SketchUP 8
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@unknownuser said:
I must admit I was really really, really excited when I found out that SU8 was released. Ask yourself what was the first thing you thought when you first heard about the release? That would be the one thing you wanted most from SU8. For me that was "great, no more shadow bug!" I have a few other wishes as well, my top 4 would be: shadow bug fix (top priority), clipping bug, support higher polygon count, and a menu fix.
So I whip out my credit card for the upgrade fee, then I thought: "these are tough times, better check first". I think you know how the rest of that story goes. Truth be told, I'm ready to cut my losses and move on. I've supported SU over a few versions now, I've invested in some ruby scripts to augment the software and overcome shortcomings (this I don't mind as much), I've invested in a few different renderings apps, some of them promising a new release for more than a year and not getting there. However I believe the line in the sand has been drawn for me. I will not upgrade to my pro license to SU8 pro as I have no need for these purported improvements. If the next version of SU have not at least fixed the shadow problem, I have the distinct feeling I will not return to this software. Thus ending my financial support (through the plugins) to the developers of 3rd party plugins as well.
Looks like I got my menu fix, hardly something I would pay $95 for as I have a work-around I use.
Google is turning what was once software with a lot of potential and a keen following into a massive joke. Yes SU is inexpensive, that does not excuse the complacency that has set in with the Google development team and their development architects. Please quit giving us features that we didn't ask for - don't tell/give us what you think we want/need, we know what we want/need and we have not been secretive about it. Rather work on what we did ask for.
Please don't tell me there is no workaround for shadow-bug fix. How many programs are out there that does shadow projection? How many of them suffer the same ailment? How many programming solutions are there to this feature? If the current shadow projection engine only allows that one specific fix, isn't that a sign that the engine is obsolete and should be redeveloped? The owner of the code to the fix may be rich, but I'm sure something could have been hammered out if Google wanted to, but I get the idea they lack the will power to do so.
That's just me. I respect the opinions of my fellow forum members, but please stop protecting a software that is, for all practical reasons, stagnant. Face it, don't be in denial. SU8 is a placebo.
Refreshing. Well said.
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@frederik said:
@geomp said:
What's the difference between Free & Pro? A few menu options? Not enough IMO.
Are you serious...??
What about LayOut, a number of really great importers and exporters (i.e. vector, EPS, PDF) and a whole lot more...If you're so ungrateful and don't see the need in using SU, then please move on and find another app that will suit your needs... No-one is forcing you to use SU...
I don't want Layout. Just SU. And yes, as I said, only difference is a few menu options.
Good day.
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All I can say is WOW to the venom expressed on this thread. I've been using SU since V4 and I love the product. But the day it was purchased by Google it became, as someone else noted, "a Google Earth plugin", and that is the truth. In it's take over Google also destroyed the wonderful forum we had, and tried to force us to join their SU Google groups. (Thankfully so many moved to this great site) So, in case you all haven't realized, Google took a great program that a small segment of the professional population used, and then released it to the masses for their own purposes. Do you think for a minute if all of us moved on from SU it would kill the program? Have any of you used Google Earth? I doubt any of the professionals who frequent this site build models to upload to GE. So who are the people creating all those box models of New Orleans and Detroit? Well they are Google Sketchup's primary market, and unless we accept that, we will continue to be disappointed.
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Hmm. North orientation is still there and I really like the new implementation of it.
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@unknownuser said:
Hmm. North orientation is still there and I really like the new implementation of it.
Jeff, to be more specific.....the 'Set North Tool'
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surely this isn't something they left out of windows and put on macs only but the set north tool is definitely there for me.
maybe you haven't turned it on in view->tool palettes ?
[note, pro trial expired and this is free mac version]
[flash=660,405:25t2op5l]http://www.youtube.com/v/wa5uDhSbSQI?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1[/flash:25t2op5l]
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Jeff in Windows, in the free version, the 'Set North Tool' is greyed out ['Pro Only']
This is a tool I use constantly when Im rendering to set up the right lighting....when dead accurate north orientation isnt important.
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This is pretty much a Google upgrade rather than a SketchUp upgrade with most of their headline changes revolving around GE.
Ive use SU since V2 and I use it daily. I got really really angry when @Last sold out and the prediction then was that it would pretty much become a GE tool....and we werent wrong!.
But these days Im no longer emotionally involved....and my expectations are quite low [and Google hasnt done anything to change this attitude]
From my point of view there is nothing in this upgrade thats worth paying money for...I dont use Layout [possibly should look at it again though, sometime]...I dont give a stuff about GE...and I can live with the occasional toolbar explosion.
