20 Reasons for SketchUp artists to consider Blender

Collage Architecture

With the development of Blender 2.80,It will be a very decent dcc for different group of audience like 3d Hobbiest,Educator,,Game Creator,Cartoon maker...and most importantly,even architects can benefit from the awesome realtime engine.
just check out the link: https://code.blender.org/2016/12/the-blender-101-project-and-you/

I am just so amazed to see so many people donate to Code Quset Event,so glad to see many talented developers from all over the world working together in Armsterdam to make software better tool for artists.

For people who want to do archviz in a more serious dcc,I would suggest Blender.If you have any doubts about whether Blender is production ready for your Archviz work,I am very pleased to give you some information regarding this.

1.Assests:Aseests include Furniture,Decoration,Foliage are key ingredient for photorealistc renderings.Just like Evermotion or CGAxis,there is a website: http://www.chocofur.com/ who provides professional 3d assests ready for both Cycles Render and Corona Render in Blender.Even in Evermotion store,there are several products ready for Cycles render in Blender.

2.Textures:If you need textures/materials,there is https://www.poliigon.com which provide textures produced by photoscan technique and Substance Designer,Ready to be used in both offline render(Cycles Corona etc) and realtime(EEVEE),with really good subscription price,most importantly,after subscription expired,you still own these textures.

3.Render Engine:There are very professional render engine like Vray Render,Corona Render,Thea Render,Octane Render,Renderman and Redshift which are really professional software with huge user base.If you don't want to invest money,I think native Cycles render is already enough for production usage.

4.Addons:There are really awesome addons which Chipp has talked about like Meshmachine and Decal machine,Hardops and boxcutter.These addons are boolean based workflow for fast concept art drawing.Though the model created from these addons does not come with ideal topology,they do have proper UV layout for texturing later on in Substance Painter which looks really insane.

 Apart from the addons above.there are lots of great addons which is professional,user-friendly,fun to work with.

 **[Tree assests creating]**:There is a really awesome plugin which can grow realistic tree called Grove3d([https://www.thegrove3d.com/](https://www.thegrove3d.com/)),a huge competitor for Growfx in 3dsmax platform.

 **[Grass creater]**:Just like skatter for Sketchup,there is also an addon available called Graswald which comes with varied kinds of grass ready to be scattered,and a user interface easy to play with,the most important is the assests from Graswald are PBR ready means you can start directly in Cycles render and Eevee.

 **[Architecture modeling]**:There is archimesh which Chipp already mentioned eariler,apart from archimesh,there is a very powerful addon called archipack,the best feature for archipack is there are lots of presets for differnt part of architecture like stairs fence railing floor wall windows doors and cabinet.And thanks to freestyle rendering,you can have something similar to Sketchup Layout right inside blender.Pleas e check the youtube link,you will be suprised [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCecdw78pgsch0FWaNhdwbgg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCecdw78pgsch0FWaNhdwbgg)

 **[Fluid Simulation]**There is also professional fluid simulator called

FlipFluid(https://blendermarket.com/products/flipfluids),however it is a $ addon.If you don't want to spend money than you can just stick to native Fluid simulator which is also quite decent(https://www.blender.org/conference/2017/presentations/358).

 **[City Generator]**If you want realistic city than you can check out SceneCity([https://www.cgchan.com/](https://www.cgchan.com/)) which is under development,a strong competetor for ghostown.

just check out blender market,there are so many nice addons which aimed at professional.

5.Megascans import:In Blender you can have easy access to Megascan,which is really famous right now to add photoscan assests really quickly in your scene,best way to add realism to your stills and animations.And I am really confused why there is no native obj/fbx importer in Sketchup?Why we have to spend another 79 dollars to get the function which a open-source software support?

6.UV unwrapingIn Blender there comes really nice UV support,if you want to texture your model in substance painter and send to Unreal engine,I believe Blender the right way to go.

But I think Sketchup is the best out of all in the aspects of really quick push-pull workflow,with precise control of dimensions and don't have to worry about topology.I think nobody can beat Sketchup in this aspects(though there are some competitors like rocket3f).I won't drop Sketchup as the user friendly enviormnet for architecture modeling and most importantly there are so many nice plugins from ThomThom,TIG and Fredo and developers all over the world.Who can resist the power of Profile Builder? I don't think so.

chippwalters

Thanks Limshigan for your great architectural modeling review for Blender. Very helpful!

Stinkie

@collage architecture said:

Poliigon - PBR Textures, Models and HDRIs

Thousands of PBR Textures, Models and HDRIs for Blender, 3ds Max, SketchUp, Cinema 4D, Unreal Engine and more.

