Google is Listening!
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@unknownuser said:
jbacus i still would like to know what you think of my post
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30586&start=60#p268908I think it is great that you're digging into the real applicability of 64-bit computing for 3D modeling apps, and that you now recognize that 'performance' is the issue that you care about, not our adoption of some particular technology that you think will make a difference.
I want you all to understand that the dev team understands clearly how important general performance is in SketchUp. We work on it with every single release, though sometimes in ways that aren't entirely obvious from the outside. SU7.1 included an entirely new rendering pipeline that was in development for almost two years. In SU8, we reworked the way that raster image data is handled internally. We'll work on something else in the next release.
And while we certainly have a responsibility to increase performance in SketchUp at every opportunity, you must also do your part by managing the complexity of your model to fit within the 'polygon budget' of your particular system.
In game-theoretic terms, SketchUp's modeling performance is a classic "arms race". Every time we make SketchUp faster, you start making bigger models. Then we have to make SketchUp faster again, and then you start making even bigger models. There is no logical conclusion to this game where performance is infinite and you can make an infinitely large model. Eventually performance will plateau, and you'll have to learn how to work with the system as it stands.
john
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When I started with SU modelling, a large model was ~20-30K faces, then it grew steady to be 200K-300K, Now I have a couple of models of 1-2M faces - because my hardware and SU is better.
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@khai said:
but no one's using Collada!
everyone's using OBJ.put it this way. OBJ is better...because ppl are using it. Collada maybe technically better on paper.. but if no one's using it.. it's not better.
right now, to use a Collada model I have to take the DAE into Softimage Mod Tools, save out as a FBX then take the FBX into Wings3D where I can then take it to OBJ...which everything else reads without problems.
take a look. do your own research and you'll see the problem. many apps are writing DAE.. but only a few - SU is one - that reads it...
it's comical!
I'm sorry Khai, but I really have to contradict you here. Yes, you are right, no one apart from Google are (seems to be) using COLLADA, but that doesn't mean that COLLADA is not better, it just means that everyone who are using OBJ (including developers) are ignorant! I have exactly the same problem as you. I need FBX for export to Unity, and hacking a COLLADA file just isn't doing it for me (I used to have to use Autodesk's bloody awful converter- which never works properly
). I have found the Sket2FBX application which works extremely well- but needs the entire Mono framework installed to get it working! No exactly elegant. With FBX, I can export models with faces containing image data and much more, OBJ, I cannot, and often get thousands of triangles that I then have to post process. Again why have this when COLLADA could do all this hassle free?I take my hat off to Google for pushing this along, it's really up to us users to now request COLLADA in the other tools that we use. Why Unity doesn't, I haven't the foggiest (and yes, it's preposterous that it seems like it is up to users to demand these little import/export updates). I really don't like OBJ, but people use it, because they are used to the file format, and don't want change or progression (well that's my reasoning anyway). A bit like the ongoing DWG/DXF's saga, really.
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@jbacus said:
@unknownuser said:
jbacus i still would like to know what you think of my post
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30586&start=60#p268908I think it is great that you're digging into the real applicability of 64-bit computing for 3D modeling apps, and that you now recognize that 'performance' is the issue that you care about, not our adoption of some particular technology that you think will make a difference.
I want you all to understand that the dev team understands clearly how important general performance is in SketchUp. We work on it with every single release, though sometimes in ways that aren't entirely obvious from the outside. SU7.1 included an entirely new rendering pipeline that was in development for almost two years. In SU8, we reworked the way that raster image data is handled internally. We'll work on something else in the next release.
And while we certainly have a responsibility to increase performance in SketchUp at every opportunity, you must also do your part by managing the complexity of your model to fit within the 'polygon budget' of your particular system.
In game-theoretic terms, SketchUp's modeling performance is a classic "arms race". Every time we make SketchUp faster, you start making bigger models. Then we have to make SketchUp faster again, and then you start making even bigger models. There is no logical conclusion to this game where performance is infinite and you can make an infinitely large model. Eventually performance will plateau, and you'll have to learn how to work with the system as it stands.
john
.John, your post is a good example of why SU users are feeling unheard or misunderstood. It isabout "general performance" but it's also morethan that. It's also about a very specificmemory limit within 32 bit applications.
Your comment about "polygon budget," shifting the onus on the user is actually kind of insulting. It shouldn't be the case that one can't import one high poly tree into a model (much less a number of them and cars as well) because the poly budget is so low. SU is simply way under the bar in this arena in terms of it's fellow modeling software.
