Set Design and Sketchup

Sketch Up is a free 3d tool from Google - well, it is the free version of a $500 tool. It works well for what I want - a visualization tool, for playing with ideas and showing them to people. There’s been a number of times where this would have been very handy - and I’m glad this is now in my toolbox. I’ve used it on quite a few shows, now, and it is really handy to be able to show what you mean - to the director and to the cast and crew.

I have, just for giggles, created the last set I built in Sketch Up, as a practice exercise. This is the set for The Silver Whistle, the show put on by the Silver Stars. As part of KWLT’s community outreach, I ran their build crew. If you have Sketch Up (and if you don’t, it is, as I say, free), you can look at it here. If you just want to see what I built, here’s a picture - though it is much cooler when you can rotate it and walk through it. This set was designed by Brian Sheldon and constructed by yours truly and the KWSS build team.

I’ve produced some theatre components - flats, risers, that sort of thing, that you can use to produce set designs in Sketch-Up. The majority of the time for reproducing the Silver Whistle’s set was making these components, so next one will be faster.

I’ve just finished a model of the St Jacob’s Church Theatre in Sketch Up as well. Never been to the theatre? Here’s your virtual chance. I’ve got a picture, here and the Sketch-Up file here. The model is as accurate as memory and the diagram produced by Tim Jackson can make it - ie, not perfect, but pretty good. I’ve designed sets based on Tim’s diagram and had them work fine in the space, so using this model ought to be about the same. However, as the disclaimer below says, no warranties! Note - any errors in the model are probably mine, not Tim’s - he did a great job with the diagram.

To test my model of St Jacob’s Church Theatre, I rumaged and found the plans for Lion in Winter, which I TD’d there back in December. So, I’ve “built” the set in my virtual model and things work pretty much exactly as they did in reality, which is always cool to see. Picture. Sketch Up Model. Only took about half an hour to do - not too shabby!

And, my most recent effort, a model of the new theatre - the one that we’re rebuilding at 9 Princess St. The model is available, but I also did some views. They are fairly large jpgs, so be warned if you are on a slow connection. The theatre has no roof (in the model, that is), so you can see everything and for the same reason there are no doors in the openings. Looking down on the building. I colour coded all the rooms - yellow is the lobby, green is the green room, pink is the women’s washroom, blue is the men’s washroom, grey is the theatre space. The front view of the theatre, showing our property, our canopy and into the building. (Note - colours aren’t exact or final) looking through the front doors - the opening straight ahead will be double doors leading to the theatre space. To the left as you go in is the concession area, the green room door is out of sight to the right and ahead to the left is the opening to the hall to the washroom. The hint of pink you can see is the women’s washroom. Note the washrooms are only 8′ high, compared to 12.5′ for the rest of this section of the building. From the greenroom, ahead is the stairs down and door out to the stage. To the left is the door back out to the lobby. And last, from the audience area, looking up back towards the lobby. You can see the door to the greenroom on the left - where the actors will enter and exit. The platform by the stairs is a wheelchair viewing platform, making our space accessible.

I’ve updated the model to add lots of details. The model is above, but there’s a topdown view showing all the pretty details (sinks, toilets, counters, railings…) here.