, and select the Make Unique option. →

← Now when you adjust the wall,
only the component you are adjust-
ing adjusts!

Take care on large models, as this can catch you out, when you zoom out to
see your whole model and find things have changed that you were not expect-
ing :D.

13
Components with ID’s in the 900 range
Any components in the 900 range (for example D906 - Wall Section 5x5ft One Ended) are intended to be used to
create bespoke rooms and chambers rather than being usable rooms/chambers to drop straight into the model.

These components offer a valuable resource in creating specific sizes and types of rooms/chambers for your needs.

D915 D907 D919 D903 modified D920

D900

D916

D911

The above example of P005 - Death Cross Hall uses only 8 different components (some adjusted, rotated and/or
mirrored).

14
Caution using Component ID’s ending in ‘x’
Some of the components in the Neath set have a Component ID, with is suffixed with an ‘x’. These components are
to be used with the following cautionary advice;

When using ‘x’ components, it is possible to create a room/cavern where the closing entry/exit points does not fit
with other components in the set.  Here is an example; →

As you can see the use of the various selected ‘x’ compo-
nents has resulted in an unusual opening into the chamber
at 13.3ft wide and 1ft short on one side. This is a tricky
problem to fix without modifying components away from
the 5ft game square rule-of-thumb.

If you have to use ‘x’ components, then try to ensure that

you use the same ones on one side of the component as you
use on the other, thus balancing out any anomalies.

Its also advisable to start building the room you want start-
ing with the opening(s) (5ft or 10ft wide) and work back
from that point. You can then use components like D901
and D902 for making gap filler pieces where required.

Alternatively, stick to the non-‘x’ components provided for

creating jinks in corridors like D924, D925 and D926.

15
Filling the Gaps
For this section, we will utilise a partially created file. In the dis-
tributed _Neath Components .zip file you should fine a file called
01 - Filling the Gaps.skp. This is a simple dungeon created with
the components as previously explained.

Open it up ‐ you should see this →

There are a few gaps between the various components and we

want to fill these in to give a neater appearance. All we do is
simply create a flat surface to fill in the gaps.

We can create this with the Line or Rectangle tool.

Select the Line tool and start drawing from the inside end cor-
ner of the cavern wall. Move in the green axis, and once the
line turns to green, hold down the shift key to activate the in-
ference lock. Move the cursor to the end of the pillared hall,
and left click to accept.

← From there,
continue to draw
a line to the end
of the pillared
hall, and then trace your way around the left hand side of the dungeon
to get back to the start point.

Once back at the start point,

the shape will close and fill in (in a grey‐blue colour) →. Right click on this
new face and select Reverse Faces. It will now turn white.

← Do the same with the other
side of the dungeon. That’s it, you
filled the gaps.

It does get more involved on mul-

ti-level dungeons, so in the exam-
ple file also distributed in the
_Neath Components .zip file you should find a file called 02 - Filling the
Gaps Multilevel.skp.

← Open this file and you will see

the two flat levels have had their
gaps filled waiting for the sloping
faces to be filled. It’s as simple as
using the Line tool to draw in the
gap. →

Note that sometimes the Line

tool stops making connective
lines, so you may have to re-click from the last point.

16
Setting the Scene
Sometimes, it is important to look at the model from a particular vantage point, move away and then go back to the
same place. Especially useful if you want a particular view of a dungeon, and have to go back to amend it later and
shutting your PC down.

The beauty of ‘Scenes’ is that you can store the scene for later re-use.
Here’s how…

Delete all the components in your model, and place in component P002
- The Pillared Hall from the Premade folder. →

From the menu bar select Window >

Scenes.

← The following dialog box will appear.

Move the view around to get a par-

ticular angle of the Pillared Hall
that you like - here’s mine; →

Now, on the Scenes dialog, press the + button.

Two things have now happened.

← 1) The scene is added to the
Scenes dialog

↓2) the Scene Tabs have appeared

in the model window

With that set, you can now go into the model and zoom
around or pan away from the Scene 1 view we just stored.
Once you are in a totally different position, then either click
the Scene 1 tab in the Scene Tabs, OR, double click the Scene
1 in the Scene dialog box.

Either way should take the view back to the one we saved. You can have multiple Scenes so add as many as you
need.

← If you want to alter the position of a scene, then move to the new position and then
right click on the Scene Tab you want to update. Select the Update option, and the new
position is then overwritten.

17
Shadows
Now, open up the file called 03 - The Pillared Hall.skp in the distributed
_Neath Components .zip file. You should see the following; →

Now go to the menus and select View > Toolbars… Scroll down the Tool-
bars tab until you see the Shadows option and tick the checkbox. Click
Close.

