20 Reasons for SketchUp artists to consider Blender
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Effectively, it's a another world!
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@glenn at home said:
@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.
@rv1974 said:
UI. The main Reason for SketchUp artists NOT to consider Blender
I'd have to say, with emphasis, I agree. Blender 2.79 had this weird right-button mouse click, strange selection methods and overall REQUIRED you to learn literally a hundred keystrokes (no kidding!).
B-U-T.... Blender 2.8 is really nothing like 2.79. They added professional UI designers, who went against all the Blender die hards and created a very simple- likable interface, that works how you would expect. Left click selects. You can drag select objects and polys and edges and verts. Even the navigation model (orbit, pan, zoom) is EXACTLY like SketchUp!
After working with Blender, and modeling in SketchUp, it came to me there's a perfect fit here. Continue to model in SketchUp-- export with textures intact to the new Blender and do crazy fast photoreal renders and animations. I needed to create a course which helped SU users to do ONLY that-- and learn it quickly.
As I said previously, I was BLOWN AWAY by the new Blender 2.8 EEVEE renderer where I can do an 8K render in 15 seconds (yes, you read that right, but it will take about 4 minutes to "bake" the lighting-- but you do that ONLY once). 3 minute animations are done, and color toned, with depth of field, light bloom, full reflections and photoreal in a couple hours. And of course it's all free.
Not to mention you can export your models directly from SketchUp to Blender with the textures and mapping intact. And in Blender you can ADD new materials and textures WITHOUT having to go through the tedious process of UV mapping.
And over the years, I've created over 60 free SketchUp tutorials, but I wanted to make sure this course would be special. I invited some top 3D artists, including the best here on Sketchucation to help test and give advice. The goal is to give you just what you need to import your models, texture them, light them, render them and animate them.
Take this image for example. On the left is the original photo. On the right the one created in Blender (I also used fSpy to match the camera angle-- I have a FREE tutorial on how to do that at https://gumroad.com/chippwalters ).
So, if you're interested, check the course out. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
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Hey Chipp, I am starting to play a bit with SU2Blender. I brought in a model I did for a builder many years ago and just hit render to see what I get. I am seeing some "artifacts" in the basic render. Any ideas?
TIAGlenn
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Without seeing the .blend file, it's hard to say...
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That is some amazing!
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Totally convincing!
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Speed Flow + Companion ready for the 2.80
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For the 2.80 the French Touch!
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A peek into what I'm currently working on for Blender...
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Chipp — does Kit Ops work on MacOS as well, or is it Windows only?
Also, I've ben trying to find the recommended min. system requirements for EEVEE — do you have any insight from your experience?
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Thanks Chipp, very tempting.
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@db11 said:
Chipp — does Kit Ops work on MacOS as well, or is it Windows only?
Also, I've ben trying to find the recommended min. system requirements for EEVEE — do you have any insight from your experience?
Yes, it works on Mac.
I'd look over at Blenderartists.org for info on a min sys config for Mac.It now does support some Mac only configs, I just don't know enough about it.
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@db11 said:
Chipp — does Kit Ops work on MacOS as well, or is it Windows only?
Also, I've ben trying to find the recommended min. system requirements for EEVEE — do you have any insight from your experience?
Found this link
https://blenderartists.org/t/differences-between-blender-2-8-for-windows-and-macos/1122501
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OK, thanks Chipp. I'll check it out.
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Hey all! Just launched this product:
It's called The Definitely EEVEE Materials System and it's the systematized approach to applying over 100 curated and popular materials to create photorealistic scenes and objects in Blender 2.8.
It’s about creating great renders with over 100 customized materials, all based on a simple system-- so you can quickly and easily customize them ad infinitum! Plus it works without having to UV Unwrap meshes (and works doubly good if you have meshes that are already unwrapped).
Plus there’s this really amazing DIRT GROUP NODE that allows you to add dirt in controlled ways to any material. And there’s the new Excalibur materials and so much more.
Learn more at https://gum.co/EEVEE2
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Looks really cool Chipp. It's a great idea to have such a useful and comprehensive set of render-ready textures without the hassle.
I haven't had much of a chance to explore Blender 2.8 yet, but once I've familiarized myself with the UI and basic functions I'm planning on buying your course. I would continue to (mostly) model in SU and then port to Blender for EEVEE rendering as you have advocated. Under that scenario, the need for a decent material set becomes obvious.
What do you think would be a reasonable timeframe to allocate for mastering the basics of Blender and your SU to Blender workflow? (from pretty much a standing start)
It looks like I'll have some time later this spring to finally dive into Blender and I'm curious as to how much time I'll need to invest to ramp up.
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@db11 said:
What do you think would be a reasonable timeframe to allocate for mastering the basics of Blender and your SU to Blender workflow? (from pretty much a standing start)
I'd give myself a few hours to watch the course for a quick grasp of the entire workflow. Do the same with the materials course (7 videos all well under 10 mins).
Then take a day and use the course as a guide to get you started. You should be able to have something up and running by the end of a days work.
Let me know if that works!
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That's good news and less time than I would have thought. If I can be comfortable and with a functional workflow after a week with Blender, then I would be very happy. If I could actually be producing useful output after a day or two, then hallelujah!
Using Bender (at least initially) primarily as a rendering pipeline seems like a relatively painless intro to the program, and once acclimated then I'll likely start playing more with other aspects of the platform. I also see it as a good hedge against SU Pro's increasingly uncertain and opaque future.
Looking forward to trying out your course(s) sometime in the next few weeks, and will let you know how it goes. Cheers!
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nailed!
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