It is an arms race, as you say but at this point, in terms of poly budget (among other things like UV tools), we're still asking for handguns but we keep receiving shipments of frozen corn.
-Brodie
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Thomthom have you seen this for ideas this, I haven't had time to use it much since job direction changed from modeling 3d interior objects etc to 2D ACAD, and had just begun expoloring workflow with sketchup. But I'll have to give the new Layout a try to increase my enjoyment.
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@unknownuser said:
John, your post is a good example of why SU users are feeling unheard or misunderstood. It isabout "general performance" but it's also morethan that. It's also about a very specificmemory limit within 32 bit applications.
What we also have established is that this limit affects people who use render engines from within SU's process. So it's not something that affects all, or even most users of SU. Now, I do render with SU, so I'd love to have more memory available. But I also realise that it's not an critical issue for most SU users. SU is after all designed as a sketching tool - not a render engine host. So while we would like to be, we can't expect it.
We must also try to understand their position, that we're not the only type of user for SU, maybe not even the typical user. -
TO JOHN BACUS:
I really don't care if it's 64 bits or even 16 bits, multicore or half-core, GPU or a non-acelarated graphics card. As long as it works as the standard for their time, and SK is working almost as good as was 6 years ago (and that's not a compliment). I can't do much more than I could back then, I don't really think SK behaves differently between high cost professional hardware to a low cost one, there's no new modeling tools or ways worth mentioning (since follow me in 4 and intersect lines in 7), no mapping tools too (since texture projection in 4), and no new animation tools (i use SK since 3.1 and don't remember a change in this department...). The point is, for us users, it looks SK stopped in time...
And I still feel differences working in 64 bits especially the bigger and more data the file has. (there's MAX and PSD files I can't even open in 32 bits because out of memory errors but i can in 64bits and seems to run smoother too. Why?). Now the question is would Sketchup benefit from 64 bits and multicore architecture, even if just for the plugin makers?
So I thought it would be good to review again, with you and users of the forum, some articles from 2006 from 3d Software like Maya or 3DS Max, or XSI (the name now is Softimage, and it was the first to use 64 bits if i'm not mistaken)
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3768
"64-bit operation isn’t significantly faster than 32-bit, in fact 64-bit applications are commonly somewhat slower since they have more system overhead, but nothing is as slow as an application that crashes when it runs out of memory. (...)In practice, I noticed almost no difference between the software running in 32- and 64-bit modes until I hammered it with a huge dynamics system containing several million meatball particles. **The file readily crashes Maya in 32-bit mode (forcing a hard reboot), while it rendered, albeit slowly, on the 64-bit version.**It was no real surprise, but it was a welcome relief from the days of living with miserly particle and polygon budgets just to get things to render.(...) There’s no doubt that 64 bits is where things are inevitably headed and now’s as good a time as any to switch.(...) Of immediate benefit, even to 32-bit users, is that Autodesk has also made improvements to Maya’s multi-threading and operational performance in numerous areas. Users of multiple-processor systems, including those with the new dual-core processors, in particular, will enjoy performance in many operations, such as subdivision surface modeling, and working with hair and cloth. The program overall feels much snappier and more responsive."
http://www.cadalyst.com/design-visualization/first-look-review-autodesk-3ds-max-9-5954
"In 3ds Max 9, I found core-level performance improvements in several areas that provide better overall performance and a cleaner workflow.For larger and/or more complex models, the 64-bit version speeds through tasks much faster because of better use of and access to more system memory."
I can find more articles like these too and with different softwares, if you want, and i repeat: this is from 2006, i can be mistaken but i think that 4 years after, the 64 bits programming is much more refined and optimized now, especially for professional paid programmers. Now my question is: are this guys lying? Did all the professionals in the graphic industry just went nuts and blind for changing from 32 to 64 bits in software and hardware and saw differences? Or do you believe that your 32bits engine is as capable and fast as, for example Zbrush or modo (i choose these ones because the price is not much higher than SK, and in zbrush we get free upgrades forever...)and don't see the need for an update? Because i can choke SK with the less than half the polys the others can stand and still be workable...Isn't really nothing in the whole program that SK is, that would benefict from x64/multicore? one single item? Animation exporting, intersect operations, anything? or is the problem related to the old OpenGL engine SK has? And isn't OpenGL already multicore?
Honestly, I'm really curious about what you have to say about this.
