#85 | Is SketchUp Pro Good for Interior Designers with Tammy Cody
Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. If you're tired of one-size-fits-all all advice to running your interior design business, you're in the right place. Join me each week as we dive into topics to help you run a thriving interior design business. Without the hustle. We'll talk about the business of design, but also mindset and mental health because I know when you thrive, so will your life and business. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate interior design job to build my own design business so that I could realize my own creative dreams, have more time with the people I love, and serve my clients at the highest level, while making more money than I ever could have working for someone else. It wasn't always easy, and I made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today. And I've learned a thing or two. Since then I've built multiple six-figure interior design businesses on authentic word-of-mouth referrals with many repeat clients. And I want to share it all with you the ambitious, inspired, and I get it occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives through the art of interior design, You can do this. Thank you for letting me spend part of this day with you. Let's get to it.
Kate Bendewald
My guest today is Tammy Cody, who is the founder and instructor at SketchUp for interior designers, where she has taught 1000s of interior designers exclusively for over a decade how to master your SketchUp so that they can streamline their productivity while producing beautiful and organized drawing sets to accurately convey their ideas to clients and contractors. As a student of Tami's myself, her teaching style is approachable, and perfectly plate paced for any user, whether you're just getting started, or you're a seasoned user like myself. I've personally been using SketchUp for over 18 years. But I recently found myself running into some challenges and I turned to Tamizh courses, which quickly helped me get unstuck, so I could move forward with my drawing said, if you're considering SketchUp, or you're a seasoned user, you're gonna want to stick around for today's episode. Today, Tim is going to share with us some common misconceptions about SketchUp and how it works. Where to start if you want to explore SketchUp for your interior design business, as well as some new features, you'll definitely want to check out if you're an existing user. Tammy joins us from beautiful San Luis Obispo, California, where she's a mom to her two boys, Ali and Henry, along with her partner Josh, who is also a teacher at SketchUp. So they are a SketchUp family through and through. Hi Tammy, welcome. How are you?
Tammy Cody
Okay, I'm good. How are you?
Kate Bendewald
I'm doing wonderful. It's so good to connect with you again, to me has been a guest inside our interior designers business blueprint, but we have not had her on the podcast that we wanted to bring her in and introduce her to our listeners who may have not heard of her before but tmes you're kind of a big deal in the SketchUp world you are I understand that you sort of help SketchUp in their trainings to and you do teaching and education for them and through them. So we feel pretty lucky to get to sit and chat with you today. Yeah,
Tammy Cody
thanks for having me. Yep, I I have my own SketchUp training business SketchUp for interior designers and then every once in a while I will partner with SketchUp and do some training with SketchUp for schools, visiting professionals and just general you know collaborations with them for things like cables, things like that.
Kate Bendewald
That's excellent. I want to just share with the listeners I mentioned it to you a minute ago before we started recording but and I said this at the opening but first of all, I was shocked when I did the math to to think back that I've been using SketchUp for 18 years. The first time I opened SketchUp was when I was in college design school is 2007 and of course I've had a little bit of break but I've used it exclusively For all of my client work for all of these years, and I used it in corporate, I used it when I was at architecture. And I would say that I'm proficient, I don't know that I would call myself an expert. But I got stuck on something. And I can't even remember what it was. But I know that I have access to the courses. So I opened it up to try to find a solution and try to brush up on whatever it was that I was struggling with. And not only was it so quick to find my answer, but the way you taught it was so clear. And so just effortless to pick it up. And along the way. I think the class excuse me, the lesson that I was doing was a pretty early lesson like one of the like, very, very early lessons, because I wanted to understand about setting up a new drawing the right way, because I was concerned that I wasn't organizing my drawing the best way possible. So this was a very, very, very early lesson. And along the way, I not only found the answer that I was looking for, but in addition to that, you taught me so many little small tips and tricks along the way that I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is fantastic. I'm getting all of these, like little nuggets of knowledge that we're so good. So I think it's really important to share that because I know that, you know, a lot of people listening might be coming, because they're trying to understand or figure out what software to use within their business. But there, I understand are a lot of existing SketchUp users. And if you think that you know everything about SketchUp, or you've got a handle on it, that's great. But I promise you, there's always more to learn to optimize your drawings, so that you can stay really well organized, which is really key to a good drawing set. So I thank you for that.
