Google is Listening!
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I recognize how comforting it would be to know that we're actively working on the particular feature/bug that you think we should be working on. Unfortunately, there are a number of valid business reasons that prevent me from opening our roadmap. We aren't an open source project and we have real competitors in the market. Also, we're a publicly traded company– which adds a whole new layer of complexity around "forward looking statements."
But I think the most important reason is that by disclosing our roadmap we limit our options as a development team. The team needs a private space in which to work. As designers yourselves, I'm sure you know what it feels like to have a client constantly watching over your shoulder and second-guessing your every move.
If you feel your needs aren't being met, state them again or (better) in a different way. If you've got a new idea you think has merit, bring it up for discussion. If you need help with something, ask for it. That's what moves your relationship with the SketchUp dev team forward. And acknowledge that we've got plenty of our own ideas about where SketchUp should go in the future that just might delight you. Or not, as may be. But accusations of inattention or incompetence just lead us to check out of the conversation.
john
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Just read the last few posts again to see if I left anything out, and maybe I did. I think you're still concerned that our singular agenda for the future of SketchUp is 'geo-modeling' for Google Earth. Of course it isn't that simple, nor that restrictive. I can say with confidence, however, that our singular agenda is also not archviz/rendering nor advanced animation.
SketchUp aims to be "3D for everyone." If we have a singular vision for the future, it is that one. That is the project we've been working on since the beginning, and that is the project we'll keep working on into the future.
john
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I'm not against sketchup being for everyone. It's one of the things that makes the software great.
However, have you considered that perhaps SU Free should be for "everyone" while SU Pro shouldn't (not everyone is a professional afterall). Can you comment at all on how interconnected you see the free and pro version being?
It seems to me that unbinding them somewhat might free up the team to further your goal of truly reaching "everyone." I'd suggest that you've excelled at being the 3d modeler of choice for novices, hobbyists, wood workers, geo-modelers, etc. But in reaching out to those people you may have unwittingly alienated a very important group (ie. professional hard surface modelers). It seems like an obvious demographic to reach out to, yet SU has a very poor reputation in professional modeling circles. Some of the bias is unfair, but not all of it. And I feel that if the Pro version started implamenting more "PRO"fessional features, SU could grab a lot of market from those other software companies. At the same time, the free version would retain all the appeal it's ever had towards the masses.
-Brodie
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@jbacus said:
I can say with confidence, however, that our singular agenda is also not archviz/rendering nor advanced animation.
Sorry, but as I am not nativly english speaking I have a hard time understanding what you actually mean by that sentence.
Would you care to rephrase it more clearly?
Thanks.P.S. I must say that I'm really pleased to see you've become more frequent here since the release of SU 8.
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@pixero said:
@jbacus said:
I can say with confidence, however, that our singular agenda is also not archviz/rendering nor advanced animation.
Sorry, but as I am not nativly english speaking I have a hard time understanding what you actually mean by that sentence.
Would you care to rephrase it more clearly?The SketchUp team does not focus product development narrowly on any vertical market. Not geo-modeling, not archviz, not animation. The SketchUp team focuses product development more broadly on "3D for everyone."
john
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@unknownuser said:
However, have you considered that perhaps SU Free should be for "everyone" while SU Pro shouldn't (not everyone is a professional afterall). Can you comment at all on how interconnected you see the free and pro version being?
The Free and Pro versions of SketchUp share a common code base. I tend to think of them as being two faces of the same product, developed by the same team with the same basic goals in mind.
Just for the record, I think those "PRO" features that you'd like implemented for the "hard surface modeler" market are:
**Improved texturing tools:**UV unwrap and additional mapping types (ex: spherical)
**Improved Ruby plugin management:**better toolbars, easier discovery/installation/updates, community script repository integration)
Improved performance: for realtime display and editing of arbitrarily complex models
**Improved 3D model Import/Export:**Different/more/better import-export paths for (your favorite other 3D app)Does that sound about right? I just came up with that off the top of my head, so perhaps I've missed something critical- please correct me if that is the case.
john
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Precisely. I couldn't have come up with a better, more succinct list myself.
