Learn how to utilize dynamic components in SketchUp to place fixtures and customize designs. This in-depth guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to import components, adjust sizes, and manipulate colors to bring your kitchen model to life.
Key Insights
- Dynamic Components in SketchUp are a versatile tool that allows for the customization of models without predefined dimensions. With this feature, users can resize and adjust fixtures such as cabinets to fit their specific model requirements.
- The Component Options tool in SketchUp facilitates the customization of dynamic components, enabling users to measure and adjust the size of imported fixtures effortlessly. This tool can also be used to manipulate colors, transforming the appearance of models and enhancing their visual appeal.
- The 3D Warehouse in SketchUp is a resourceful platform to find and download various components for models, including cabinets of different types and sizes. The warehouse features a collection by SketchUp marked with a check, indicating quality and reliability.
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Let's continue to place fixtures in our model. Let's go to the 3D Warehouse and let's search for DC cabinets and then go to Collections and see this collection by SketchUp with the check mark.
DC stands for Dynamic Components. And we will look at some Dynamic Components right now. As I scroll down, you will see that none of these cabinets show any sort of dimensions or specific sizes.
That is because they have multiple sizes built into Dynamic Components. Let's first find Base Cabinet, One Door, Right Hinge. You may need to hover over it to read the full name.
Base Cabinet, One Door, Hinged Right. This one right here. Let's click Download and load this directly into our SketchUp model.
Let's place this file right in space, right in the middle of our kitchen. Then we want to place this cabinet right here in the corner. But first, let's open up the Component Options.
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Right-click Dynamic Components and choose Component Options. This will pop up right here. Then go to, then right-click on our toolbar and select Dynamic Components.
You should see a panel that might be floating in space. Let's drag this into our toolbar. This is our Component Options window.
This shows how you can create custom components and allows you to interact with the behavior of a Dynamic Component. As you can see here, when I have this selected, it shows what this cabinet is. It's a 24-inch sink base cabinet.
This is not the furniture that I want. I don't want a sink base. So let's go back to my Dynamic Components, delete this, and go back to my 3D SketchUp Warehouse.
Let's skip the sink base. Let's find Base Cabinet, One Door. Right here—Base Cabinet, One Door, Left Hinge or One Door, Right Hinge.
This is the correct one that I want to import. All right. I'll place it in the center of my kitchen.
Let me go to my Tape Measure tool and measure how wide this cabinet needs to be—1 foot 6 inches, or 18 inches. With this selected, I'll go to my Component Options, change this to 18, and click Apply.
As you can see, this cabinet automatically changed to the appropriate dimensions. I'll orbit down to the bottom and move my cabinet, clicking from this corner to this corner right here. Again, I'll orbit up to the top of my kitchen so I can see everything.
We'll continue to place additional cabinets. Dynamic Components are a great way to allow you to have flexibility with your SketchUp models. They can show movement, with doors opening and closing, have different sizes, or even different colors and appearances.
Keep an eye out for the small green icon next to a component. This symbolizes that the component is a Dynamic Component and has component options. I will leave my Component Options window open and move it to the side while placing components into this kitchen.
Let's go back to our 3D Warehouse and download Base Cabinet Sink with Two Doors. With two doors, one false drawer—no. Base ADA Sink, Two Doors—no.
Basic Cabinet with Two Doors—right here. Load this directly into our model. We'll place this right here.
Again, I'll go to my Tape Measure tool and see how wide this cabinet needs to be. It needs to be 3 feet, or 36 inches. So I will change this to 36 and hit Apply.
Then I will orbit down to the underside of my model. I don’t have my floor open, so I can see this. I’ll place this right there.
Again, I'll orbit to the top and place this cabinet next to the range. This cabinet is going to be Base Cabinet, One Door, Left. We'll go back to my 3D Warehouse and find Base Cabinet, One Door, Left Hinge.
Download this into our model. Place it in the center. Go to the Tape Measure tool.
This is 1 foot 6 inches, or 18 inches. I'll change my Component Options to 18 and hit Apply.
Orbit down to the underside of my model and move this corner to this corner. Now let's move over to the other side of the kitchen and do these two cabinets. Again, I'll go back to my 3D Warehouse and search for Base Cabinet, Two Doors, Two Drawers.
Base Cabinet, Two Doors and Two Drawers. I'll download this into my model and place it in the middle.
I'll hover over it until I have the Rotate tool live and rotate it 90 degrees until it snaps to the green axis. Then I'll orbit underneath my model and place it right in the corner. I’ll measure this dimension right here.
I’ll measure it from the front since we can see the window trim. From the top right here, it's 3 feet. So I'll change this to 36 inches.
Hit Apply. We want to use the same cabinet for this one. So I will copy it using the Move tool with CTRL (or Option) from this corner and copy it to the side, then move this corner to this corner.
Then I’ll use my Tape Measure to measure this dimension, which is 2 feet 3 inches, or 27 inches. I'll adjust this to 27 and hit Apply. Now we have all of our cabinets in here.
When you bring in components such as doors, door hinges, door handles, and other components, they automatically come in this muted yellow color. If I select that color, you can see that it is color B04. You can use the Eyedropper tool and modify what color you want this to look like.
I don't like this yellow color, so I'll modify it and bring the saturation all the way to zero and the black all the way to 100—so it's white. Everywhere you see that color, it becomes white, replacing the default color.
This cabinet that we brought in from VDCI—that is the default color. We now have all of our cabinets in our kitchen. However, we have one final cabinet to place.
We want to put in a Tall Cabinet, Two Doors. So let's open our 3D Warehouse and scroll down until we find Tall Cabinet Open. Download this into our SketchUp model.
Place it here in the middle. As you can see, since we previously modified the material color, it automatically adjusted. Let's rotate this 90 degrees until it snaps to the green axis and orbit down to the underside of our model.
Let's move this to this corner. Now let's measure to see how wide we need to make this—3 feet 6 inches, which is 42 inches.
We'll open our Component Options. Let's change the width to 42 inches and hit Apply. We can close out of our Component Options now.
We have now made and brought in all of our cabinets for our kitchen. In the next video, we will add a countertop, a range, a sink, and our refrigerator. I will see you in the next video.
Thank you.