Tammy Cody
Yeah, that makes me so happy to hear. It kind of reminds me of, you know, a lot of students who are designers who are students of mine that take my courses, they'll watch it a few times, or they'll work through a project while working through it, you know, the third time through to reference the courses and, you know, they're like, Oh, I heard something that I didn't hear the first time through. And it reminds me of like, I a teenager, last night went and saw Doom two for the third time in theaters. And I was teasing him like, you know, how many? How many times do you need to see this movie? And he's like, No, I saw something that I didn't notice the first two times. And it was so neat. And so I feel like that's the same with our online learning process. And just, you know, evolution of of being an interior designer. And that's just so true with SketchUp, there's all these nuances to the software, that sometimes you're just not ready to hear yet. And so you're kind of just like, yeah, just let me get through this project. And then you watch the courses again, and you learn a new tip that's just like, wait a minute, I that's gonna make it even faster. And so that's part of what makes me love teaching and kind of meeting people where they're at. And I really work hard to make the courses applicable to both beginners who are just starting, maybe they're not even super comfortable with their computer. So all levels of computer users. Of course, it is helpful if you're, you know, comfortable with your computer, but on to, you know, users like yourself, who I don't know that I've heard of a designer yet that has as much SketchUp years behind them that you do 18 years as I was just looking it up, and like When did SketchUp even start? You must have been like user number one, but
Kate Bendewald
it was it was before them. So I know. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, well, it I think it's just a testament to your teaching style, and that you are in your lane. Because Thank you, not everybody can teach, you know, and I've, you know, I teach what I teach, right? I talk about business and client management. And those kinds of things are really, I think, natural for me to teach. But if you asked me to teach something really technical, I guarantee you, I will bog you down with the details. It is not my expertise when it comes to technical trainings. So we're really glad that we have somebody like you that can can break it down in a really simple, approachable, easy to understand format. So we're grateful to have you. I want you to take us back to when you started to use SketchUp. And how did you because you're an interior designer first, right? How did you get started using SketchUp? And what is it about SketchUp that was sticky for you that turned you into the guru that you are today?
Tammy Cody
Yeah, I was in my early ish 20s. I'm 40 Almost 41 now, and I knew that I wanted to go back to school for design and had two babies, one, you know, pretty brand new baby and so we're moving along At and I just wasn't quite ready to hop back in to school because of all of that. But I knew I wanted to go back. And I knew I needed some sort of CAD saw, I just was like really itching to get started on my journey in interior design, and I knew that I had, you know, time to be on the computer. And that was about all, you know, that I had time for, was sitting down nursing, things like that. So, had a baby on my lap, opened SketchUp downloaded it and got started there. So it was the very first tool that I learned in the interior design world. So then I we moved shortly after got started in design school, and I used it throughout my two year degree. And, you know, I was being hired by like the head instructor and her firm, because she was like, oh, we need SketchUp. And I got, I was able to hit the ground running very quickly after design school with it, working for other designers, and then in my own firm, just because I, you know, had this tool and I was fairly proficient at it at that point. And just loved using it loved drawing and kind of organically grew into teaching it fairly quickly. Other designers, were you asking me, how are you using this? Can you show me and I was very similar to what you were just saying it was like a fire hose of like, well, it can do this, and this, and I start here and they were like, oh, gosh, just this is too much. And so I would start recording my process, so that I could share it with other people. And so it kind of organically grew into going to other firms and teaching and then recording it online. And so here we are today. So that's kind of how I started and how it grew into kind of a training company.
