New adventures in Sketchup Snobbery
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This might be a totally vacuous post as I know we all have stories like this. This was another one of those tongue biting days dealing with the snobs.
I have spent 6 days remodelling a project for work (sorry I can't post it for client reasons). The architect who designed it works at another firm and sent me their model which I think was done in 3d Studio and delivered to me as a 3ds file. For my part I was supposed to just develop some different options for the same design working with their model. Well maybe the model hadn't exported well as a 3ds file which would account for some of the errors, but not all of them or the fact that they had only modelled the bare minimum. So I modelled it again from scratch. I wasn't looking for brownie points but their model was un-useable. I put in alot more detail too as I thought that it was helpful.
Finished the model, did what I needed to do, and burnt a copy for my boss who met with the architect.My boss came back and said "He was interested in what you managed to do with their model but says he wouldn't touch Sketchup with a bargepole. He did keep the disc though".
I have realised that whenever I come across somebody like this, they are often far from expert in the package that they are using.
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I am afraid some (but not all) architects can be a bit precious (and I am an architect by profession)
It also works the other way. I have built most of my big models in Studio Max and do exactly what you did - rebuild existing models (particularly Microstation). There's nothing worse than hacking another persons model - most of the time it can be quicker to remodel anyway.
Did you supply the model back in Studio Max format? That's probably what he wanted.
A 3DS file would be a pain for him as Sketchup transfers materials as multi sub object materials which requires a lot of work to split if you dont have any Maxscript tools.
I bet a lot of professional imaging houses would do the same with your Sketchup model.Put it down to experience.
Take a look at my last model at http://www.ballymore.co.uk High Point, Hayes listed on front page.
Oh and by the way, I still love Sketchup, including scripting in Ruby.Bill Wood
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I have always thought (and dealt with the same issues mentioned here with other firms) that if Sketchup had a more polished look then people would take it more seriously. The sad fact is that with a price point so low in comparison to the other big modeling apps and with sketchup's "Sketchty, Cartoonish, handdrawn" look people do not think it is a powerful enough app to do the work. I think it is quite opposite. The ease of use brings more people out to use the app and in turn will hopefully changed the overall perception of Sketchup. MAX has been around for quite a while so people think it is the only capable app for modeling or rendering because chances are that is all they know or have heard. Really kind of upsetting because we as artists put just as much time and effort as someone working in MAX yet those people seem to think they are a bit better than anyone else using any other program. Looking at what people like Solo or Silvershadow can do with Sketchup is a true statement to the power of Sketchup. I have on occasion taken someone who was bashing Sketchup to see their work and it tends to change their tone fairly quickly. Of course then I typically get "well that is what we are looking for".
Scott
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Jon,
You did well to bite your lip. No sense in even starting a discussion with one who would make such an uninformed comment. I usually just smile and walk away if it is someone internally. A while back I met with someone that was interviewing for a designer's position with the firm as they were touring. The individual saw some images hanging near my desk and inquired as to how the work was done. After hearing it was Sketchup & Kerky work - they proceeded on an a 5 min. authoritative rant about how much better off we would be if we did all of our modeling in a Revit / MAX combination, and that we should not consider anything other than Maxwell for final images and animations - as it is the premier rendering engine on the market today. I commented that I couldn't even imagine the hours of training that would be involved in becoming proficient with that combination of applications and asked how long it took them to master them. They stated that they were just learning Revit, and did most of their modeling previously in AutoCAD. They also said they would propose using MAX for any "organic" shapes, and that they have never touched Maxwell. I quickly excused myself as I was late for a meeting, and rolled my eyes as I walked past my bosses. Never saw or heard from them again!
I don't discount any software until I actually try to use it. I am so happy to be able to model in sketchup, as it is far more effective and intuitive than anything else I have used......
Dean
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It's surely not the tool that counts, but the skill of the user.
Who would I employ? Probably no-one. But if I did...a master of some inexpensive (or, god forbid, free) software or someone inexperienced (or worse, inept yet proud) in the most expensive?
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I do a lot of modeling for some well known render houses here in the US and I do all my modeling in SU and then export via dwg and import in into max to send them the file.
The only reason I use max is for the reason above and that I also do rendering and use mental ray. Anyone who insists you need to use max is talking out of their backside. For every 100 items I model, one might be done with max and that's usually because of UV mapping issues.
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linea
That kind of thing as hapened to me before but i learned the solution to pass that kind of thing: LIEYING!