I will continue to use V7 Free [and V6 Pro for DWG export].
You cant help being cynical about the way Google released the free version of SU with most of the Pro power....waited a few years to get lots of converts....and then they started taking out bits like DWG import..and now the North orientation....which commercial users pretty much need.
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@stu said:
Jeff in Windows, in the free version, the 'Set North Tool' is greyed out ['Pro Only']
This is a tool I use constantly when Im rendering to set up the right lighting....when dead accurate north orientation isnt important.
well, you did say "which commercial users pretty much need"..
shouldn't they be buying the software anyway?regardless, i'm pretty sure a ruby version will come out soon enough.
in the meantime, for your renderings, can't you just turn on shadows then select everything and rotate it until it's close enough?
[that sounds even easier to me then digging into the model info/location/set.. just ctrlA then Q right? i mean, that's how i've always done it prior to the toolbar version] -
I find this Google comment rather (un)amusing:
@unknownuser said:
Scene Thumbnails
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Scenes Panel included little image previews of the scenes in your model? Your wish is our command.Yeah, right!
How many users have asked for that compared to the REAL improvements we've all been asking for?I feel sad that they seem to have lost contact with reality. And why are they putting up a site for ideas for SketchUp when they clearly don't care one bit what we want?
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I agree with the general consensus that this upgrade isn't worthy of being called 8.0...in fact I'm sticking with using version 7 myself for now. What I don't agree with is pointless complaining - if you have a beef, be specific.
What would make me willing to upgrade is a better plugin managing system and high-poly support. -
Jon, it should be just $95 USD to upgrade.
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Hi all
I've just found out about the release, haven't read this thread, been off the forums for a while (you've been missed
). Does anyone know if I can upgrade my Pro 6 license or do I need to pay the full whack?Jon
edit: the 8 trial has just finished downloading, I'll check I want to upgrade...
2nd edit: It has taken me precisely 5 minutes to see that there is not much new there. Layout 3 looks very interesting though. Dwg export makes it worth buying.
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Thanks d12dozr
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I had some big expectations for v8.
64bit was a given in my world after the huge amount of requests.
I didnt expect any major changes to animation (though SU would surely need them) but I had hoped for some beefed up Open GL enhancements with multiple lights and reflective surfaces. Look what's possible in modern game editors. That should be how all 3d apps looked. Real time lights, reflections and animation.I also naively believed Google would surprise us with some intelligent way of using SketchUp as a sketching device with BIM software like Revit. But nada.
There has already been talks of ditching SketchUp for Revit completely where I work but I've been fighting it off in hopes for some real world productivity enhancements that would justify SketchUp's existence at work when more and more is beeing streamlined and BIMified.What makes me sad is Googles way of letting SketchUp die when it could have grown into something beautiful.
Just by their lack of will to give it some nutrition and water.Where is the creativity in the "new" features of SketchUp v8?
And Google Earth. It's a yoke! Who is using it? I'd rather use some photo images to see how a building looks than a lowpoly, badly textured 3d model of it.
Once SketchUp was seen as a threat to Autodesk but now its withered away into a dusty corner where almost no one take it seriously anymore. Su IS a very good non organic modeler with short learning curve and fast workflow.
BUT, that is not enough today. As it is now we have to use all kinds of work arounds and tricks and third party apps to make it work as we want. And maybe that could work if SU had worked in such a way that it almost was an extension of lets say 3dsMax or Revit. (Yes, I know it's now rather easy to go to MAX but not back and forth as is needed. And there is no BIM intelligence in a SketchUp model.)
SketchUp has to be a child of it's time and work together with other software in a much deeper way. Kind of how the Adobe CS suite works together or Autodesk's software for that matter.I will probably buy the upgrade to v8 just for the ruby speedups but I no longer believe SketchUp will be a major player in the professional architecture industry.
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@stu said:
This is pretty much a Google upgrade rather than a SketchUp upgrade with most of their headline changes revolving around GE.
Ive use SU since V2 and I use it daily. I got really really angry when @Last sold out and the prediction then was that it would pretty much become a GE tool....and we werent wrong!.
But these days Im no longer emotionally involved....and my expectations are quite low [and Google hasnt done anything to change this attitude]
You said it all
I'm a SU user since v2.1I remember the breakthrough of v3 with TRANSPARENCY and SMOOTH CURVES (Villa Savoye was the perfect showcase
)Sketchup 4 introduced the follow me tool, intersect with model, texture repositioning, and of course RUBY API!!!
Sketchup 5 and the sandbox, outliner, collision detection during walk, face me components, opacity maps for cutouts and mesh textures, mesh splitting during 3DS export (finally SU was able to export big meshes),...