Kate Bendewald
Absolutely, I It's, you must have a very natural sense of organization, because I think that that is one of the fundamentals of SketchUp, or really any drawing site. It's just having a really well organized drawing set to keep you to keep your your information where it needs to be. And I think that's one of the things that you teach at the very beginning of your lessons that if you can get that, right, like you can't screw up a drawing. And I know that before, when I was first getting started, I didn't really understand the importance of a well organized, drawing set. And and once I learned how to implement that, it became so much easier to backup and fix mistakes. Oh, in fact, that reminds me I just remembered what that was that you taught that I was looking for you were teaching how to align axes to see to color code them so you can see what's on which axes because if you've got something on the wrong axis in 2d, and then you bring it up into 3d and you don't catch it, it can really screw you up. And I've definitely made that mistake before. Yeah,
Tammy Cody
I love I love that you learned that because that's huge. But it's one of those things that if you start telling people in the beginning, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. And I knew I was like that. I was like, I don't want to think about that right now. I just want to do this floor plan. Nice. Yes. So organization. And it's, it's so important to an efficient model. And it keeps you from wanting to tear your hair out when you have in the next iteration of your design. However, I totally understand that it can't always be super organized, like when I send my file to another SketchUp. Or I'm like, I realized this isn't totally what I teach, you know, it's like, Oh, this isn't tagged, or it's got all the, you know, the 3d warehouse tags are all still in there from somebody else adding them and you know what, I try and cleaned up as much as possible. But I understand that sometimes you just have to get it out out there. But there are just these really key like, top three do this every time is working with groups and components, there should be no loose geometry, if you're brand new to SketchUp, you're like, probably glazing over right now. But you know, I could I could go down that road very quickly, but just utilizing all of the panels and just there's a lot of nuances to it. But there are a few things that I just kind of hammer in my classes over and over again. Grouping model organization so important. So if you can just kind of like anything in life, kind of have that baseline to like, then break those rules, then it's like you kind of every project you're like okay, this time around, I'm actually going to organize my model so that when I go to edit it, you know, so yes, those building blocks, but you'll find aren't always super organized.
Kate Bendewald
Oh, I know. Exactly. And I mean if somebody came into the backside of my business and sees you know the We do a really good job of staying organized, right. But it's yeah, there's everyday life, we are moving at a very quick pace. And, you know, not every single thing gets updated the way it should every single time. You know, if you look at a client binder, it might be missing some things. And we just were living in the real world on a real time game. There's Yeah, that's just normal. But
Tammy Cody
but we aspire to, and then what we kind of, yeah,
Kate Bendewald
I think that's really cool. Yeah. Well, so when I talk to designers, it's I talk with a lot of designers who are new to the industry, and they are trying to figure out what software to use. And I am always going to recommend SketchUp, because it's what I know. And I find that the learning curve, I think is a pretty easy one. But yeah, I still hear a lot of people feel trepidation about SketchUp, because they only perceive it as a 3d modeling tool. And while it can and does do all of those things, it can also you can use it in the 2d format to convey basic, you know, layouts. But what are some of the misconceptions that you run into? about SketchUp? When you're talking to designers who were trying to figure out what software to use?
Tammy Cody
Yeah, yeah. One of the common misconceptions that I hear or people are nervous to get started or put too much time into it is, is it a professional software? Like, should I be learning something else? Would it make me more marketable? It's usually I mean, I'm sure this is not 100% of the time, but usually a designer is more concerned that they aren't going to get hired by another firms, they need to learn like Revit, or AutoCAD. But when you're in your own firm, that kind of opens the doors, you know, you're a lot more give a lot more flexibility in what you choose, of course, and so SketchUp kind of becomes a more clear answer. But you know, AutoCAD, there's a lot of firms that use both AutoCAD and SketchUp, because they think that they need the AutoCAD 2d function and the SketchUp, 3d. But a lot of people don't realize that you can use SketchUp for 2d as well. And it's actually a really great workflow, because you're pulling your 2d drawings from your 3d model. So you're able to basically flatten it or take a slice out of your model, and get