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
Improved texturing tools: UV unwrap and additional mapping types (ex: spherical)
Improved Ruby plugin management: better toolbars, easier discovery/installation/updates, community script repository integration)
Improved performance: for realtime display and editing of arbitrarily complex models
Improved 3D model Import/Export: Different/more/better import-export paths for (your favorite other 3D app)I like this list a lot more than last years list (granted a few things from last years list has been achieved like shadow bug and toolbar migration)
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@jbacus said:
**Improved texturing tools:**UV unwrap and additional mapping types (ex: spherical)
**Improved Ruby plugin management:**better toolbars, easier discovery/installation/updates, community script repository integration)
Improved performance: for realtime display and editing of arbitrarily complex models
**Improved 3D model Import/Export:**Different/more/better import-export paths for (your favorite other 3D app)A solution that makes it possible to edit (move vertices/edges) textured geometry without destroying the UV mapping.
(I know a third party solution exists but it isn't cheap and doesn't seem to work with all the built in tools, like "move".) -
Hi John.
Love your list of features.
my two cents on this.
improved texturing tools: maybe we need to start small and slow so that new users don't get scared, but we have to start somewhere because we're talking about mostly pro users and somewhere along the line they will have to map something like a sphere or a bend cylinder. So start with the basics: box, cylinder and spherical mapping - that's pretty easy to learn and understand for anyone. Unwarping UVs is another beast but at is basics it's still selecting lines as seams and unfold the mesh into a plane based on the seams you've selected (i know there's much more to it but lets start simple). I think this concept is pretty easy to follow to anyone and a good base to start more advance texture tools in sketchup. (you're the guys that did "face me" components when everyone was using RPC characters, so i know you'll find a way to give your version of this "beast";) ).
improved Ruby Plugin management: This is not really related, but seeing this made me think, that in Google summer code a lot of new stff is developed for Blender, can't that be done for Sketchup too? And related to plugin managment, start at a small scale again, do a selection of free scripts every year that could be part of SK, ask permission to his creator and give credit to him in SK, and review, enhance, and update the code and use it in SK itself (for example, Freedo's surface tools you could use part of it like when drawing a circle if you press shift it will draw the circle directly in the organic surface, the same for JPP, this way it doesn't add more bottons to the UI and keeps things simple). joining more and better your developers with "our" developers, for the same goal.
improved performance: This will allways be a cat and mouse game for you. But If you think you've reach a limit in polys maybe you could try to give more stuff in ways to present models, Like better shadows, or shiny materials or lights (nothing fancy), and try to give a better performance there. And because we are talking about the pro version something that could use more professional hardware or better graphics cards.
improved import/export: I'm 100% for COLLADA, (a universal format it would be a dream). but you will allways have trouble with this because the problem it's not the future but the present, the people that need other options now and not when it's standart (this doens0t bother me right now because i'm using max and it has support for skp, but i've been there and can understand others). So your best bet here is make to pressure, help in better ways to turn Collada bet known and respect, show to everyone the beneficts of using, anything that can turn this process faster for everyone.
i have some more simple ideas for litle tweaks in SK but would like to hear your opinion in each of these topics.
And for when a basecamp in other countries?
Regards
David
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Ok- so I'd say you guys have communicated your needs to the SketchUp team. I was able to recreate your list without checking my notes, which you should regard as a good sign. Unfortunately, knowing what you want is different from actually getting it done. All these requests have been discussed extensively either here or on the official SketchUp Help Forums.
Let me summarize what I've said elsewhere- you can follow up for additional detail in any of the related threads on the SketchUp Help Forum:
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improved texturing tools: SketchUp was designed with a 'simple' texture implementation. Other apps that you guys like may have up to 30% of their UI dedicated to the management of material properties or UV manipulation. Adding equivalent features to SketchUp would add considerable complexity to our app (I recoil from this) and require significant engineering effort (Tyler recoils from this) at the expense of everything else we're doing. This is a feature of clear significance to the 'hard-surface modeling' community, though of less clear benefit to everyone else.
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improved Ruby Plugin management: I recognize that a significant number of our Pro users are using one or more Ruby scripts every day, and that improvement here would benefit most users. Also that it would benefit our API developer community. Significant legal hurdles remain in place (think: Android Store) in addition to the engineering effort.