I know lying it's evil and all,but hear me out. Keep in mind that even by the model you receveid you know this kind of people that did that 3d model don't know much of MAX or MAYA and, let's be honest their normally not very smart either(anyone that judges someone by their tools and not by their work can't be considered smart). So you can tell them you did that model or images in MAX, MAYA, XSI anything that come to your mind that they'll believe you because in the end they just want the job done and they won't check them how was done,because beeing done with MAX it's just for them to brag with their frinds that their project could just be done with very expensive software... The best part is that they'll probably start seeing you in a diferent way and you'll be making fun of them without they even notice.
This solution has help me avoinding headches given by people like that
David
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Wow Bill, Nice work.
My point is that they were supposed to supply us with much more than they did but rather than drop them in it, I saved their arse. I didn't point this out though as I'm bigger than that, (well I'm bigger than that at work, not here
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The actual format the model was in was irrelevant as we only needed images extracted from it, no need to animate or render. If they had sent an amazing high end model, not that that was necessary, I could see why they might disregard Sketchup.
This is the same old story I know, but I do wonder if Sketchup wasn't mentioned if they would have been a little more grateful. -
No I prefer the Bytor method, hope they enjoy those manuals and in the meantime we'll finish the project for them with £400 worth of kit.
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Ignorance and snobbery are just as contemptible whatever form they take. Lots of people discount SketchUp purely because they have spent hours and hours learning their chosen application, spent a fortune on it, and are jealous that relatively inexperienced newcomers can get images that are as good as (in some cases better) than theirs.
I have seen some fabulous Podium images and some truly crappy 3ds max ones. I have also seen some distinctly mediocre images produced in Maya by someone who has spent years learning it. I produced better images in Podium in a fraction of the time. I'm not pretending that in terms of ultimate quality SketchUp is a threat to 3ds max, because it isn't really, although with Vray and Maxwell maybe it is...
Remember when people sneered at Japanese cars, digital cameras and CDs? You will have the last laugh.
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@bigstick said:
Remember when people sneered at Japanese cars, digital cameras and CDs? You will have the last laugh.
But unfortunately the Japanese were of a mindset that they would continue to improve their products until they were better than the competition. Google clearly doesn't seem to think like that regarding SU.
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Sketchup is a different product compared to 3dsmax, maya etc. so shouldnt be expected to compete with these packages in my opinion.
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One of my fellow members of our Church council is an Architect. He has some very expensive software package that he uses at his office. A couple years ago I had just started playing around with SU as a tool to design furniture to make in my shop and asked him about it. He sort of scoffed and said he'd never heard of it, but that it couldn't be worth much if someone could get it for free.
Some time later I offered to build a prayer rail in the sanctuary and came in, took some measurements of the alter area and the wheel chair ramp up to the alter where we wanted to put the prayer rail. I then did up the plans in SU to use both to present to the council what it would look like and to use as measured working drawings. Keep in mind, I don't do renders, this was just the output of SU alone with some off the shelf textures. When I showed the JPG stills of a few angles of view, our architect member was impressed and asked what I had used for the drawings. He was still impressed after I told him it was the free Sketch program from Google.
Later he had occasion to use another drawing I did for some fencing we wanted to install, and again he was pretty impressed. Even more so when I told him it had only taken me about ten minutes to do a quick but accurate representation of the end of our building where the fencing was to be installed.
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Think of it this way:
Two men are at the airport and they are both going to the same hotel, man one sees a guy in a black suit holding a sign with his name on it, it’s his chauffer, he is being picked up in a limo. The ride is smooth with even drinks available and state of the art sound system playing soft classical music, very soothing.
When he reaches the hotel the chauffer helps him into the reception with his bags, let’s call this the ‘Max experience’.Man two collected his baggage and exited the airport, he raised his hand and a taxi screeched to a halt, the driver loaded his luggage and when he was given the destination details he promptly departed, using his savvy cabby skills he know a quicker way avoiding all lunchtime traffic. There were no drinks available but that did not bother him as he bought a Coke from the vending machine as well as a packet of crisps. There was no soothing classical music, but that too did not bother him as he has all his favorite tunes on his IPod which he listened to during the brief trip to the hotel that once he arrived the cab driver assisted him to the reception and due to his road knowledge and short cuts his tariff was very low and actually a darn bargain, let’s call man two ‘Sketchup’.
What’s the difference, they both got from point A to point B which was the whole point in the first place, sure the one was more luxurious with more bells and whistles, but those extras cost a lot more and took time to arrange, the other got to his destination quicker and with less effort to organize and setup. If the limo had been as swift as the cab and arrived at the same time I bet that man one would have looked down very condescendingly at man two as he was driving in a cab as opposed to a limo, but hey he didn’t and man two got checked in sooner.