that 2d documentation from it. And so that just makes your workflow a lot tighter, a lot less likely to make mistakes. So a lot of people are changing, you know, if you move a light fixture down a foot in your model, and you forget to change it in your AutoCAD elevations or whatnot, it, it just makes room for, or it could create some mistakes in the documentation. And it just takes longer. So what I love about SketchUp is that you're working in 3d, and you're working through design problems that you may not have seen in 2d only, I have some funny stories that have, you know, happened to me in real life when I'm just using floor plans or just using elevations. And then you have to install it and you realize, oh, if I would have just done a quick 3d model of this, even if it didn't have all the textures, and all the bells and whistles, I would have seen this and it would have saved time and I wouldn't have, you know, I would save face with the client too. So that 2d and 3d component of SketchUp is just so helpful. A lot of people, a common complaint with people is sketch UPS documentation program, it's called layout. And that's like the paper version of your 3d model. So you work in SketchUp, and then you send it to layout, and it puts it on a page. And so that's where all of your annotations your dimensions are going to live. And so a lot of people are frustrated with layout. However, it has come a long way. And it is continuing to come a long way, especially with this 2024 release. They've made so many improvements and the team at SketchUp is listening to people and their frustration, that layout isn't quite where they want it to be. And so I think it's you know, it's getting so much better already is so much better. And, you know, there's still nuances like any program, there's no perfect, you know, CAD software out there, but I just think that SketchUp so fun. And so that's why I like to use it. And the other ones are just not like I was trying, there's a architect named Nick Saunder that uses it for his entire workflow makes these amazing homes in Lake Tahoe. And he's like, Yeah, I could use a different software, but then I wouldn't have fun at work. And he just was like, why would I do that? And this is So fun. And so yeah, that's just the main reason I use it. It's just nice and flexible. And it's just great.
Kate Bendewald
So yeah, and I think I mean, I haven't looked to see what AutoCAD runs for these days. But I know that for a long time, and it may still be the case that from a cost perspective, it was way more approachable than some of the other software's available out there. So and now they've moved to a membership model. So that definitely, I think makes it easier for those who are looking to invest in and software. Yeah, I love I love it for the same reason. It is fun, I love the interface. And I love nothing more than to like, put on my headphones, put on my tunes and jam out on a drawing with a big cup of coffee and no interruptions and just work through whatever it is I'm designing. In fact, it's something I don't get the opportunity to do enough of these days with my full time job being focused on designers Oasis now. But I do from time to time get the opportunity to to just work in SketchUp. And I for the same reason I just find it, it's very rewarding, I think to find to to be able to take what's in your head and put it into a 3d drawing in a couple of clicks. And that's fine.
Tammy Cody
I agree. absolutely one of my favorite, just, if you want to have fun with SketchUp, and play with it, one of my favorite activities to do is go to one of your favorite coffee shops or like if you're you know, in a major city and you have lots of fun and funky coffee shops to go to just sit down and try to draw the the space that you're in. And it really helps you or you know, like a hotel lobby or whatever inspiring space you can find. It helps you kind of explore the design more than just sitting and looking at it. Like you have to guess Okay, I think this door is this wide, it's this far from the wall, it kind of, you know, makes you more aware of the design and the spatial. Yeah, just gives you great spatial awareness. So great to have a space, it's really fun. And then you can try and put your own spin on the space, of course. But yeah, it's a fun way to practice drawing.
Kate Bendewald
Yeah, I remember an exercise that we did in college with SketchUp, to just start to get used to the tools. And the functionality of it without thinking about design was to create an imaginary like fun zone. And, you know, it didn't didn't matter if the walls were perpendicular, you could just really play and have fun and play with different concepts like shearing and pulling and pushing, and you know, all of these architectural concepts, but without the constraints of a real project just so you could get practice using the different tools available to you. So I love that you were sort of sharing ideas of how you can get your dip your toes in. Just to get started, I love the idea of going into a space and designing it. If someone is wanting to get started with SketchUp. But feeling a little bit overwhelmed about where to start, where do you suggest just the first thing to do to get started?