Since SU 6 I lost all expectation for any useful tool for me but I'm really thankful to the Ruby plugins coders.
About the infamous shadowbug:
SU3 introduced a fix, called "Carmack's reverse" (John Carmack is the idsoftware genius programmer and guru behind Doom, Quake etc. but it seems that it was Nvidia's Sim Dietrich who found the fix: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/7113) which is patented by Creative. It was disregarded with the introduction of the new revamped 3D engine of SU4 for unknown reason (probably $$$) and never seen back.
To be able to produce "realtime" shadows, SU's 3D engine uses 3D techniques involving OpenGL but these are getting old and Google doesn't seem wanting to actualize them. So we are left with an aging 3D engine, unsolved shadow bug, un-optimized high polycount mesh support (ever seen the world of GTA4, Fallout3, Stalker, Crysis, Just Cause2?), no 64bit support, no "shader" materials (Blinn, Phong, Ward, etc. allowing shiny behaviours), etc.BUT I'm married to SU, I'll keep loving it forever (even if I'll have one-night adventures with, say, bonzai3D or modo or cinema4D or...) BECAUSE it's sooooo easy to use, my brain is addicted, I see the world like a combination of pushpulls/follow me/sandbox, so I guess I will have to live with that
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@pixero said:
I no longer believe SketchUp will be a major player in the professional architecture industry.
Oh stop being so over melodramatic! What on earth are you talking about? Why is this so? What nonsense!
SketchUp is beautiful!
As for BIM intelligence, go get Archicad, Revit or Vectorworks for that (and shell out the rest!).
Google Earth is extremely useful. And it's free, which means my children can use it, as well as inspiring them to become future architects, engineers and designers. Heck, you can even update GE to a professional GIS package if you wish. Alternatively, that's what ArchGIS is for. Is ArchGIS built into Revit, Vectorworks etc? Of course not!
When I show my SketchUp models to common, ordinary people, they are thrilled. No one ever questions the quality of the modelling, animation or rendering. People seem more amused by the inclusion of a toilet! It seems that it is only architectural visualisation technicians who grimace over these minor little details. A bit like hi-fi, and the quest for that 'perfect sound'.
and btw, "yoke" is something that comes from an egg.
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@pixero said:
[...] I no longer believe SketchUp will be a major player in the professional architecture industry.
I don't. I don't see SU going away from my office at least. But then again SU it only used as a visualisation tool - for for that it works great. For BIM work my office use Revit.
@pixero said:
Once SketchUp was seen as a threat to Autodesk
? Really? Why would it be seen as a threat? Apples and oranges. There are many comparisons of SU against other applications - but when it comes to it, SU is designed as a quick sketching 3d visualisation tool - something none of the apps its compared against try to be.
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I've been reading the thread and find it interesting and somewhat informative.
We use sketchup as a tool in our office not a religion. As a tool, it works incredibly well and the dollar to value gained is extremely high.
I know more and more firms in this area for sure are using sketchup as a regular part of their design process. Some of these firms are the celebrity types in Manhattan that can afford to buy any hammer in the hardware store they choose and have many hammers.
We don't use all the abilities of sketchup. just the ones we need and for that, it works incredibly well.
For $95 I get the upgrade or, if I choose, I can pass and not buy it. The cost is not going to change my life and for those not in my situation, they can elect to freely download or not download the free version.
Ok, it didnt come out with everything everyone hoped for and whether its a point upgrade or a whole number upgrade is a matter of symantics. Photoshop rarely if ever changes its interface which I appreciate. I have the latest version and everything I know how to use and existed in a previous version is still right there. I hate when Microsoft rearranges the toolbars and work flow with each new update so I dont update. Last I checked, I was free to do so.
If Google stops developing sketchup today, I would still have a great tool. I also still use pencil 1.0 and pen 2.0.
Its going to be a sunny day so I'm going outside. Later.
Allen
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SketchUp is at our office our mean tool and not only for visualization. We model all our buildings with SU and make real hatched sections through it which are exported to Vectorworks with a ruby and a vectorscript. We use Vectorworks only for layout. I tried layout 2, because it does almost the same what we do in Vectorworks but it is just not good enough. We even use SU for our bill of materials.
This is why i'm very happy with v8 because now SU knows the volume of objects. In v7 i had written my own ruby to calculate the volumes, it worked very good, but it was sometimes a bit slow. I have a ruby and a VBA to export and import my bill of materials to excel and it works perfect.
I use SU as a real BIM and for our office it works better than revit or any other software. And the price less than 10% of revit!
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