Sketchup ain’t much to look at but it certainly is quick and easy, accessible to everyone at a reasonable price, very much like a cab. -
I would have thought the next generation was going to turn out smarter. That's what my father told me. But now that I'm older is clear that my Father lied to me
I remember AutoCad 2.5; it came on 6 - 5 1/4" floppy diskettes, it has not changed a bit over all these years, now I comes on a DVD. (LOL) and it still only does 2d drafting. WOW now that's change I can believe in....... yeah right!
I remember one day being asked to do a simple 3d plan of an existing Condo that I had measured up. The firm I was working for at that time, was using AutoDesk Architectural Desktop. I spend 4 hours trying to accomplish several simple tasks, without much success, inserting on opening into a wall, not never finding a floor entity, nor was I able to raise the elevation of a floor a floor without creating a box. I went home that night, used SU, finished the entire 3d plan in less than 1 hr, exported it to dwg, bought it back to the office the next day. I left that firm shortly thereafter. They could not see why the $12,000.00 dollars they had spent on Software and Seats was not producing the return they had hoped for. My explanation of the benefits of SU went right over the Well Aged Scotch drinking heads of the Principals of the firm.
AutoDesk has done a marvelous job, training the next generation of users with of its outdated Software. This has been accomplished by their AutoDesk University and by supporting their education products at most major Technical and Post Secondary Institutions. And while we are now in the 21st century the Architectureal/Engineering Profession has not asked one fundamental question "Why do we still need 2d drawing to produce 3 dimensional buildings in the 21st century" ?.
You can see why today graduates in Architecture are clones of the snobs that preceded them. They are being trained by the same old school thinking snobs, who were learned it from their predecessors.
@johnsenior1973 said:
But unfortunately the Japanese were of a mindset that they would continue to improve their products until they were better than the competition. Google clearly doesn't seem to think like that regarding SU.
Yes. I agree, It seems Google's objectives are not the same as the original owners of SU had in mind. Thats why we on the Architectural Design side have to be more vocal and make our concerns known.
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Nice comments, both.
@unknownuser said:
Architectural Design side have to be more vocal and make our concerns known.
And while we are waiting for change, we can just go enjoying the ever increasing (in quality and variety) range of user-made plugins by which Su continues to develop
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@solo said:
Think of it this way:
Two men are at the airport and they are both going to the same hotel, man one sees a guy in a black suit holding a sign with his name on it, it’s his chauffer, he is being picked up in a limo. The ride is smooth with even drinks available and state of the art sound system playing soft classical music, very soothing.
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Man two collected his baggage and exited the airport, he raised his hand and a taxi screeched to a halt, the driver loaded his luggage and when he was given the destination details he promptly departed, using his savvy cabby skills he know a quicker way avoiding all lunchtime traffic. There were no drinks available but that did not bother him as he bought a Coke from the vending machine as well as a packet of crisps. There was no soothing classical music, but that too did not bother him as he has all his favorite tunes on his IPod which he listened to during the brief trip to the hotel that once he arrived the cab driver assisted him to the reception and due to his road knowledge and short cuts his tariff was very low and actually a darn bargain, let’s call man two ‘Sketchup’.
...Hehe... This reminds me of me arriving at SF Airport for 3D BaseCamp. I was awaited by a chauffeur in black suit and a limo. Me wearing my two-year old sandals (that I'd been using at excavations for field work), shorts (you saw allmy clothes I took to Mountain View, Pete) and a single carry on luggage. I felt a bit funny...
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Solo that is a great analogy.
Autodesk have the whole thing pretty well sewn up though as they have the education side of it so well controlled. In the UK the only industry recognised qualifications in CAD are City & Guilds courses that solely use AutoCAD and courseware written by Autodesk. You cannot teach the course unless you are trained and accredited by Autodesk. I did these courses in 1998, the courseware is still pretty much the same now. In my opinion these courses are purposefully slow moving as this instills the idea of the Autodesk "vertical product range": the "you'll always need to buy another extension and come on another course..." method. It convinced me that the Autocad gui and workflow was the defacto way of doing things. I can only think that making it all so complex and elitist helps to justify the cost of the software.
The system works though, since my autocad indoctrination, I have immediately looked for GUI similarities with any other cad or 3d software I have used since and find it alien to take on another way of working. I know of a college that prefers to run their own none accredited cad classes just so that they have more flexibility with the software. -
I liked the cab vs limo analogy and just wanted to add that for some people, they have gotten so used to the limo ride that they dont even want to consider taking a cab. Regardless of all the beneficial savings and ease of use, they still want that limo ride.
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Why not make a SU collaborative model that tells a story based on this kind of snobbery? It would be a cool 3D "exquisite corpse" told in several scenes.
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