Tammy Cody
Yeah, I would start with a free seven day trial from SketchUp, you can get that right on sketchup.com. And kind of wait until you have the space to do it. So seven days go by so fast, and then you're like, oh, shoot, now I have to sign up with a different email or try it, you know, whatever. Or just I would never
Kate Bendewald
know
Tammy Cody
not none of your listeners would do that. And I'm sure but you can also there's a free version of SketchUp for the web, you can try with that too. I don't recommend that for designers to use in their business. You know, it's fun to just try it and practice it. It's not a very, it's not as robust as SketchUp Pro, which is the desktop version. You'll need you'll need Pro for your design practice but you can practice and play around in SketchUp for web or, you know, grab the seven day trial of the entire program. So I would do that. I have a really inexpensive SketchUp 101 course it's currently $10 We
Kate Bendewald
will shoot a link to everything on your website but especially that corporate for those who are just wanting to get started.
Tammy Cody
Awesome. And for your listeners if you want that for free just email me I was getting all kinds of spam bots like signing up and they were just like jamming up my I had to put the $10 price tag on it. So I'm totally happy to give it to anybody. It was just to keep the bots from getting in and jamming up my system. Running a business Oh fun. I know I was like I didn't sign up for this Okay, so totally happy, just connect with me I won't like spam you for, you know, whatever you I won't add you to my newsletter list automatically. But anyway, so. So SketchUp 101. And then if you have dabbled a bit and you feel ready to kind of jump into the deep end and be like, I just want to see what it can do. And I want to me to teach me I have a brand new SketchUp Quickstart course. And so that's, again, also approachable, affordable, but we like kind of dig into like actually building out a space a bit more, the SketchUp one on one is more of an obstacle course, to just kind of practice a few tools. So those are two really easy ways to get started. And then of course, I have like a huge, you know, Library of courses that's like the full on system. But if somebody is looking to, you know, they're like, oh, I don't want to learn what, to me, that's totally fine. I won't be offended. But I would love to help everybody. But I understand that not everybody clicks with everybody. So that's fine. But there is a SketchUp campus that SketchUp themselves have developed. There's great courses there. That's free. So the one downside, well, yeah, the one major caveat to that is that you don't like you don't have someone to ask questions if you get stuck. So it's a good place to start. But if you feel stuck, you might want to consider, you know, going the trainer route, like, like I do. And then a lot of you Oh, maybe
Kate Bendewald
your students? I don't know if it's all students, but you offer office hours, right? If somebody I
Tammy Cody
do, yeah, I believe in like, heavily. Either, I'm pretty heavily support my students, like if somebody learns with me, I want them to not feel stuck. And so that's a very large value of mine is that they have access to an expert. So every Wednesday we have office hours live. And they're all recorded and available to students who take my courses. Or they can of course, join live, send questions ahead of time or ask them during office hours, we have like a great community of people that come every week, it's so fun to see everybody. And then a lot of newcomers as well, of course, it's just fun to learn from each other and collaborate. And sometimes they'll ask, you know, SketchUp questions, but more of like, you know, do you share your SketchUp files with your client? If they ask and, you know, just those nuanced questions, it's like, so helpful to have like, what does everybody do? Not just like, What does Tammy think so I love it. It gives me so much energy. And I'm really bummed when we miss a week. But then the other thing I offer my students is unlimited email support. Anybody that purchases a course gets a year of unlimited support within support hours. And then we do discounted tutoring. And you know, if somebody has an email question, I usually make a short video response, instead of making them read instructions, we just, I just hop on a video and record it so they can watch it whenever. And anyway. So I just, you know, I believe in having access to the instructor or, you know, somebody of the same level. My partner's name is Josh, he works for SketchUp. And he is like, my, I don't want to call him like my backup expert, because he knows more than I do, probably, but we kind of, you know, bounce ideas off of each other. And so it's kind of funny in our house, you're not just kidding me, even though he doesn't work for SketchUp for interior designers, you know, I'll our lunch or lunch breaks or like, you know, what would you do if we just kind of go back and forth? Because he does SketchUp training for SketchUp as well. So we're a huge SketchUp house and yeah,
Kate Bendewald
and let's pause there because I want you to share with him he anybody who's had experience with SketchUp will know the classic SketchUp avatar, the guy the jeans and the red shirt. And my understanding is that's Josh right?
