Visuals from Hollywood artist Harald Belker

Odds are, you’ve encountered Harald Belker’s work before. As a leading Hollywood concept artist, Harald is the man behind several iconic movie vehicles. His vehicular creds include:

  • The Batmobile from Batman & Robin
  • The Lightcycle from TRON: Legacy
  • The Lexus 2054 and Mag-Lev vehicles from Spielberg’s classic, Minority Report

    • The guy’s got serious game.

     

    So you can imagine our delight when our friends at Filter Foundry told us that Harald was using SketchUp extensively on his latest project, PULSE: the complete guide to the future of racing. We immediately reached out to Harald who happily agreed to tell us more.

    “I can somehow just create in SketchUp,” Harald explains. “It allows me to visualize my ideas very quickly, giving me free range to explore. I literally use SketchUp the way I used to sketch with a pencil.”

    Harald starts with a SketchUp model and uses Photoshop to bring it to life.He continues, “SketchUp allows me to very easily create an environment for any vehicle I have designed. The typical application for SketchUp is to model something in 3D, set up the perspective, export the image and use that as an underlay for an illustration in Photoshop.”

    This evolution of a space through SketchUp and Photoshop.Speaking more broadly about SketchUp’s role in the movie industry, Harald tell us that “once it caught on, it spread like wildfire. Now everybody I know is using it.”

    He continues, “Since a lot of people I work with are using SketchUp, it’s a great crossover platform, too. I can model something in SketchUp and I can send that file to somebody who adds something else to it, and it sort of becomes this thing that everybody adds to.”

    An electric race from the pages of PULSE.Thankfully, Harald believes it’s the “natural obligation” of an industry vet to share acquired knowledge, and to make good, he’s posting a series of SketchUp quick tips on Filter Foundry. His first tip shows “how easy it is to create good tires in SketchUp.” Stay tuned for more.

    Harald is offering SketchUp tips on Filter Foundry.As a final note, it’s worth mentioning that Harald got into SketchUp the way most of us did: by modeling (or at least attempting to model) his own house.

    “The way I learned SketchUp was on a tip from a friend, who said to just make your own house in SketchUp.” With a big grin, Harald continues, “Before I was even close to finishing my own house, I started designing my dream house. It ended up being 15,000 square feet. It’s a little big, but there’s nothing wrong with dreaming big.”

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    Sketchup Ur Space

    One of my new favorite sources of SketchUp inspiration and information (inspormation?) is Sketchup Ur Space. A virtual smorgasbord of articles, tips, forums and imagery, this website is sure to make you smile. There’s a monthly PDF magazine, too. The creator of Sketchup Ur Space is Debarati Nath, an India-based writer who shared some information about herself and the new site:


    What am I doing in the arena of 3D?

    My name is Debarati Nath and I have done a degree in Mass Communication. Well, I am not a geek, in no terms so, when I started out working with SketchUp I had only one consoling factor. I had read that SketchUp – a 3D designing tool is for every person and not for geeks alone. Indeed after working with SketchUp for some time now I have realized that even a common person can draw anything from a nail to Burj Khalifa using this designing tool. Thus my work soon became my passion and I wanted to promote the thought of SketchUp to the common masses and of course to the 3D designers all around the world.

    Sketchup ur Space Magazine Gets Its Own Website

    I joined the company SketchUp 4 Architect as a content writer last year. Our company was outsourced SketchUp work and we started out by launching our magazine on www.sketchup4architect.com. This magazine is published in two versions flash and pdf. Soon the magazine became immensely popular and we decided to launch an independent site for the magazine. With this idea the www.sketchup-ur-space.com was launched in March 2011.

    Progress of Sketchup ur Space as an Editor

    In the earlier days the magazine had to travel through troubled waters. Many hardships had to be borne. But soon the magazine earned me many friends. Our journey was made smooth thanks largely to the help and support from Jim Leggitt, Bonnie Roskes, James Hanningan, Nomer Adona, V-Ray/Chaos Group, AR Media and many other friends.

