Using Google SketchUp to visualize your Kid's Church design.

My wife had figured out a logo she wanted to use for our Kid's Church.  I was wanting to build a 3D type logo to hang on the wall behind the stage.  I was trying to explain to my wife what I wanted to build, but really didn't do a very good job.  I had used Google SketchUp before to import 3D objects into After Effects.  So I thought it would be a great tool to use to visualize the logo.  The best thing about it, is that you can look at the design from any angle.  And yes, I use the Free version.  I have no need for the Pro version.

Here's a few pictures of the logo in SketchUp.

     

So anyway, I'm not going to go into how to use SketchUp.  Google did a great job of providing a ton of videos and help pages on Sketchup.  All the pieces I used for the Logo, were objects that I made.  There is an extensive 3D Warehouse.  That contains tons and tons of models that people have made and shared.  You'll see a lot of those when you see what we did with SketchUp next.

After we had designed the logo, my wife wanted to really change around the Kid's Church room.  It is also used as a kitchen, reception area, but we were given premission to make it look like a kids room.  My wife wanted to be able to visualize what it would look like with all her ideas.  And also she wanted to be able to show our Lead Pastor what her ideas were.  So I thought SketchUp would be perfect for this.

So the first thing we did was go take measurements of everything in the room.  We measured every wall (height and length).  We measured our portable stages.  We measured the doors.  We measured the cabinets/lockers/appliances.  Everything we could.

So I started in SketchUp by creating the basic layout of the room and creating the walls.   Then I found some doors in the 3D Warehouse.  They weren't 100% the size I needed, but they were close enough.  The one thing I've noticed about the 3D Warehouse, is some objects aren't to scale with the other objects.  You'll simply need to scale them up/down to make them fit correctly.



You can see in the above picture all the items we added.  We added the lockers in the back of the room.  We added the appliances in the kitchen part.  We added the folding chairs.  We add the speakers and the video screens.  We added the TV's where our video game station would be.  We added the sound/video station in the back of the room.  The ideas are endless here.  You can find almost anything you need in the 3D Warehouse.  You may not find the exact make/model of speakers, but you'll find some that are close.  And again, this is just for visualization.

Once you get the room designed exactly like you want.  You can create Scenes.



You can find how to make scenes and make a video of the camera moving from scene to scene.   You can simply google search "sketchup fly through scenes" to find some videos with very simple instructions.

Here's the fly through video We made https://vimeo.com/54210764

I'm surely not an expert with SketchUp.  But I'm pretty proud of the results.

The video feels jerky at times, but hey, it is just for providing a way to visualize our ideas.

So my next project was to layout of sanctuary.  I got started, but only ended up doing the stage.  I ran into issues with getting the steps to look right.  Maybe one day I'll finish.