Tammy Cody
It is Josh Yeah, let's Riley. He. He was the first scale figure, which is the little person when you first open SketchUp so that you can see human scale. When you draw something, you can always delete them. I usually delete mine, but they're always a SketchUp employee. And so the first version of the web SketchUp version was Josh was the scale figure. And so he was that for years. They usually swap them out every year, but for some reason, he stayed in there for a few years. And so a lot of 3d Warehouse models have him standing in there. He's in a red shirt with blue jeans and his hands are in his pocket. But that's yeah, that's my Josh and she's a little SketchUp figure. He's Yeah, he's also very good. passionate about about SketchUp training and yeah, so
Kate Bendewald
question. This is very off topic from this is more of a personal question. Did you guys meet through SketchUp? Or how does did the what came first relationship or SketchUp? Or did it?
Tammy Cody
Yeah, SketchUp? For sure. Yeah, he we met, he was auditing one of my trainings. And I was in Denver, and he came to audit the class, and then ended up helping me teach it because we had a lot of beginners. And it was great. I was like, This is really helpful. Do you want to help me teach more of these? And so we started training together and just became great friends, and eventually started dating. And then he moved out here. And so we've been together for a little over four years. But yeah, yeah, it's been really fun. And sometimes we're like, are we talking about SketchUp? Too much, and it's okay with you ever. Like, this is great. I'm like, What are we going to talk about if we ever don't have SketchUp, but we get along you, you know, like gangbusters, and, of course, have plenty of other, you know, common interests other than SketchUp. But it is definitely one of them. But
Kate Bendewald
I love it so much. Well, you're clearly an incredibly generous teacher with your time and with your students. And it's it's evident that you that it means a lot to you that they find success. So I really want to highlight it that highlight that but, but also that you've got another SketchUp Pro to turn to if there's ever the need right there in your house. Hey, designer, you've worked so hard on your business, making sure that your website is flawless. Your Instagram is swoon worthy, and your brand is on point. The problem is, you're still facing a balance sheet that is less than inspiring. If you want a thriving interior design business that affords you a great salary without the burnout, listen up. Just breaking even isn't an option. Not only does it lead to overwhelm stress and sleepless nights, but it's a major drain on your creativity. If you're tired of just breaking even if you're tired of missing out on opportunities, because the money just isn't in the bank. And if you're ready to unlock the secrets of profitable interior designers, head over to designers oasis.com forward slash habits to get my latest guide the seven habits of highly profitable interior designers. Inside you'll uncover what you really need to focus on to take you from barely making it to boundless possibilities. Abundance is yours for the taking, download my guide that will help set you on the right track to upgrade your interior design business, head over to designers oasis.com forward slash habits and download yours today.
Kate Bendewald
One thing I love about SketchUp is that they do listen to their users, as you mentioned earlier, and they're always coming out with improvements and new features. And I understand that SketchUp has and layout both have some really exciting new features that they're coming out with. So for for some of our existing users, I'd love for you to share what new features you might be excited about right now.
Tammy Cody
Yeah, absolutely. They really are. This is if you're just getting started with SketchUp. This kind of feels like the golden age of SketchUp. Right now, like they're just coming out with so many fun new things. When you're talking about common misconceptions, you know, they would come out with a new feature and people would be like, come on, like some this we need something better. And so now I feel like every time there's a new feature people are like, yes, thank you, this is what we're asking for. So lately with the iPad version, which in itself is pretty new SketchUp for iPad, you have the AR capability. So being able to hold up your iPad and kind of walk through the design like standing in the space, kind of like putting on a headset and walking through it. But looking at it through your iPad. That's a really fun new feature they're also partnering with. I don't know if partnering is the right word, but I'm going to use it partnering with Canvas, which is a scanning software for your phone or for your iPad and they're integrating it into their iPad app which is just so exciting because then that means that we can scan a space and have a 3d model to work from or some sort of geometry to work from and not have to measure every little thing. So that is really fun. And then with one of the new one