http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58662 Just so I get this straight - You can use googleSU for models in Source games?
You can use anything that can export an SMD, and as SMD plugins are generally written for just about anything, it wouldn't surprise me if you could use sketchup. I've never used sketchup but I would imagine it might be useful for making generic props, although I doubt it would be much good for vehicles or anything that needs to be animated.
Gah. just as I got used to Autodesk Inventor in my Introduction to Engineering Design class. Complicated but not that hard. Slow but precise.
sketchup can also export to obj or dwg/dxf (autocad), it allows you to import your sketchup model into a 3d package that can export as smd, kind of a workaround, still pretty sweet they made an exporter for sketchup
You all laughed at me and whats-his-face when we started mapping in SketchUp, but now valve officially supports it. Pwnt :D Files originally packaged courtesy of Deif, repackaged by me to simplify installation instructions. For all those without L4D that want these plugins. Google SketchUp Exporter Plugins Extract the Plugins folder to your Google SketchUp install location.
No it hasn't, you should still map in hammer, hammer requires a great degree of control and using the grid is vital. For modelling it should be OK, if somewhat basic, but for mapping hammer is still the best choice.
If you want to export your sketchup googles to xsi/3ds/blender, export them as kmz then add .zip to the file name and extract the model from the model folder. Thats a collada file .dae, most programs should be able to import that.
Easier to learn perhaps, but not good. You should learn what you can use, not what goes the fastest .