About my opinion on SK8: it's a weak release, even weaker than 7, because 2 years have passed, we have exactly the same problems than before (even after giving ideas to you as you google ask us to do) and now we just got 1 new tool, and it does something that we could already do with a little more work using "intersect" or with a plugin called booltools (just for curiosity, are the solid tools a ruby plugin like DC components was in 7)...From this side it seems that your plan is releasing a new version every 2 years, with not much worth mentioning, gain some money and leave the heavy work and innovation for plugin makers (and all of a suddenly a cheap software get's more costly with all the paid plugins..)
For ideas for sketchup i got a few:
1- Multicore suport (why is layout multicore and sketchup singlecore?)
2- 64 bits suport (see above why i think we need it)
3- support more polys
4- Build a robust platform for others to work, compatible with current and future technology (multicore, 64bits, gpu accelerated) so that plugin makers can also take advantage of this and build better and faster plugins (even if you don't).
5- sketchup scenes that save the position of components and points (because points defines lines that define faces allowing some basic animation), or any form of animation more complex, and would be great if we could export the animation to other software's too.
6- Put the same line tools that layout has and make the existing one work properly (like offset)
7- make the import\export 3d model work and at least add obj import to the options
8- update the uv mapping tool (sphereical, cilindrical, unwarp, etc) and materials (like one material with 2 layer of textures with different mapping each, and/or basic reflex material for example)
9- Have the basic tools work as it should (offsets, follow me, from countors, shadows, 3d model formats import, and so on...) and do little updates on it ( like pushpulling more than one face at a time or working like jointpushpull, or do a scale not oriented with the axes but with a part of the mesh, or "add Detail" tool doing a basic smooth on meshs)
10- more ways to work with organic and curved meshs, either by new tools or by updating the old ones with smart and inovating ideas with the way they perfomed on cubic and organic meshs, and keeping things with lesser bottons)
11- give us a form to simulate basic lights other than the sun, and for the love of GOD fix the shadow bug ( how much time is this bug around without a workaround now? 6 years? isn't that too much time?)
12- Separate Layout from SK, (right now there's users that just want SK and don't have a use for layout, but with the current situation, feels like they are paying for Layout evolution and not SK's one, and overpaying for 2 programs just wanting one. If layout is that good it will survive on their own, and it is on version 3 now, not beta and unknown anymore...and i don't even know what to say about sylebuilder...)
13- a, basic and simple to use, physics engine would be nice, and there's so many open source (in case you don't know a physics is not just good for animation, but also modeling natural stuff and set up some type of scenes)
14- rebuild, if you have to, the SK UI so that this toolbar chaos and workarounds ends
15- and most important: LISTEN TO USER'S FEEDBACK (and if possible answer them)I tried to make a features list more wide as possible so that any user, independently of their use of SK, could benefit from them, and in a way that SK doesn't turn into a behemoth like 3DS Max but that can be a much better modeler and still fun and easy to use, just allowing in the process to do more and better stuff.
And I would really like to hear a answer or opinion about this from you Google guys.
Thanks for reading and sorry the long text.
P.S: a special word for Coen: thanks for standing up for us
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@thomthom said:
When I started with SU modelling, a large model was ~20-30K faces, then it grew steady to be 200K-300K, Now I have a couple of models of 1-2M faces - because my hardware and SU is better.
Hi, Thomas.
Can you elaborate on your system spec?
I'm working on an i7-920 / 12Gb / GTX470 Workstation, and SU dies on me two-tree times a week.
Using Trees for example is out of the question...Thanks.
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@emage said:
@thomthom said:
When I started with SU modelling, a large model was ~20-30K faces, then it grew steady to be 200K-300K, Now I have a couple of models of 1-2M faces - because my hardware and SU is better.
Hi, Thomas.
Can you elaborate on your system spec?
I'm working on an i7-920 / 12Gb / GTX470 Workstation, and SU dies on my two-tree times a week.
Using Trees for example is out of the question...Thanks.
My current system? Quadcore, 3GHz, nVidia GeForce 8800GT (home), nVidia Quadro 3800FX (work). 8GB RAM.
When you say SU dies, it crashes? While modelling? While rendering?
What trees you use? XFrog, Evermotion? -
It's easy to forget that when you are working in Sketchup you are working within a (more-or-less) real-time render engine... which, as a by product of how the developers see the market they are serving, is geared to use "lowest common denominator" hardware.
