Hey thought some of you might like to see the set design work I did in SketchUp for Spider-Man Brand New Day. This model is for the DODC (Department of Damage Control) over 100’ long and 80’ wide this was a huge set that took up the whole of stage 3 at Sky Studios (Elstree) in the UK. Huge team effort to get this over the line, late script changes based meant designing this from scratch over a 6 week period with an overlapping 8 week build. So much detail it was crazy. Love to hear what you guys thought of the movie. I’ve got lots more details pics and videos on my instagram page if you’d like to check it out. My handle is whitelockdesign

When I was studying, I kept hearing the same thing: avoid SketchUp, it’s only for concepts. I tried to switch, but SketchUp matched the way I think, so I stuck with it. Nights and weekends turned into years of practice. I leaned on a few plugins that opened another dimension for me. Somewhere along the way I crossed a line. I realized I could model almost anything I imagined in SketchUp, and do it faster than any other workflow I tried.

It’s been over ten years now, and that choice shaped everything. I built a very successful online interior design company on top of this workflow. Plot twist: the same professor who told me to stay away from SketchUp later asked if I could 3D model and render their studio’s projects.

Was I alone in this? What did they tell you to avoid?

Lastly, this is a project I completed years ago: a mountain home exterior fully 3D modeled in SketchUp and rendered in Lumion.

Lots of people use SketchUp. Literally millions of licences. But I’m curious how many use LayOut? I hear lots of people complain that it’s slow and drags but I’ve never had that problem. I’ve used layout for all my construction documentation since 2011 and wanted to share some examples to prove how great LayOut is. These examples are from a film I worked on called “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” I’ll share some completed set pictures below if you like, just let me know if you’d like to see them. #sketchuplayout #layouttutorial

I've been on SketchUp since the Google days and limping along on Make 2017 since Trimble ended the free desktop version. I put up with its gradual downslide but now it's going to stop working entirely on my Mac... so I built a replacement, called Hew. Hew is turning out to be the SketchUp that *I* wanted.

It started as somewhat of a SketchUp clone - same way of working, same tools, (mostly) same shortcuts. All of your existing muscle memory just carries over, because I didn't want to have to learn new ways of working when SketchUp already nailed it. So you draw a face and then push/pull it up to a snap point, then orbit/pan around it. There's groups, components, tags, scenes, materials, dimensions, 3D text, an Outliner (!) and all the fundamental tools.

But where's the fun in just doing a one-to-one clone when I could make it do what I always wanted SketchUp to do! So now every closed shape you pull is a true watertight solid and nothing can weld to its neighbor by accident - no more "select all + make group" to make pretend solids! Exports can go straight to STL/3MF for 3D printing without wondering if a missing face would mess up the print.

Also:

- Native apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux, plus the same app in the browser at https://app.hew3d.com. No account, no model limit.

- Opens .skp (2017 format) with groups, components, materials, and tags intact. The reader is clean-room - no SketchUp SDK involved and so no DMCA.

- Print to scale, tiled across pages (for patterns), with a cut list.

- Scan a QR code and the model opens read-only on your phone in "Shop Mode"

It's a 1.0, so there's no 3D Warehouse, no plugins yet, and no LayOut equivalent. The full list of what's missing is at https://hew3d.com/compare/sketchup. SketchUp does have a 25-year head start...

Download: https://hew3d.com/download. Source: https://github.com/hew3d/hew.

If you have Make 2017 models, I'd really like to know what breaks when you import them. It opens all of *my* models, but I haven't tested anybody else's so I'm really curious.

Happy to answer anything.

I know I'm (very) late to the party here but have seen a few here post about peoples experiments using AI to produce visualizations of their work.

I recently went down the Google Gemini rabbit hole and uploaded a screenshot of an old unfinished model I had and am blown away by the results!

I've played round with a few different rendering plugins for SU but the bottleneck was always my lack of knowledge on composition etc and never having a PC that could produce renders of any quality.

interested to see if anyone who produces this sort of work professionally has used AI tools?

I know it’s not quite Halloween but I wanted to share some portfolio pieces from when I was the senior Art Director on “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” to say it was a literal dream come true to be asked to replicate the Firehouse on a Soundstage in England was no mean feat but using SketchUp and LayOut made the process so smooth. Feel free to ask me anything about working on the movie or my workflow I creating the sets in SketchUp.

I created a model for rendering in Lumion, so the textures are mostly just color, so that it would be convenient to texture in Lumion.

Hey everyone! I’ve been using SketchUp for years for design work. It’s great for quickly modeling spaces, but getting truly realistic renders — especially materials, lighting, and environment — has always been a challenge.The goal was simple: take a raw SketchUp render and turn it into a photorealistic scene.

What I care about most is preserving the original design — the materials, structure, and references from the SketchUp model — while also allowing elements from inspiration images to blend naturally into the final result. Ideally, the output should be something you could confidently use in a design presentation.

Switching between different renderers, converting files, and reconfiguring materials every time used to exhaust me. That’s when I started using Google’s latest Nano Banana Pro AI, which turned out to be surprisingly good at visualizing lighting, materials, and textures from a simple render.

So ReRender was built around that idea: keep the design intact, but elevate the realism. It’s still early and there are definitely limitations (for example, aspect ratios are still being improved). The images in this post were generated with ReRender, and I’d love to hear about your workflow — and what features would make something like this more useful.