You should now have a

new toolbar, which you
can drag and add to the
SketchUp window in a position to suit yourself.

You can switch the shadows on and off by clicking this button

You can also move the sliders to find a suitable sunlight position for the
shadows. Note that SketchUp does not natively support light sources
other than the sunlight positions offered here →

Playing with Styles

Another great feature of Sketchup is the ability to use Styles to get a look and feel for your im-
ages. Now go to the menus and select Windows > Styles. You should get a new dialog box pop
up.

There is a lot of control here, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we
will keep it simple - you can click any of the styles in the window to
change the style of the model.

The ones presented in the window are Default Styles, but you can
amend these by choosing another set of styles using the dropdown
box. Use the dropdown and select the Style Builder Competition Win-
ners set of styles. Click through a few. Remember you can still toggle
the shadows on/off too.

Here’s a cool one…!

18
Creating Images/Visuals
So, we know how to assemble our dungeon, fill the gaps, switch on the shadows and tweak the styles, all we want
now is a few images to use for a game.

We are after a nice perspective shot, a top-down view, a battlemap view, and a section through the room.

Nice Perspective Shot

Once again, open up the file called 02 - Filling the Gaps Multilevel.skp in
the distributed _Neath Components .zip file. Fill in the missing slope gaps.
Switch the shadows on, and position the view to get something you like to
save an image for. Remember to add a Scene for it (or update existing
Scene 1).  Here’s mine →

So lets create an image from this. Go to the menus and select File > Ex-
port > 2D Graphic. A dialog box appears and ask you to save the image
and provides options for changed the file type. JPEG Image (*.jpg) is a
good choice. Click the [Options…] button.

You will see the following dialog box.

You can untick ‘Use view size’ if you want and create an image to suit your pixel needs
(such as 1920 x 1080 for Full HD display) - for the moment, I’ll keep it as is.

Keep Anti-alias ticked as this makes line edges less harsh.

It’s always a good idea to keep the JPEG Compression slider to the ‘Better quality’ end
of the scale. Click [OK]. Click [Export].

Now, here is the output, but as nice as it is, the edges of the compo-
nents (where they join to the filled gaps) are obvious and we want
these to remain unseen.

To prevent this from happening on the im-

age exports, go to your Styles dialog box,
and click the Edit tab. Untick both the Edges
and Profiles tickboxes. You should see im-
mediate changes in the model window.
Now repeat the image export, and you should get a much better image export without
these edges.

19
Top Down View
So, lets keep the Edges and Profiles switched off for the moment (we can always go and switch them back on if we
need them).

If we take a look at the Views toolbar, we can see a number of different options for look-
ing at the model from orthogonal and isometric views. Click through these and see what
they do. You can always move your mouse in the screen to change these as needed.

If you hover your mouse over these, they state what they are called. Select the one called Top, and you will see
that it now views the model from the top down (roll your mouse wheel or use the Zoom Extents tool to fit it all in
the view. If you look closely, you will see that there is still a perspective view
to the model (ie, I can see some room walls, so its not true top-down).

It may be that your model is

not suited to this orientation,
so you can press Ctrl and A to
select all elements in the mod-
el, and use the Rotate tool to
move it round 90 degrees →.

Zoom in or out to get the shot

you want, and then got to File >
Export > 2D Graphic as before
to create your visual.

20
Battlemap
Now for a battlemap, we need to eliminate the perspective nature of the model’s view. This is simple.

Just select from the main menu Camera > Parallel projection. You will see that
the walls are no longer visible in the model, as its true top-down.

So now if I need to create a

shot for a battlemap, I just
get the bit I want on screen
and export it as a JPEG Image
as before.

You may want to increase the resolution of the JPEG at export

stage by unticking the ‘Use view size’ checkbox and making the
image 2000 pixels wide or better.

Here’s the image at 2000px wide. Now you just

need to post-process in a graphic editor (like
Gimp or Photoshop) to get the scale correct for
printing (generally 5ft = 25.4mm (or 1”)).

So, you can print this to a Battlemap scale in a graphics editing

package such as Paint ShopPro X6 (or similar) for the purposes of
this tutorial). Firstly, we open the image in our package, and meas-
ure the actual number of pixels represented by a 5ft square.
Known corridor widths might be best. Once you know this value,
remember it (or write it down).

You then need to resize the image so that then pixels/in, are the
same value you wrote down.

