Originally built at 1927, Laird stadium is known to have a relatively large size for a school in NCAA Division III. I chose Laird stadium as a model to build, thinking that it would be an easier process than building other buildings. However, my plan to easily complete the task was ruined by the difficulty of the process.
Photo-matching was a great new technique I learned to enhance the quality of my building. It was a tool that helped me a lot building the basic structure. Having the basic shape of the model was far easier than starting from scratch. Laird stadium required a different creation process. The hardest part for me was to make the chairs within the stands. I knew how to make windows or pull out certain walls but did not know how to make hundreds of chairs.
My previous trials of making stands were very unsuccessful. The method I tried was to draw straight line across the entire shape and pull them out at different length to make them look like stands. However, after all the shapes were pulled out, the stands were not in an angle that people could sit on. I had to look for a new method.
YouTube tutorials really helped me pull through. Turning the angle, I used line tool to draw stairs and pull them out throughout the whole stadium to make legitimate stands. I was very happy when I figured out how to make stands. It did not take as long as I thought it would.
Other parts of the building were not done with my difficulty. They could be done within my range of skills. The constant difficulty I had throughout the project was adjusting the view and drawing at the right angle. Having 3-Dimension meant that I could design 3 dimensional objects, but also meant that at a wrong angle, my drawing would be floating in an empty space. In addition, I found that the angle and moving the pan were very sensitive to operate, sometimes making me move my view and look at things I do not want. For example, if I wanted to turn the model a little to adjust few things, I would find out that I turned the whole model around by a lot. Time was really the key; with patience, I was able to finish my model after few good hours of effort and consistent work.
Overall, I believe that the time spent making the stadium was a valuable experience for me because it allowed me to learn new skills and also look back upon the history of Laird stadium. Although I am not perfectly satisfied with the product, making few minor mistakes and having irregular shapes, I definitely improved and did a better job than my expectation. I was able to deepen my knowledge of using sketch-up and also make a design that really looks like Laird Stadium. Yay!
Songj2,
Great job. Your model looks pretty good. I understand all you pain when you said you had trouble with angles and dimensions. Having random lines floating around and stuff is something that I’ve struggled with when I first laid hand on sketchup, Here is a source that was somewhat useful when I had that problem: http://screencast.com/t/gzjg5RdPWIY
I agree that photo matching was very helpful! It’s great when you have a good image that illustrates the structure you are tying to create. As for the problems you faced, looking up tutorials online are a great guide and I’m glad to hear that helped you. The stadium came out looking good as well. Nice job!
Josh,
The final model looks recognizably like Laird Stadium and your persistence paid off. Extruding a staircase to make the bleachers worked well, but I had one issue when I tried to export your model, since the faces of the stairs were reversed. If the “top” or “outside” of a face looks blue/gray instead of white, you can flip it by right clicking and choosing “reverse faces”. Read more about fixing reversed faces here
I too found that sometimes drawing lines that looked perfect at one angle had hilarious results as soon as I rotated the model–at one point I managed to create a window that hovered several feet in front of the building I was modeling! I’m glad you found the extrude tool and youtube tutorials helpful in the end.