Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual

Editing and Modifying Styles

When you install SketchUp on your computer, it comes with a whole slew of styles. The variety of styles is remarkable. Some look like blueprints; others look like hand drawings on the back of an envelope. You can work in SketchUp for a long time using only these premade styles. Doing so will save you large chunks of time, because once you start tweaking styles using the Edit and Mix tabs in the Styles window, there may be no turning back.

Changing Edge Styles

Earlier in this chapter, you learned how to change the style of the faces in your model. When it comes to choosing styles for the edges, you have a lot more decisions to make. Here's where you determine just how "sketchy" you want your model to look. When you look at the collections of styles, it's obvious that there's a big difference between the Sketchy Edges styles and the styles that look more computer generated, such as the style SketchUp uses automatically. One of the goals of SketchUp, as you can tell by its name, is to produce artwork with a hand-drawn appearance. You can do so in a few different ways. Using the Edit tools, you change the way edges (lines) are drawn. The styles in the Sketchy Edges collection combine different effects to give drawings a random, human quality. These effects include doubling up on lines at endpoints, fading lines at junctions, using images to simulate lines with varying thickness, and so on.

Figure 6-28. Your SketchUp model remembers every style you apply to ...