Poliigon (www.poliigon.com)

Their stuff is indeed superb. Wholeheartedly recommended.

chippwalters

New video showing you how to accurately create dimensioned drawings and models in Blender using their version of the pencil tool and a background template.

chippwalters

New Tute-- this one is about taking the lines (edges) created from the blueprint of the last tutorial and converting them magically into walls. ning:

rv1974

Sorry but my impression is that this stage architecturalmodelling in Blender is a refined torture. The more Blender promos I see , the more I appreciate SU existance (with all its bottle necks).

chippwalters

@rv1974 said:

Sorry but my impression is that this stage architecturalmodelling in Blender is a refined torture. The more Blender promos I see , the more I appreciate SU existance (with all its bottle necks).

I have not shown the Architectural addons for Blender, which make things much simpler. Also, Blender's modifiers can cut through a solid wall, whereas SketchUp can only cut through a surface. This becomes most problematic in SU when trying to insert doors and window components but is a breeze in Blender.

For now I'm focusing on just the basics. I use SketchUp for much more than architectural 3D and so I don't require as much from Blender in terms of architectural prowess. Still, you should look at some of the amazing Architectural addons for Blender. They can do a lot!

Here's a new tutorial on rendering inside of Blender with Cycles, a free non-biased renderer like Thea.

rv1974

I thought I'll be the one screaming the king is naked

Glenn at home

@rv1974 said:

Sorry but my impression is that this stage architecturalmodelling in Blender is a refined torture. The more Blender promos I see , the more I appreciate SU existance (with all its bottle necks).

I really have to agree with this statement in regards to architectural modeling. The archimesh tool set video seemed very cumbersome and laborious. Now for general 3d modeling Blender is a GREAT option. Still loving these videos.

chippwalters

New tutorial on Smoothing meshes in Blender. Compares with how SketchUp does it.

chippwalters

A primary reason for switching from SketchUp to Blender is that SketchUp (in 2018) still cannot do bevels!

Even with Fredo's amazing plugin, it still doesn't work-- and it's not Fredo's fault as he's told me it's about how the engine architecture in SketchUp works. UGH!

Blender does magnificent bevels and the bevel modifier is just fabulous!!! Watch to see!

chippwalters

HDRI lighting is incredibly easy to do in Blender with the free HDRI Lighting Setup addon. Check it out:

chippwalters

All about how to use materials in your Blender scene. In many ways, Blender is similar to SketchUp with regard to how it handles materials.

CarolineJ

Thanks for the video tutorials, helpful

chippwalters

The case for modifiers in SketchUp.

Now that Fredo has teased us with an amazing partial-modifier version of FredoBevel,

--I'd like to make a case for modifiers in SketchUp. I've been using them for awhile in Blender and they allow one to create amazing geometry fast, PLUS they also allow for design decisions to be made and fine-tuned later, which is always good.

In SketchUp terms, a modifier is something that happens at a group or component level. Adding color to a group or component could be seen as a modifier. You can change a groups color at anytime without regard to the changes in the underlying geometry.

Let's take a look at an example:

Consider this corridor

Here is the geometry without all the reflections (and no handrails either, they were added later-- using modifiers of course...one polyline for all the handrails on the bottom and one polyline for all the handrails on the ceiling.)

Now here's the geometry that created the corridor:

1. Opened ended cube
2. Same cube, just a tad larger as a boolean cutter for the wall
3. Overhead polygon for lighting
4. Rectangle polygon for floor
5. Wall and bottom

Only 12 polygons, and 2 polylines for the handrails!
So, how to get to here from there?
These are the modifiers being used:

SOLIDIFY This modifier takes polygons and extrudes them making them thicker or thinner. It was used on ALL of the objects above (other than #2, the Boolean Difference) to give them thickness.
BEVEL This modifier was used on #1 to create the camfers, then again on #1 to add more fillets to the chamfre corners. It was also used on #5 to create the round interior and exterior. Because it was applied before the Solidify on #5 both the inside and outside were automatically bevelled.
MIRROR Selective mirroring and grouping was used on virtually all the objects in order to create symmetrical versions of everything.
ARRAY The Array modifier was also used to create multiple corridors and stack them together end to end (not shown in picture).

The advantage of doing all of this, is I only need to edit the 5 items shown in Green to adjust the sizes, dimensions and design of this corridor.

While this is an extreme example, it does demonstrate the power of modifiers.

It would be great if SU would add a modifier stack and let plugin developers create modifiers for objects.

pilou

Personnal BirthDay's Card designed & handcrafted by Syd M itself that is so chic!

This page is a pleasure for the eyes!

chippwalters

For those interested in how to model in Blender, I've created some very short tutes on Intagram:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnnsDb0HODL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

There's also a copy over on ba Tips and Tricks:
https://blenderartists.org/t/big-little-tips/1126276

chippwalters

@pilou said:

Personnal BirthDay's Card designed & handcrafted by Syd M itself that is so chic!

This page is a pleasure for the eyes!

Yes, Syd is a special guy. We've known each other over 40 years now and have worked on a number of projects together. He is such an incredible talent and an even nicer guy in person!

chippwalters

New video on using the GroupsPro addon to help work on different workplanes.

chippwalters

masterxeon1001 showed me some very interesting ways to create dynamic objects in Blender today and I just had to try it out. Cool beans!