Sketchup is for the masses -- and the more power you give it the more powerful hardware is required to run it... thus excluding the very people they are trying to include.
Also, in my experience you can do very high poly models if you disable most of the features of the render engine in Sketchup... which will make the interface look very much like most other "pro" modeling packages.
That said, I think it would be wise for the Sketchup team to put a larger gap in the performance of the free version to the pro version... so that hobbyist and students can use the free version with low end hardware and professionals can have access to all the power inherent with high-end hardware.
Best,
Jason. -
@unknownuser said:
In defense of SketchUp in general, not in particular v8, I find that when I turn off Edges and Profiles, or more generally speaking all Style related aspects,
Yes, style effects can slow down a model as badly as shadows. (even Colour by Material and Colour by Axis slows things down as SU has to draw the edges in multiple GL operations) I usually have a "Modelspace" scene that turns on my optimized modelling style with all effects off. I model with that style and only swap to scenes with effects on when I'm ready to export.
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@notareal said:
@unknownuser said:
...but still, what are you going to gain from more memory?
Maybe not important for everyone, but one simply reason for me, going to 64-bit SU would allow 64-bit renderer work in context of SU. It's already possible to create a SU scene that will not render with SU integrated 32-bit renderer, because of memory restrictions.
Sorry, but I find it amusing that you are still hammering through the 64-bit arguement even after it has been explained that you won't really notice any difference in speed improvement, then to start on about rendering, when you have links to renderers in you sig! Whatssup? Are these no good?
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First of all John (hope you don't mind i call you by the first name) thanks for your reply to my post. And i bet it's not easy for you to show up in here and defend Sketchup right now with all of us here. Agreeing or not with you, that deserves my respect.
After saying this, i still don't know if all those guys are lying, if the SK engine is on par with others, and if there isn't one single item in it that would benefict from the new x64/multicore or even better GPU/OpenGL use...i thought my post was pretty clear and that would allow us to discuss and better understand that point (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30586&start=60#p268908).
In modeling/texturing terms, you'll have to forgive me but, i just realised this is getting a bit surreal for me... Reading all your posts now, my conclusion is, that you, Google guys, with 10 years experience on Sketchup and 3D, that know what's best for us and how we should work, think that getting textures on streetview or google Earth (that by the way IT COULD ALLREADY BE DONE one way or another) that gives us great quality images (beeing ironic) is better, than say, spherical mapping? fix the shadow bug? There's people out there "fighting" for "real time 3D texture painting with multiple layers" and we are asking, in the end of 2010, for things like a basic "unwarp UV", not even that, but spherical mapping? Is this for real? Am i the only one that thinks this is a bit surreal, like i'm in the twilight zone? in 10 years we still can't do something as basic as this, that could already be done even before SK existed? it's like buying car today and just having mirrors on one side, like in the 80'...
Right now, instead of a guy that's suppost to understand the needs of someone working with 3D meshs, i feel like i'm talking to someone that never did 3D...sorry if this sound disrespectfull but i'm just beeing honest here.
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What I would like to know:
How many SketchUp programmers are on the 'Development Team'. I think there might be a misperception that since Google owns the product that there are a large number of people committed to SU development...and hence the expectations of serious, comprehensive enhancements to the program with each new release. If I was to hazard a guess, and measure the 'Development Team's enhancement contributions in a year, vs one lone ruby programmer like TIG, or Fredo, or thomthom...I'm thinking not many. Sorry for the slap Google, but these guys are seriously kicking your butt.
How many SketchUp 'Pro' users are licensed, and are there in fact enough users who will likely pay for an upgrade to warrant investing the time and money into the program that we 'Pros' keep asking for. It would seem to me that the majority of users are on the 'free' version of SketchUp...while kudos goes to Google for their generosity on this one, I would suspect it serves little to motivate them to respond with enthusiastic gusto to 'Pro' users requests.
How many individuals are there who use 3D modelling software for visualization that have little or no interest in advanced rendering. Certainly the number of increasingly amazing photo-realistic rendering software offerings doesn't indicate a lack of interest in this area does it? I always thought the two kind of went hand in hand, and apparently a lot of 3D modelling software developers do as well. Isn't that a forward looking reason enough to give attention to better memory handling, more robust UV tools, and at least some consideration to modifying meshes without having to draw hidden lines on planes?
I love SketchUp, and Layout too for that matter... but currently I love the Ruby developers more.
