I wanted to visualize the fence I was going to build in 3D. I was a 3D animator for almost 10 years so I was drawn to this medium, however I don't have any valid software licenses for the application I used to use (Softimage, Maya or 3DS Max)
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the flat 2D image is a couple layers from my visio
property file |
I then found
Google Sketchup - This is an amazing tool, especially considering it's free. The modeling paradigm is odd (to me) but very fast once you learn it. I've been using Visio for many years to layout plans for house projects and I already had a complete plan of my property, so I loaded that into sketchup and rotoscoped basic shapes for walls, house, etc. The Visio file was used just as a guide,
rotoscoping is "fancy tracing".
From there I:
- laid out the fence objects and verified their dimensions and locations
- Added some trees to get a better sense of scale
- Added a person for scale
- Exported several different camera angles and printed for review
I'll post some photos later of the fence that was a result of this conceptual designing and planning.