A lot of people have probably used if you've been using SketchUp at all, you've probably tried the new diffusion, which is SketchUp. Ai, plugin or extension. That one I am excited about. I don't know that as of this recording, it's super helpful for interior designers, it seems to be more of an exterior. Like, it does better with exterior renderings, but it's basically kind of does iterations of your design. And I was excited about it. At first, I thought, Oh, this is a great way to render to photorealistic render my design. But it was putting windows where there weren't Windows adding an extra cabinets and oh, and as interior designers were like, oh, you know, I designed that for a reason. And there is no window there. And so it's getting better. It's part of what's called for, you know, it's an early versions, and so they know that they're working on it, but it is exciting. It's not something that I'm like, I use it in every project now. So, but it's really neat. And I love that they're, you know, adding AI, which we all were of course afraid of at first, but now I'm on the bandwagon I think it's great. Yeah, it's like, why couldn't I do this when I was like, 60 years old, and I have to deal with it. No, I love it. Yeah. So yeah, just lots of great Oh, and then the thing that I am the most excited about with the SketchUp 2024 release is something called ambient occlusion. And it basically, you know, we've all seen the SketchUp models that are like, this is going to look great when it's done, or it looks great when it's photorealistic rendered. But in the SketchUp, you know, just straight out of SketchUp, it doesn't, it looks more like childish, or you can't quite get it to get the moodiness that you want. And ambient occlusion is like the missing puzzle piece of that of finishing your SketchUp model. It's basically adding shadowing to like the corners anywhere there's a turn or like a gap in your model. Probably not doing a great way of getting it explaining it in dimension. Yeah, like, if you were to look at the corner of your room, you would see darkness as it reaches the corner. So it does it gives it that dimension depth. And so I know you're like, I don't want a corner like am I describing that correctly. But yeah, it's like it's dark in the corners and along the, you know, the, the top of the wall. So anyway, that's basically what it's adding. And it looks really cool. And it's available, you know, SketchUp for iPad SketchUp. Pro, it's just going to be in the Styles panel. And so that is just really cool. Because I don't even know that I will render that mini run, run that many models through my rendering extension anymore. Now that we have that, and scape, which is the rendering extension that I use and love. I you know, I love it. And it's perfect for what I need it for. But now that ambient occlusion is there, I think it you know, it's like that good in between. It's like, this is ready to ship ready to go to the client. So super excited about that. And I love that it's
Kate Bendewald
native to the program. Yes, yes. There's
Tammy Cody
no download.
Kate Bendewald
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. But I wanted to make sure we got the name right. Did you say ambient inclusion? Yeah,
Tammy Cody
ambient is awful. Like, like ambient light. And then it's occlusion with an O. Right. Ambient? No, I don't know. I wish I mean, that's, I'm sure to be called. But I'm like we call it like, I think they did try and figure out what that what else they could call it. But yeah, yeah. So it's for tonight or right? Yes. Yep. Got it. Exactly. So super easy, right in the Styles, edit styles. And it's exciting. Cool.
Kate Bendewald
I will I was going to ask you, what do you use for rendering? And so you sort of answered that already that historically, you've used Inscape, which is a Plugin for SketchUp. But with this view, when you are going to test it out and see but it might be either taking the place or in addition to escape, is that right? Yeah.
Tammy Cody
Yeah, I in the past had used podium su podium and then switched over to N scape a couple of years ago. I love N scape. The one thing that it does have that SketchUp like a native tool doesn't have is lighting. So there's no light being emitted from any of the fixtures in SketchUp. So, you know unless you add like an image of it. I have like a glow image that I add Sometimes it's like just a little flat plane. But there's no there's no light, besides the sun in SketchUp, right, and then in, in a rendering extension, that's where you start to add in those bulbs and emit light. So Inscape is wonderful for that.
Kate Bendewald
Cool. All right, good to know. So before we go, I want it. We talked about your programs, I want to just make sure that everybody knows where to find you online, you've got your, your kind of all over that, you know, you have YouTube, you have your courses. So start with your website, what's the name of it, where people can find it? And just know if you're listening? And you can't write this down? We've got well, be sure to include all of this in the show notes. But go ahead. Awesome.
