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Post by babybear on Jul 17, 2016 21:43:49 GMT -9
Im forever trying to up my skill level and want to take another step. Ive been using sketchup since the controls seem natural to me and can make any 2d design I come up with. Getting it out is a whole other beast.... Plain exporting hasn't worked for me at all so I generally screenshot, load into PS, then try to clean up my lines before start texturing. I have ZERO doubt Im doing it the hard way.....
Can some you guys share your workflow steps?
Especially is there a program (Im assuming some hard to learn cad) that allows me to draw it out like a blueprint, then export it so can take straight into PS ready for texturing?
Maybe I got to suck it up and actually learn how to really use PS and draw it out; its just that straight lines, measuring, angles, mirroring, offsetting, snapping parts together and such are so easy in sketchup.
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Post by andrax2000 on Jul 18, 2016 3:23:41 GMT -9
A friend and I are designing 3d terrain (some day soon, I'll be putting some up here). I do the shape design and he does the texturing.
I start in SketchUp. Make sure you design things so that 1 inch in SketchUp = 1 inch in paper; this makes a lot of things easier as you go from program to program. Then I flatten the model in SketchUp using a plugin called flattery, or sometimes by just copying faces and rotating them to be flat on the ground plane. Sketchup will let you export as a 2d DXF (File>Export>2D Graphic... Choose DXF). You have to set some weird parameters: 25.4" in Drawing = 1" in Model (this weird conversion because Silhoutte Studio is dumb and thinks 1 in = 1 mm). I use DXF because you can import it into both Silhoutte Studio and Illustrator.
In Illustrator, I open the DXF (with 1 unit = 1 mm). I select a path in Illustrator and copy it. Then I paste it into Photoshop as a path. By making it a path in Photoshop, I can stroke it to whatever thickness I like, use it to create masks, etc.
To make the cut file, I'll export the PSD as a JPEG, open that in Silhouette, and then drag the DXF file into it. That will give me vector lines that I can line up with the JPG background. Once I've done that, I delete the JPG from the studio file. Repeat for each page.
Because we intend to one day distribute/sell these, and we have layers you can show/hide, the next step is to get everything into InDesign. I export the layers as tiffs and then import those into InDesign. You can just import the PSD, but as far as I could tell, you will need copy of the whole PSD for each layer, and this can make your InDesign file massive, so I use the export/import Tiff route instead. (If anyone has insight on using the PSDs directly in InDesign, please let me know). From Indesign, I get the layers all set up and then export to PDF.
I have tried all sorts of things (different Photoshop plugins, some scripting, etc.) to skip the illustrator step, but there just doesn't seem to be anything I can find that will let me import DXF as paths. Flattery will export SVGs, which might seem helpful, but they are very messy SVGs that have both lines and shapes and many times several duplicates of each. So I end up having to open them in Illustrator to clean them up anyway, because they are too sloppy to use directly as shapes in Photoshop.
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Jul 18, 2016 4:54:13 GMT -9
I've flattened things manually in sketchup, then used that as a guide to redraw the model directly in Silhouette Studio. I set line weights and styles in Silhouette Studio and print to PDF. I open the PDF in GIMP and make all white become transparent. That gives me outlines to work with.
I'm gonna try the DXF route when I get a chance. It will either save me a bunch of time, or end up making more work for me. Not sure, but I'll find out!
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Post by babybear on Jul 18, 2016 7:30:19 GMT -9
great info guys! Got to look some those terms/techniques up but now I have somewhere to start
Have any you tried the sketchup pro for layout feature?
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Post by babybear on Aug 29, 2016 23:10:13 GMT -9
Figured out a simple workflow when using sketchup. Installed the SVG plugin. After got the design done, I put a 8.5 by 11 box around it (make sure set no border and set weight ya want on lines;) export using the svg plugin and open with inkshape. Don't touch at all in inkshape (since I don't know jack about using the program) then print to pdf so can open in PS. No tinkering and done in 30 seconds
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Post by dusancv on Dec 22, 2016 2:05:44 GMT -9
I use 3DsMax + Rhino for modeling. After modeling is done, I export the files as OBJ for Pepakura. Once everything is done in Pepakura, I export back to Rhino as dxf, after the parts are organized nicely in Rhino, I export as pdfs, or if laser cutting I export first to Illustrator and then to Corel Draw as a final ready file for laser cutting. I still didn't use Cameo or similar hardware for engraving/cutting.
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Post by Vermin King on Dec 22, 2016 5:20:34 GMT -9
You use the same programs as ProjectKitt. I really need to use a program to do my projects, but haven't taken the time
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