Now just go to your Print settings and print at 100%, although you
might need to position the print and do it in a couple of passes to
get the room or dungeons you need.

If you are not too worried about shadows, you can print directly (and easily) from SketchUp. Assuming you have a
top-down - parallel perspective view on screen and you go to File > Print. Then untick 'Fit to page'. Set scale to 1in
(in the printout) and 60in (in the SketchUp model).

If you have Use model extents ticked, it will print off the whole dungeon at Battlemap scale! Cool!

21
Here’s a printed battlemap in use… (it’s fair to say the Dragonborn Cleric is screwed…)

22
Sectional View
Okay, now we are steaming along. Let’s do a section through our dungeon.

Go to the main menu and select View > Toolbars… and scroll down to tick the Section toolbar check-
box in the Toolbars tab. It looks like this (and you can drag it an attach to the SketchUp window as
before).

We will leave the Parallel project view on as for the Battlemaps as this provides true sectional views.

Select the Iso view tool

Then select the Section Plane tool

You will see that you get a green plane tool. You
need to place this in the plane that you want to
create a section for, so hover over a face that is
in the same plane as the sectional view you want.

The green arrows indicate the direction that the

section will show the model.

Click in the position shown.

← Now, with the Move tool
you can select the orange
section plane and move it
to where you want →.

Click the Front view tool,

and toggle the Display Sec-
tion Planes tool off. You
can also toggle shadows off too if required. You can File > Export > 2D
Graphic as well to get any visuals you need.

23
Using Layers to control visibility
Okay lets do some reversal of some of the stages done in
the previous model.

So lets switch the Display Section Planes tool toggle on,

use the Select tool to select the orange section plane (it
will turn blue), and press Del.

Go to the main menu and select Camera > Perspective to

switch back to the perspective view.

Go to the Styles dialog, and click the Edit tab, and switch
on the Edges and Profiles check boxes. You should get
back to this →.

You can use SketchUp to place objects on Layers for showing/hiding as you need. You need two dialog boxes up for
this as follows;

Layers ‐ This can be found in the main menu under Window > Layers. →

← Entity Info - This can be found in the main menu under Window
> Entity Info.

By default, Sketchup places all entities on Layer0, and sets it to Visible (see checkbox in the
Layers dialog). Note that you cannot hide the current layer.

← So, firstly we will create a new lay‐
er, and we will call this Hidden Stuff.
Press the + symbol on the Layers dia-
log, and type Hidden Stuff.

Select all the entities as shown →

Then look at the Entity Info

dialog. It should be showing
39 entities all on Layer0.
Change the Layer dropdown
to Hidden Stuff. All the select-
ed items are now on the Hidden Stuff layer.

Now look again at the Layers dialog. The current layer is the one with the small black dot inside the circle to the left
of the Layer name. You can change the active layer by clicking in the circle to the left of the layer name you want to
be active, and the black dot will move position to this layer.
For the moment, we will leave the active layer as Layer0.

Untick the Visible checkbox on the right of the Hidden Stuff

layer name, and all the object you placed on this layer will
now become invisible →

Toggle the checkbox to show again. This allows you to re-

veal or create visuals for parts of maps only as you need
them.
24
Rendering with Visualizer - (http://www.getvisualizer.com/)
Visualizer is a rendering plug-in for SketchUp. It’s free, and is an awesome sun-based, photo-realistic renderer,
which I use to create photo-realistic images rather than using the default 2D Graphic image output from SketchUp.
It is currently unsupported and only works with SketchUp Make 2013 to 2015 versions.

It’s simple to install, and provides simple tool icon to

activate from within SketchUp.

Important Note: Visualizer will always take shadow set-

tings from SketchUp (even if switched off In SketchUp),
and it will ignore any Style settings.

Switch your Hidden Stuff layer back on. Find a view you like the look of, click the Visualizer icon and up pops the
Visualizer window to start the rendering.

The render happens progressively, and is done when you are happy with it. Just hit the Camera icon in the bottom
centre, and it saves the image to the default location.

You have various great controls over the output resolution, but the most impressive control is the depth of field
blur. Drag the slider in the bottom right to blur things more/less from the target point (defined by the square/cross
hair icon). The target point will be in perfect focus. Here are two different examples;

25
Here are some examples of Visualizer-rendered images

26
MonkeyBlood Design would like to say thanks to all the good folks of Google+ who have provided advice and en-
couragement in bringing this to fruition… Thank You!

Visit us at
www.monkeyblooddesign.co.uk

Do you want photo-realistic renders of

your dungeons and caverns?
Get Visualizer!

27
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