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@thomthom said:
@unknownuser said:
In defense of SketchUp in general, not in particular v8, I find that when I turn off Edges and Profiles, or more generally speaking all Style related aspects,
Yes, style effects can slow down a model as badly as shadows. (even Colour by Material and Colour by Axis slows things down as SU has to draw the edges in multiple GL operations) I usually have a "Modelspace" scene that turns on my optimized modelling style with all effects off. I model with that style and only swap to scenes with effects on when I'm ready to export.
For maximum performance, you should stick to rendering styles that can be entirely handled by your GPU. For quick tips on optimizing SketchUp performance, see the "Making SketchUp run faster" Help Center article. For excellent and exhaustive detail, have a look at the "How do I make SketchUp run faster?" page on the SketchUp Sages site.
john
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@fountainhead said:
I love SketchUp, and Layout too for that matter... but currently I love the Ruby developers more.
Too true -- and I suppose the best thing the Sketchup development team could do to improve Sketchup is give the ruby developers any tools they need.
Best,
Jason. -
@unknownuser said:
Right now, instead of a guy that's suppost to understand the needs of someone working with 3D meshs, i feel like i'm talking to someone that never did 3D...sorry if this sound disrespectfull but i'm just beeing honest here.
You are being a bit disrespectful to me and my background, but my architectural education has gifted me with a very thick skin. I do think that you're confusing the specialized needs of archviz professionals with the generalized needs of all users of SketchUp. I talk to lots of heavy SketchUp users whose eyes would cross if I asked them about unwarping their UV's.
Also, you're assuming that there is one true method for dealing with "3D meshs" that the SketchUp team is either too stubborn, distracted or incompetent to implement for you. That's a little disrespectful, too– and it is kind standing in the way of moving this conversation forward as well.
There are certainly things we can add to SketchUp that will improve its usefullness for archviz pros without losing sight of the general needs of all SketchUp users. Itemizing those things and discussing them in detail would move this conversation forward.
john
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@unknownuser said:
First of all John (hope you don't mind i call you by the first name) thanks for your reply to my post. And i bet it's not easy for you to show up in here and defend Sketchup right now with all of us here. Agreeing or not with you, that deserves my respect.
After saying this, i still don't know if all those guys are lying, if the SK engine is on par with others, and if there isn't one single item in it that would benefict from the new x64/multicore or even better GPU/OpenGL use...i thought my post was pretty clear and that would allow us to discuss and better understand that point (http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30586&start=60#p268908).
In modeling/texturing terms, you'll have to forgive me but, i just realised this is getting a bit surreal for me... Reading all your posts now, my conclusion is, that you, Google guys, with 10 years experience on Sketchup and 3D, that know what's best for us and how we should work, think that getting textures on streetview or google Earth (that by the way IT COULD ALLREADY BE DONE one way or another) that gives us great quality images (beeing ironic) is better, than say, spherical mapping? fix the shadow bug? There's people out there "fighting" for "real time 3D texture painting with multiple layers" and we are asking, in the end of 2010, for things like a basic "unwarp UV", not even that, but spherical mapping? Is this for real? Am i the only one that thinks this is a bit surreal, like i'm in the twilight zone? in 10 years we still can't do something as basic as this, that could already be done even before SK existed? it's like buying car today and just having mirrors on one side, like in the 80'...
Right now, instead of a guy that's suppost to understand the needs of someone working with 3D meshs, i feel like i'm talking to someone that never did 3D...sorry if this sound disrespectfull but i'm just beeing honest here.
Haha, +1.
It reminds me of an ongoing conversation I had with a work friend awhile back who was a Rhino user and touted it's wonders every chance he got (what SU user hasn't had to defend it at some time or another?). He was always showing me things like creating spirals or lofts or what he felt were complicated and impressive modeling techniques and asking if SU could do that. Almost always I was able to reply that yes it could with one of the plugins...but the whole time I was thinking, "God don't let him do something simple like UV map a sphere!"
-Brodie
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Hey John,
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you are working with textures you are working with UV's -- all else is semantics.
If you are selling a pro version of your software then you cannot afford to underestimate the intelligence of the professional user base -- if they are not hip to the lingo of the larger 3D world then it is the responsibility of the manual and educators like myself to clarify the issue... which is exactly what I did in my training approach and will continue to do.
It is possible to cover complex topics in a simplistic way and bring users to a more personally powerful place professionally... by catering to ignorance all you do is reinforce competitive weakness that will ultimately remove them from the playing field.
Best,
Jason.
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