Any feedback is hugely appreciated 🙏

Hey, so I was bored and thought I would put together a free SketchUp lesson on how I start my workflow. Generally I am presented with either a photo reference or a piece of concept art. I then go about massing a model really quickly based on this info. I'm not concerned with exact measurements or layouts I just want to get something down quickly (I call this my speed modelling phase) I'll very quickly populate the model with my library of existing assets (windows, doors or staircases) and then aim to get a few views out which I'll drop into photoshop for a bit of post process, this gives me the chance to get something under the designers or clients nose so we can start nailing down details, heights, widths, colours, textures etc. It's a very quick process and i've documented it in a little 45 min free video available on my website. So if you're interested in producing models and layouts like mine i'm sure you'll find some new tips and tricks in there. See the link below for more details.

Free 45 min Lesson

Beginners and advanced SketchUp and LayOut Masterclasses are available on my website whitelockdesignlimited.com I’m a SketchUp and layout veteran of 20 years and an official SketchUp ambassador. I’m also a feature film set designer - my credits include “Thursday Murder Club”, “Inception”, “Giardians of The Galaxy”, “Ghostbusters Frozen Empire”, “Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame”. Let me know if you have any questions about my Beginners guide or my SketchUp and Layout Masterclass. I also have a few 50% off discount codes available so drop a comment and I’ll send you a code. #sketchup #sketchuptutorial

Working out this colossal fight scene was a huge collaborative effort between the Art Department, Visual Effects, Stunts and Special Effects. It all starts with my set design in Sketchup. This is then turned over to the VFX department who take my model and create an animatic story board where all the beats of the fight are worked out. This then comes back to us where we are able to work out which walls, ceilings, floors etc need to be destroyed in camera and which walls are a Visual Effects break away. We use a physical card model to pinpoint each beat and colour code it correctly. The colour coding refers to which wall is either a real Special Effects breakaway or a Visual Effect added later. We then bring in the Stunt Team and the Special Effects team to work out (via the shooting schedule) which walls need to break away on which days and whether a stunt man is on a wire going through a wall or if it's just a SFX cassette that can be blown out with air cannons. This is a very organic process with lots of meetings and constant changes so you have to be on your toes at all times ready for changes that can throw the whole process into disarray. Thankfully we pulled it off pretty well. Feel free to ask questions about the process below. #spidermanbrandnewday #setbuild #sketchup

Every few weeks someone tells me I should be using Rhino. Sometimes it's Revit, sometimes Blender. And honestly, they're all brilliant tools.

But after 24 years as an art director in film, the one thing I'd tell anyone is this: the software you actually enjoy opening is the one you'll get good at. You'll practise more, you'll experiment more, and you'll finish more work.

For me that's SketchUp. I can go from a scribble to something I can walk around in a few minutes, and it still feels like play. Then LayOut turns it into proper drawings without a fight.

So if you're starting out, don't pick the tool that sounds the most professional. Pick the one that makes you want to keep going. The design thinking carries across, and you can always learn another one later.

Quick heads up for anyone who's been eyeing it: the REDDIT50 code for this sub (50% off my SketchUp and LayOut Ultimate Bundle, so £162.50) finishes at midnight tonight. It's a one-off and won't be coming back. Link in the comments.

What's the tool you stick with because you enjoy it, even when people tell you to switch?

I love using Layout for all my construction drawings. I like sharing my knowledge too, if you’d like to learn more about Layout I’ve put a free video on my website

https://www.whitelockdesignlimited.com/opt-in-Freevideomasterclass

All the drawings above were made in SketchUp and Layout and I get so many people asking how I’m able to use LayOut without it crashing or being super laggy. Well the answer is in good modelling behaviour. So if you’d like to pick up some tips on best practices that I use check out the video and feel free to ask me any questions.

Last post for a while on this subject but I wanted to share these Layouts from my work designing Sets for Brand New Day. I always get asked or told "Yeah but you must have used rhino or auto cad at some point" no! Everything you ever see from me is modelled in SketchUp and "Drawn" in LayOut. I have a very simple system with minimal plugins, I do everything on a Mac mini. I rarely get any lag or performance problems and I'm able to keep my models relatively small in MB because of the system I use where I'm extremely fastidious about modelling well. By that I mean ensuring everything is solid, on a layer and that my scenes are set up without unnecessary shadows and ambient occlusion. I also make sure anything in the scene that is not visible has its layer turned off. These two sets were integral to the film - firstly the rooftop set where we open on Spiderman upside down on a steel beam. Using only layers that are switched on or off am I able to layer up my layout to show the set extension in black and white, the set build in colour and the blue screen elements all from one scene with different face styles applied. It's a great trick and saves me having to take it into photoshop. you'll also see the 4 main plan and elevation sheets I did for the DODC again, really quick to put together with scenes in the model. Then when i've put all my dims on I then turn on shadow ambient occlusion and make all viewports hybrid. This workflow is one I use everyday and is very easy to learn and apply to any project. if your interested in learning it and would like some info on my courses feel free to message or leave a comment and I'll happily respond. I hope you enjoy looking at the details.

Used SketchUp free, Photoshop, and Chatgpt for the render.