    Goals That Push Us On

    Our motto is same as SketchUp. We want ‘everyone to experience the power and fun of building their ideas in 3D’. Sketchup ur Space always wants to lend its helping hand to the budding SketchUp designers by providing various tutorials, tips and tricks. We want to be a piazza for all the SketchUp artists all over the world. We would like to provide them a common platform to share their views and opinion. Newbie as well as renowned SketchUp artists, geo modelers, architects and SketchUp writers are featured in our magazine. Recently Sketchup ur Space had organized a SketchUp Competition to boost the SketchUp spirit of young designers with V-Ray/Chaos Group to mark our first anniversary.

    Hope that you can add more power to SketchUp and help to make it best designing tool. Connect to Sketchup ur Space Magazine and be a part of our future vision.

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    Garmin Chicago gives away a Nüvi

    It seems like each day more and more of our social lives become location-based. You  can check in here, tag your friends there, or even sign-up for location-based deals. As a company whose products are location-centric, we totally get where you’re coming from (and we like helping you get where you’re going to). So when we heard about theReady to Move You nüvi 2012 line-up, we thought, let’s reward ourFacebook and Twitter friends who love Garmin just as much as they love checking in.

    We’re giving away a nüvi in our 2012 advanced series to whichever of you is the foursquare mayor of the Garmin Chicago Store the moment those models hit our shelves! All you have to do is stop by the store on Michigan Avenue, check in – often – and follow @Garmin_Chicago on Twitter for updates.

    We can’t say exactly when we’ll get these new models – which feature Guidance 2.0 with 3D Traffic and photoReal Junction View – but we’re pretty sure it’ll be mid-September. So you’ll want to be sure you’re checking in as often as possible. Remember, only one person can be mayor at the time, and whoever that is when the official “in-stock” update goes out over Twitter will win!

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    Shortened URLs generated by Google Maps

    Feature in Google Maps that automatically generated a Short URL (aka URL Shortner) to link to any page on Google Maps. This quickly became one of our most popular experiments, and today we’re excited to announce that we have graduated the Short URL into an official feature of Google Maps.

    Starting today, when obtaining a link to a Google Map using the ‘Link’ button on the upper right-hand corner of the page, you now have the option of obtaining a convenient, shortened link by clicking on the ‘Short URL’ check box. Shortened URLs can make it easier to coordinate events and share maps with your friends.

    Click on the link button to create a Short URL for a location

    All  take advantage of Google’s recently announced g.co shortening service. We only use g.co to send you to Google web pages, and only Google Maps can generate a g.co/maps URL. This means that you can visit a a g.co/maps shortcut with confidence, and always know you will end up on a Google Maps page.

     

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    Dakota handheld as a reward in new OpenCaching.com tour

     

    As summer winds down, things are really heating up at OpenCaching.com. In addition to looking for our first class of OpenCaching.com ambassadors, Opie and our OC crew just announced their biggest sweepstakes yet. First we gave out limited-edition geocoins, then we awarded chirp wireless beacons to lucky cachers. That was just the start. Now we’re giving away Dakota handhelds to weekly winners throughout August. Starting Aug. 1 and going through Aug. 28, every 10 approved caches that you add will earn you an entry to win a Dakota 20 touchscreen handheld. While this specific sweepstakes is open to U.S. and Canadian residents, many of our international offices are cooking up exciting promotions to share with their respective countries as well.

    Entering the Sweepstakes is easy (click here for official rules), as every 10 approved caches you add at OpenCaching.com will give you a chance to enter. Once you’ve entered, be sure to check your inbox to find out if you’ve won. We’ll notify each week’s winner the following week. And by all means, feel free to try, try again. After all, publishing caches doesn’t just push you closer to a chance at winning, it also gives your fellow cachers another chance to make great memories in their next outing. And if you’re a diehard cacher who just loves telling their friends about this popular pastime, be sure to click here to apply to become an official OpenCaching.com Ambassador.

    Of the countless emails we get from happy OpenCachers, their most frequent request is that more of their fellow cachers would list their geocaches on OpenCaching.com! Know a fun place to visit near your home? Hide a cache for others to find. Already have caches listed on another site? We provide a page to easily import those listings and let others discover your caches. Whether your importing your existing caches or creating brand new ones, geocachers everywhere will benefit as a wider audience gets exposed to your creativity and enthusiasm for caching. Good luck, and happy caching and creating!

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