Bonzai 2.0 released
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I have been playing with it - both the prior version and this one. It has some great features including a lot of excellent built-in video tutorials that are very well presented. I am nowhere near as fluid in my use of it as SU but I think that is just lack of practice. I have imported SU models via various common formats but have had little luck with direct imports (either getting the unsupported version thing with SU 7 stuff or Bonzai has just choked and died on large SU 6 models).
The Bonzai forum is strangely quiet and it is this lack of a community that has so far kept me from buying it. With Sketchup, we have this truly excellent place and a very helpful bunch of experts not even to mention the many other resources. I suppose it's a bit like the situation with any new thing and SU was like this in the early days as I recall. Having said this, I posted a couple of questions there and they got answered quickly by the moderator/admin.
As for Bonzai being Form -Z dummied up or down, I tried Form-Z and I guess I was too much of a dummy - the UI was just too cumbersome for me. I suspect Bonzai could well take over as the company's main interest as its user base is likely to grow quickly at the price and especially with the new functionality of version 2. I think the addition of components and dimensions might just be enough to cause me to buy a copy.
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@xrok1 said:
hey look, they repackaged form-z. gave it a new name and dummied it up a bit.
i don't see anything new here???formZ: $1125.00
Bonzai: $499.99The "new" price is good though...
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@xrok1 said:
i had to save my file to SU6 format then it came in no problem
BTW right click+ctrl or right click+alt to orbitHow disappointing that the DWG support was upgraded to 2010 - but SKP has yet not been upgraded to SU7. I'd think that SketchUp users is a nice potential source for customers. People used with SU that would like to try out NURBS modelling.
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@unknownuser said:
I've d/l Bonzai 2 and played around with it. I tried to import a .skp but no luck I am afraid. It says 'SketchUp file created in unsupported version'.
Hmm. SKP is a mystical format..
So I suppose Bonzai to SU is ehhh, problematic? -
There is an SDK to read and write SKP files - but it's not been updated to SU7?
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@thomthom said:
@xrok1 said:
hey look, they repackaged form-z. gave it a new name and dummied it up a bit.
i don't see anything new here???formZ: $1125.00
Bonzai: $499.99The "new" price is good though...
Exactly my thoughts too.
I've been playing with the Bonzai demo, and I must say, I'm really impressed. I think Google are really going to have to pull out the stops when they release SU8. Google do have one main advantage over Bonzai, this being that SU has a free version. (SU Mac has also been written in Cocoa, and Bonzai looks like a Carbon hangover
). The real time NURBS are amazing. That's also going to give Rhino a run for its money too. 
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RenderZone Plugin for bonzai3d $399.00, so you are looking at $800 for both apps.
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$900 even.
Anyone used RenderZone? -
I've looked through the gallery and must say the renderer is less than impressive, biggest thing I noticed was horrible shadows with multiple lighting interiors, looks very CG.
Bonsai looks a great modeller, but Renderzone based on LightWorks
, looks very weak. -
I was really thrilled when a beta was released... but got burned with constant crashing. If this is stable to use, I think it has a great potential. Just let us know...
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I thought Renderzone looked "OKAY"....definitely not Vray or even Kerky quality. That's why a good SU7 exporter would make a lot of sense for them. Users in the SU camp who wanted the modeling capabilities of Bonzai, could have that and still use the existing rendering workflow out of SU. Only problem with that is I'm sure you lose some mesh fluidity when converting NURBS to polymesh. Users like me who go from SU to MAX or those who use VUE, Maxwell, Artlantis, etc...should be able to make good use of the exporters provided, which are far superior than the export capabilities out of SU.
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Guys,
I got some feedback from Paul Helm on the queries I had. This is what Paul advises,
**You can also adjust the navigation key shortcuts to be like SketchUp
if you like by going to the Edit Menu: Key Shortcuts. Then from the
lower right, click Load Defaults, and select Preset 2. (Preset 1 is
"like Rhino.").Regarding reading SKP 7 format, there is a bug with the SketchUp SDK
that prevents us from reading this properly, and we are waiting on a
fix from Google. As you have found, you can Save As SKP v6, and
Export DAE also works well (and DAE is the preferred format to export
from bonzai3d to SketchUp).**I imagine he will advise when the bug has been sorted.
Mike
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Hey Mister Bonzai3D Support!
welcome to SCF!
Will ease of use in Bonzai3D get translated to the next big release of FormZ?? I never got on with FormZ because I found it really hard to use (but that was back in the days of Mac OS9!
) Do you think you'll do a Cocoa native version of your software?Tom
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Gentlemen,
Thank you all for your interest and kind words about bonzai3d. We are very excited to push the modeling envelope as quickly as possible -- while making our tools easily accessible to everyone!
Regarding file formats, we will soon support SketchUp version 7 (SKP) format. The only reason that we do not support this right now is that we have encountered some irregularities with the SketchUp 7 SDK -- and Google has been slow in responding to our queries. Hopefully they can get us some answers soon, but until then we must continue using the SketchUp 6 SDK -- which only allows support for version 6 of the SKP format. (Fortunately it is quite easy to back-save files -- even with the free version of SketchUp.)
Translating files both to and from SketchUp also works very well with the DAE format.
Regarding the gallery -- we have (unfortunately) not updated this in quite awhile. We are currently in the process of updating this right now, though, and the new gallery should be available in the next week or two. For now, feel free to check out the images that are displayed at the top of the bonzai3d home page: http://www.formz.com/products/bonzai3d.html . (Some of these projects are modeled in bonzai3d, some in formZ, but all are rendered with RenderZone.)
Mike Lucey,
You mentioned how the navigation commands were not consistent with SketchUp. While we prefer our default settings, we realize that there are a lot of SketchUp users who are accustomed to working a particular way -- so we have a shortcut setting to accommodate this. To load the "SketchUp default navigation commands" go to bonzai3d's Edit Menu: Key Shortcuts, click Load Defaults at the bottom center, and select "Preset 2." (Preset 1 is "similar to Rhino.")
EarthMover,
You note that you had an issue with the bonzai3d download email. We are not aware of any issues, so if you are still having this (or any other problems) please email us directly and we would be glad to help.
And of course if anyone else has any questions, feel free to email us, or post on our forum. We are more than happy to help with any questions that you may have!
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@bonzai3d support said:
Tom (tfdesign),
Yes, and Yes.
The next major update for formZ (version 7) will include most of the interface improvements that bonzai3d has, making it easier and faster to use. Thus learning bonzai3d now can be a stepping point towards learning formZ 7.
(You may also find that bonzai3d is powerful enough that it meets your needs!)
Complete Cocoa implementation is in the works, and will be available soon.
i was hoping you'd say that. i've always been interested in formz but never quite got past the interface, with the new bonzai type interface it could be killer!
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and... and formZ has an SDK...
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Sounds all dandy but Form Z comes at a pretty steep price.
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Solo,
The price for formZ is really not too bad. (We checked out your (very nice) portfolio, and based on the quality of your work, you should be able to buy the software with the proceeds of a single job, right?)
Not to mention that purchasing a new license includes a free upgrade to formZ version 7, and there are very inexpensive options for students...
http://www.formz.com/products/formz/formzSales.html
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i see there's a maxwell plugin for form-z, any change this will work with bonzai?
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Rocky,
The current MaxwellZ plugin for formZ will not work with bonzai3d (yet), but the plugin architecture of formZ and bonzai3d are very similar, so it should not be hard to adapt the formZ plugin so that it can also work with bonzai3d.
We hope that Next Limit will support Maxwell for bonzai3d, but we do not have a definitive answer from them at this time.
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