Tammy Cody
Yeah, and sometimes you can just Google Tammy Cody SketchUp. And you'll eventually find me there. Like if you're trying to contact me, that's a good way to start. But yes, my website is SketchUp for interior designers.com. And my Instagram SketchUp, for designers, in SketchUp, for interior designers was much too long for Instagram. So it's just SketchUp for designers. And if you'd like to email me, you can just find me at Tammy at SketchUp. For interior designers, please feel free to email me with any questions big or small. That's the easiest way to get a hold of me. I'm not one of those people that loves to get into my DMs and Instagram or elsewhere and, and chat back and forth. If you would like to talk with me, please do email me. I will answer your your DMS. But I prefer email might be a few months out like me. Oh, definitely, if you if you contact me on LinkedIn, I don't know if he'll ever hear from me. No, I'm just kidding. I love LinkedIn. But so yes, those two spots are a great place to start. If you're looking for other areas that I teach, if you are a college student, or a professor or instructor of any kind at a college, you can also request a visit from me Trimble's visiting professional program. And we can put a link in there. Those are really fun and a great way to get your students into SketchUp. And just kind of, you know, if they're already using it to get a professional in there and help them tighten up their workflow or work on a project together. Those are super fun. And then, if you are a teacher or a parent of K 12 students, you can also find me on SketchUp. For schools, I have free curriculum there for students. They're really fun. Like we draw a scale figure, I'm dressed in a bee costume. And we talk about how to create those like, remember, we're talking about Josh, he's a skill figure. You can create your own, with your students, things like that we have an obstacle course. So those are that's free curriculum for students. And a great way to kind of get them into it. So can also and that's just SketchUp for schools, if you Google that, or we can link to it. But those two spots are also really fun ways to find me. But if you're trying to get in contact with me, please email me or you can contact me through my website, too.
Kate Bendewald
That's really cool. I had no idea that you taught all of those other courses as well. Fun fact, my girlfriend and I decided she runs she has a farm and they do summer camps. And the summer I'm teaching interior design to kids as Oh, fun. And while this particular run of it, we're doing a technology free version of it, because it's camp oriented. And we want them to Yeah, you know, really be off screens. I think at the end of it, it would be really lovely to introduce them to this as sort of a next step. So thank you for for sharing that with me personally, that's very helpful.
Tammy Cody
But uh, yeah,
Kate Bendewald
lovely to get kids get kids involved with a tool like this. I know, I did teach SketchUp to some high school students, sorry, they were junior high students a number of years ago. And I did all of this planning to try to teach them the fundamentals. And we got in there and they are so smart and savvy with technology that I just showed them like two or three things and they were off and running. They were like, No, we got this, like this through throughout the paperwork. I was like, okay, you don't need me, you got this. And they had so much fun with it. And I can just see kids imaginations going wild with SketchUp. You know, you mentioned something as you were talking there. That just was a reminder for me that designers should really remember that you can also use SketchUp to design your own furniture. If there is something that I can't count how many times in fact right now we've got a table situation we're doing a banquette in a corner and we just cannot find the perfect table for size and shape for this area. And so we are custom designing our own table and Sure we can sketch it on a piece of paper, but with the, with the SketchUp, we can very quickly do a 3d rendering or 3d form of it and then throw it into layout and add the dimensions and send it off to the fabricator and say, what is it going to take to make this? So you really can use it for that as well. Which is really exciting.
Tammy Cody
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then you know, the dimension of InDesign. Yeah, that's true.
Kate Bendewald
That's true. I love I love it. Okay, well, we're gonna make sure to link to all of this. Tammy, you're a gem to the community. And as an as a interior design isn't an interior designer and a student of yours. I'm so grateful that you're here and you're doing this work. It really it really means a lot. So we're glad you're still teaching and still around. Keep it up. We love your work. Thanks for coming today. And of what's your real soon? Yeah,
Tammy Cody
thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. For sure.
Kate Bendewald
Talk soon, bye to me, by a friend, thank you so much for letting me spend a part of this day with you. I'm so passionate about helping designers like you. And I believe in a rising tide that when one of us does well, we all do better. So if you share this attitude of abundance with me, I want you to do just one little thing. Please share this episode with someone using might love it. And if you're feeling extra generous today, go ahead and take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating and review. It's free for you to do and it helps me to be able to keep making more episodes and resources for you. However you choose to help please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you soon.
