Is Layout 2 worth the upgrade to SU7?
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I think it feels a lot more polished than layout 1, it also does a couple of really useful things (for me): vector rendering and exporting as images.
Heres the bog standard improvements list: http://sketchup.google.com/product/newin7.html#newinlayout2
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@unknownuser said:
I would like to know if the new Layout that comes with SU7 is considerably better than the older one.
Up until now, I didn't have a reason to leave SU6 behind....Should I?I did a couple of project with Layout2 and I can assure you that it is a great improvement over the first version.
I still haven't upgraded the new version yet,been using the beta version but that run out. I plan to do that these coming days and Layout is probably the main reason. -
I've never used Layout. For me it was SU it self that justified an upgrade. Ruby enhancements and DC's was enough reason for me.
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In LO 2 there were much more - and much more significant - changes compared to LO 1 than from SU 6 to 7. Besides new features (as Remus mentioned vector rendering for instance) there is SPEEED! Considerable speed improvements.
Now I don't know (more exactly don' think) LO 2 will work in combo with SU 6 (like going to and fro between them interactively).
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Mate I've become a bit of a devotee to LO with the new version. Page and layer management is better high res JPG and PNG output is great!
But and there is always a but! Take care! With multi page docs there is a dreadful bug that will delete pages and then permanently corrupt the file and backup! Now I'm tending not to work in multi page docs after I lost 30 designed floor plan layouts!
Hopefully the next version will host a few more of the features requested through testing!
Personally I think it's a great tool - though still limited a bit!
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@richard said:
But and there is always a but! Take care! With multi page docs there is a dreadful bug that will delete pages and then permanently corrupt the file and backup! Now I'm tending not to work in multi page docs after I lost 30 designed floor plan layouts!
What triggers the bug?
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@thomthom said:
@richard said:
But and there is always a but! Take care! With multi page docs there is a dreadful bug that will delete pages and then permanently corrupt the file and backup! Now I'm tending not to work in multi page docs after I lost 30 designed floor plan layouts!
What triggers the bug?
GOD?
Google obselete developers!
Don't know mate - no particular workflow, but it is usually just when clicking through pages! The googies are well aware of it!
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@richard said:
The googies are well aware of it!
"Googies"!
I immediately thought of the Goonies when you said that. "Heeey you guyyys!"
Now my idea of the Google HQ will never be the same again.
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Hey, thanks for all the tips.
You almost convinced me to upgrade to SU7......but having multiple pages crashes and corrupts the file ?
That's not good. I think I'll wait for a fix.Do you guys think the Googies will fix it in an update, or will we have to wait for Sketchup 8?
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Well, that's Richards experience - although a documented one AFAIK (and he was also very active testing
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Id guess they're going to patch it.
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@kwistenbiebel said:
I didn't have a reason to leave SU6 behind....Should I?
nothing to do with LO but there are two small changes that make su7 a lot better to me..
one is that you can now cross a line with another line and it breaks it.. the other, and this is the big one for me, is that you can now draw a line of a set distance on top of an existing one..
imagine you have a line that is 6' long and you would like to make that line 8' long.. with su7, you can draw a line over the 6' one and type 8' into the vcb and it will be 8' long.. with su6, you'd end up with a line that was 14' long.. it added to the length instead of replacing it..
that example isn't to bad because i could simply add 2 more feet but if the existing line is something like ~5' - 4 5/32" then you have a problem..
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Oh, and the texturing tools! Making textures applied unique and then edit them (like in PS) real time! Adding all sorts of dirt and individual irregularities while they update on save in PS. That's really cool.
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I do though think a few things where broken in 7!
- Inferences for me are fairly doggy now, sometimes I just cant get one!
- The scaling of objects then explode to correct texture scaling now requires texture resetting, which isn't great if you had manually resized the texture before scaling.
- I finding certain situations now where I just cant get a face to create even if I make a triangle.
Hope fully an update may fix the layout multi page issue! I know the googies addressed the issue by disabling the opening of corrupted files in the final release. I think to hopefully rely on the backup though if an autosave occurs after the corruption I find that file is also corrupted.
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As Gai suggested I gave a fair bit of feedback during testing, stacks of new feature requests! One being the option to export images back to SU from LO, projected to the model relevant to the model window in LO. I could see this as a great way to create detailed very low poly models.
A low poly model could be created in SU, imported into LO and textures, window images etc be complied for each elevation and then exported back to SU and automatically projected to selected faces.
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@gaieus said:
Oh, and the texturing tools! Making textures applied unique and then edit them (like in PS) real time! Adding all sorts of dirt and individual irregularities while they update on save in PS. That's really cool.
Dam - you know I'd never really tested that feature much! I just gave it a go and note that even if you use a small texture tile then select a face, make texture unique and then open for external edit it actually has created the texture for the whole face, that is DARN cool!!!!! I always thought that would just open the original texture! Dumb is me!
This is a darn cool feature for creating weight maps and the like for rendering and sort of overcomes my suggesting regarding export back from LO (though I still think that handy for creating a texture for the whole model!).
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You know, Richard, that when you rename the *.layout file to *.zip and open it, you can dig down to (I can't tell now which) subfolder to find the LO viewport images of the SU model you inserted into LO in quite hi-res png format (actually, if you turn off background in LO, they also come with a transparent alpha channel).
Now why couldn't you use these images to what you want in SU - like re-texturing and such? Just make the LO view in parallel projection and with a standard view and there you go, you'd hardly even need to position those textures (just size them correctly upon import) as they should fit perfectly this way.
Edit:
Here is a tutorial about tips how to extract these images from the LO file:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?p=91691#p91691
The tut is for another purpose but is well applicable in this case as well. -
Hmmmm? Great tip I'll check that out mate, thanks for the eyes up!!!!
At the moment I use PS to do much the same thing and very accurately.
- Create your low poly model,
- Create a rectangular box stretched clear of and surrounding the model,
- Paint the box with 100% transparent material,
- Export parallel projection images of all faces,
- Edit images in PS > use magic wand to select white outside bounding box > invert selection and crop, any other edits then save!
- Make texture of saved images > paint to correct faces > adjust texture in free pin mode and drag to each corner > set as projected > sample and paint to model!
This positions your texture 100% accurate!!!!!
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Well, you can't entirely spare all the work by extracting the images from the LO file but at least they are already there and no need for meticulously selecting, inverting and all.
Al;so note that that tut was made for LO 1 and ever since they implemented "turning background off" in LO 2 so it's even less hassle. -
@kwistenbiebel said:
I would purchase the upgrade to SU7 just for Layout and use it in a SU6 combo. Is that possible?
KwistenbiebelDid this question get answered? Gaius wrote that he didn't think that the combination would work, but the other responses defended SU 7. I tried out the free version of 7, but twitchy, unreliable snapping and inferencing and many more frequent slogs through Molasses-of-Zoom drove me nuts. Fast.
Otoh, the rasterized images from LO keep me from using it at all....
Eric
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