one another<\/a> according to the weight and properties of the materials undergirding the structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt also involves calculating the connections between these members of the structure. Structural Analytics produces visual representations on the model of the most at-risk members and connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDaylight Analytics<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nWhat kind of daylight will the people inside a building be getting? Is it too much or too little? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I once had a client who had a beautiful building. It was modern and very well-designed with huge windows. In the common area where all the engineers had their desks and did their work, they had huge windows on the building’s east side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I conversed with my clients, complimenting the building, one of them mentioned how the engineers would get sunburns. So, they had to add a special coating to the windows. In addition to the people getting sunburns, the windows put a lot of heat into the building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Young and impractical architects tend to put visual impressions ahead of practical experience. This is incredibly easy when using a program like SketchUp; it is easy to make a cool-looking building that isn’t structurally sound or practical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bottom line is, there is such a thing as too much natural light inside a building. To help make architectural design more practical, SketchUp features a tool that analyzes how sunlight affects the inside conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HVAC Analytics<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nCertain things affect HVAC functionality when it comes to building design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What size are the rooms? How far do the ducts need to travel from the AC unit? How much daylight do individual rooms get versus others? How long will it take to cool the building down in the heat of summer? What kind of weather do you get in your geographic region?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of these factors affect HVAC. The HVAC Analytics tool in SketchUp help answers these questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Construction Drawing Production<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nMaking a building requires construction drawings. These drawings follow specific industry standards to communicate the structure, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In SketchUp’s early days, I would rely on AutoCAD to produce my 2D construction drawings and use SketchUp to illustrate how the structure looked. These days, I am highly impressed by the capabilities of SketchUp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Can Blender do that SketchUp Can’t?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nBlender is made for movie and video game 3D animation and modeling of all kinds. There is no limit to what you can create with Blender artistically speaking. SketchUp users don’t need to animate anything or create movies, so SketchUp doesn’t have these features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Character Animation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nDo you like Pixar movies? Every character in movies like this need to be animated. Their legs, arms, bare skeletons, facial movement, fur, skin, eyes, emotions, and so on can all be animated in Blender.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEnvironment Animation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThe wind blows, the rain falls, the sun shines, the moon glows. Blender can animate all these things. You can design a tree and then animate the leaves being blown by the wind. These visuals can be rendered to photorealistic quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Particle Physics Effects<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nSmoke, fire, falling leaves, dust, burning embers, magic spells, and so on are just a few examples of particle effects. It is too much work and far too taxing on a computer’s processor to model many raindrops and then animate them individually. The same is true for rising smoke and fire ash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Particle Effects tools simplify and optimize the creation of these effects. You can modify the parameters of the particle effect tools to get incredible effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRigging<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nFirst, you model a character, and then you have to connect the model to a programmable skeleton. This is called “rigging.” If you can effectively rig a model, you can make it move with all the animation tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSculpting<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nModeling a character is one thing, but it is geometry-based shapes. It is incredibly impractical and taxing on the processor to add more detail to a model by adding more geometry. So how do you make a model look more realistic? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world isn’t made of rigid geometry. That’s where sculpting comes in. A lot of other programs made for 3D animation don’t include sculpting in their tools. Blender has all those capabilities in one program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n