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improved performance: SketchUp's performance increases with every release we make. Sometimes you guys notice that
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improved import/export: I'm going to keep pushing COLLADA here. Industry players are lining up behind this now, in no small way because of Google's advocacy. Solving problems with proprietary import/export formats is like playing whack-a-mole for both you and our engineering team. Is there an important workflow (move model from [source application] to [destination application]) that we can't support for you today?
john
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Texturing: I'm sure it would require a lot of work and extra complexity which is why I'd never expect it in the free version. But a Pro version should really have more depth to it than is currently available. That said, I wouldn't necessarily expect SU to rip off the methods of other modelers. The great thing about SU is that you think of new and inventive ways which make a task that in, say, 3ds max is convoluted and mind numbing, and turn it into an intuitive simple process. I don't know what that would look like, but I trust you guys will figure something out.
Ruby: Any integration and progress made on this front, I think, will be well received.
Performance: The boost in SU 7.x was very much appreciated. But honestly, for better or worse, this will continue to be a huge issue until a method can be found which allows us to work with models which have multitudes more polygons than is currently possible. Working with things like high poly trees, cars, 3d grass etc. is essential for professional arch-viz. I'll grant you that this ability wouldn't help many of the other folks, but I would hope that although SU is for 'everyone' we would be a group near and dear to SU's heart.
This would go a long way to pulling in a lot of those folks currently working in other software.improved import/export: not much of an issue with this atm.
-brodie
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Anybody who renders (either in Sketchup or outside of it) would benefit from stronger UV mapping controls -- Woodworkers (woodgrain on curved surfaces), Arch Viz (organic shapes) , Vehicles (more organic shapes), and even Film Production... just because they can kind of "get by" without does not mean it has no (or even little) benefit.
All the others I agree with more or less -- but I cannot agree about the UV tools as they are essential once you start applying textures to any flowing form.
I have suggested in the past and I still think it is the best option to simply move the UV editor outside of Sketchup proper in the same way as Style Builder works:
1) select any object you want to edit in Sketchup.
2) context click and select "edit UV mapping" -- which would launch the stand-alone UV editor.
3) edit UVs
4) save changed UVs back to Sketchup.A simple workflow that any Pro user would accept and the nice thing is it never even has to be visible in Sketchup outside of one context menu command... Sketchup can work with UVs like this so updating Sketchup itself would really not be necessary at all.
Besides this is really not all that terribly complex of a concept -- it's essentially the same thing as skinning an animal... and we've been doing that since before we were "civilized".
Best,
Jason. -
...and not to forget...
More and better ruby api access to core functions of SU so that the community can continue to create amazing plugins.
There still are big areas we can't access with ruby. -
@unknownuser said:
And for when a basecamp in other countries?
One in the UK!!
I'd be happy to organise one
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@pixero said:
@jbacus said:
I can say with confidence, however, that our singular agenda is also not archviz/rendering nor advanced animation.
Sorry, but as I am not nativly english speaking I have a hard time understanding what you actually mean by that sentence.
Would you care to rephrase it more clearly?
Thanks.Jan, sorry to bring you bad news, but I think it's known as "getting on a bit"
I'm 44and my memory is f**ked
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Hi John,
Can you provide some links for the discussion on the Help Forum?
Also I'd like to see some of the Tools in LayOut part of SU
- Ellipse
- Lozenge
- 2pt and 3pt Arc
- Pie
- Join
I realise I can export to SU and it's a minor request. But I feel it merits inclusion and compliments both applications.
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What about dynamic components!? This is a unique feature of SketchUP among other 3D software and holds huge power! Nothing fresh here?
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@pixero said:
There still are big areas we can't access with ruby.
What would you like to be able to do with Ruby that you cannot do today?
John
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@unknownuser said:
Can you provide some links for the discussion on the Help Forum?
You can search to find a variety of related threads, but here are some URL's to get you started: Improved Texturing Tools, Ruby Plugin Management , Plugin Manager for Ruby Scripts, Improve Performance (plus numerous topics on "multicore" and "64-bit"
There isn't really a single forum post to point out for import/export improvement, as workflows differ depending on the apps you're trying to make work together. Often, import/export problems are really tech support issues, not missing features in the product.
john
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