There are plenty of benefits to three-dimensional modeling software today. From a simple tool used by architects to a full-blown visualization program, SketchUp has continuously evolved over the past decade.
Despite its challenging journey, it has grown into a modeler that is capable of integrating with many plugins and rendering software applications that rank among the most robust.
SketchUp is an excellent tool for computer savvy rendering artists of any skill level. This product has a user-friendly interface that allows beginners as well as professionals to easily learn it. You can take full advantage of the auxiliary plugins available within SketchUp once you become familiar with the program.
SketchUp Users favorite extensions
The following are some of the best Sketchup plugins that every user must utilize in 2023:-
Purge All Tool
Maintaining a clean and organized model can be time-consuming and frustrating in SketchUp.
It is not just good practice, but also imperative, as if your model gets too big, you risk spreading layers and model components throughout the whole thing.
Despite its seemingly simple name, Purge All is a very important plugin with a very clear purpose. In addition, this plugin will allow you to perform a more precise and robust purge than SketchUp’s default tools, and you will even be able to see what has been affected after the purge has taken place.
CurviLoft tool
If you are interested in creating curvilinear models of your own, CurviLoft will be the ideal tool for you. It will bring to you things that you would have thought would only be possible if you had a program like Maya or Rhino at your disposal. You can use three tools with Curviloft: lofting along a path, lofting along a line or skinning along a line.
In some practical aspects, CurviLoft and Follow Me have some similarities in terms of how they work and how they function. Compared to CurviLoft, however, CurviLoft is not only capable of connecting two shapes along a path, but it can also connect two different shapes at the same time when they are connected along the same path.
Joint Push Pull plugins
Joint Push Pull offers you a number of tools that you can use to make your model look like the digital Gumby. In addition to going into the technical details of what each of these tools does, be assured that mastering this plugin will save you a great deal of time when you are modeling.
Thea rendering tool
When used in conjunction with SketchUp’s material design, it is a great rendering plugin for its effects and material design features.
The renderer’s fog and cloud preset that are included with the renderer can be used to render an interactive render using Interactive Region Rendering in Sketchup.
Using Sketchup, designers can select specific parts of their designs to render, and Sketchup will respond with the results automatically.
Thea offers a wide range of material types in addition to a broad material library. Whether you are creating layers, tone mappings, displacements, or procedural textures. In SketchUp, you can access these libraries either through the paint bucket tool or through the content browser.
Twilight Rendering Extension
Twilight Render still has a long way to go before it reaches its full potential. It is worth noting that this is the only free rendering plugin that we know of, and it will give you a decent output image as well as a decent library of materials. However, we would like to emphasize that this is not intended for professional users.
Furthermore, it allows Sketchup users to experiment with a rendering tool for free, giving them the opportunity to become familiar with it completely through experimentation. This aspect also resembles SketchUp itself.
Brighter 3D software
The tool features an easy to use interface, a streamlined toolset, and a lot of power under the hood when it comes to visual effects rendering, so it advertises an easy-to-use tool that also has a lot of power under the hood.
With Brighter, you can create an accurate and comparable digital sample image in seconds using an intuitive preview tool that seamlessly integrates with SketchUp.
VRAY plugins
In addition to SketchUp, VRAY supports the application with its own user friendly plugin. If you are interested in making photo realistic renderings using SketchUp, you probably want to start by looking into VRAY as a starting point.
It has a material editor, as well as all the other tools included in the package, which will enable you to create pro quality images and animations with ease.
In VRAY, you are given access to a free set of tools and materials, but you also have the option of putting a little skin in the game to enable you to make full use of the full range of options and settings that are available to you.
JHS Power Bar
This plugin offers a number of useful functions, including the ability to create arrays based on paths. Balustrades can be created quickly using a series of components arranged according to a predefined pattern.
Section Cut Face
This plugin allows you to easily add faces to your section planes. It is also possible to set the face to update automatically as you edit the model, allowing you to quickly change the color for presentation purposes.
