Rendering in SketchUp

Jim Leggitt: FAIA , 
www.drawingshortcuts.com
 
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Rashad Al-Ahmadi: Landscape designer 
Real-World Inspiration 
Many digital artists believe that the key to creating renderings is observing the real world. As 
you work through this book, learn to look and pay attention to light and how it interacts with 
materials, surfaces, and objects. Study these interactions as you walk around, drive, sit in your 
home, and go about your day. Consider how your perceptions of reality can be applied to your 
renderings. 
Start by observing how light is reflected off surfaces. Note the amount and type of light 
returned. Study how materials interact with each other; try to understand the contrasting and 
complementary nature of these relationships. These interplays could be defined by how bright 
or dull, reflective or muted surfaces appear. 

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Chapter 5: Learning to Look 
Fig. 5.2: 
Irish pub (Ryan W. Knope)
Most daily observational musings fall into three broad categories. These categories are ref-
erenced in the discussion of integrated rendering program values for models in Part 5, “The 
Iterative Rendering Process.” The categories are:
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Quality of Light: Observe the direction, strength, and color of light and the way light 
interacts with objects to cause reflections and accent surface character. These can be re-
created in renderings using IRP and SketchUp Shadow settings. 
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Surface Character: Study how materials and surfaces look: whether they are smooth 
or grainy, etched with lines, or contain a variety of character across the surface. You will 
want to find these qualities in the materials you use for your model. 
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Dull to Bright and Flat to Reflective: Surfaces reflect light in various ways; observe 
the ways they do. Surfaces range from dull and glossy to bright and shiny. Similarly, they 
reflect their surroundings, like mirrors that create clear reflections. They can range from 
clear to muted to indistinct to blurry in appearance.
Part 5 will help you learn to translate your observations into useful but general settings 
for IRPs. Part 6 and the online supplemental chapters will show you how to further translate 
these settings into direct values for each IRP. 

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