Anti-SketchUp! Snobbery [or Ignorance?]
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I had a pretty hard time initially from other Movie SFX people looking down their noses (behind my back) at my sticking with Sketchup.
The great thing now, is that the world (well, that small part of the world that really THINKS about things) is gradually seeing just how useful it is, and what people like you guys are helping it to evolve into!
There will ALWAYS be people like that Nikon fellow saying "urgh" at Canon's.
But at last we're seeing it used for high profile things like modelling those nifty APUs for Avatar... and working out escher-like cityscapes for that other topsy-turvy matrix'y movie I always forget the title of.... etc...
The main thing is... since so many professionals have so far snubbed it, it automatically becomes a "Blue Ocean" area that's ripe to be opened up!
These days, I'm (gradually) being let loose with Sketchup on better (and funner) projects too... which... someday... I can speak about... nnrgh!
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If a client ever snubbed SU, I wouldn't want to work with them anyway. Seriously, who cares what program you use, as long as the quality of work is nothing but the best. I see a lot of 3D Studio viz guys bashing it and complaining about getting SU models from clients, but I have never heard of client having an issue using it. I am amazed how many people are using SU these days on some incredible projects, not just architecture. I can't tell you how many pro-viz guys like Peter Gunthrie have told me they do 90% of their modeling in SU because its faster and easier. They usually go to MAX for high poly work and animation. All I can say is, "Don't knock it til you try it".
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After years of experiencing anti-sketchup snobbery I am now seeing a change. Architects offices, including my own are doing everything possible to cut costs at the moment, gone are the days of 3d studio licenses on every desktop. Our office (admittedly just a branch of a larger organisation - main office is highly resourced) is kitted out as affordably as possible. There are things we want, but we aren't pining for an expensive 3d app, and we aren't in any way debilitated relying on SU on a range of mid-spec laptops.
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I come from the computer aided engineering software world that is used to design chips. This is very expensive software that is usually leased. Every few years there is a discontinuity. Some new program comes along that makes it easier, faster or better. Some users feel threaten since they may haves years of experience with the previous tools. They have tons of scripts they have developed over the years. Switching means they lose their experience and are in the same category as new hires. They go to great lengths to explain why switching is bad. They criticize the new tool for lack of a few features. To me it looks like the same thing is happening here. If Sketchup is adopted then experienced users of other 3D modelling programs will lose their edge. Sketchup has a powerful scripting language so a lot of shortcomings can quickly be overcome.
I think the snobbery is due to Sketchup's success.
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I'm from a Solidworks background. I've dropped Solidworks for Sketchup! I suppose that's quite a statement?!
I still rate Solidworks though- but at £6000 a seat, it's hardly value for money!
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@tfdesign said:
I'm from a Solidworks background. I've dropped Solidworks for Sketchup! I suppose that's quite a statement?!
I still rate Solidworks though- but at £6000 a seat, it's hardly value for money!
As a professional in Southern italy, one of the most depressed regions of europe, I can say I have seen them all.
People have told me Sketchup doesn't have dimensions, that it is not precise, that all the geometry interacts with one another. I too have (almost) ditched Archicad for SKP, simply because what I think I can do in SU, that is not the case in other software.
But, in every case, ignorant clients who wouldn't know a mouse from a hairdryer, scoff at me when I admit I'm using Sketchup. Plus I also had the bit: you're doing it in less time I'm paying you less.
So, nowadays, I just show them the 3D studio model while I'm preparing it for render, and I never tell them I made it in Sketchup. They don't want to know, I don't tell them. Some tricks of the trade are better kept to yourself
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Very good point.
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@broomstick said:
@tfdesign said:
I'm from a Solidworks background. I've dropped Solidworks for Sketchup! I suppose that's quite a statement?!
I still rate Solidworks though- but at £6000 a seat, it's hardly value for money!
you're doing it in less time I'm paying you less.
hahah fuckin' italy. same here in bari..
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Hi folks.
Once I showed to a client an jpgimage exported from a simple but clean 3D rendering of a piping assembly I did with SketchUp. I asked me if I used Catia to do it.
I told him that I used SketchUp. First he asked me what is SketchUp. I described it to him. Then he told me why I did not used Catia. I told him that for such a simple assembly, I was able to finish it in the same time that it took Catia to open. Finally, he said to me that he was able to get my idea very well and was pleasantly surprised that a free program was able to do that much in such a short time.
Notice that I do not despise Catia. It is a very powerfull piece of software but, IMHO, it is overkill for many simple jobs and also very expensive.
The conclusion is that as long as an idea is efficiently transmitted, the goal is acheived. The software used for that is of no real importance. Personnaly, I always seek efficiency in the tools that I use. Since SketchUp is efficient and inexpensive, I use it.
Just ideas.
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@unknownuser said:
I was able to finish it in the same time that it took Catia to open
So he must have Catia allways open !
Ps A French product!
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Hi Pilou, hi folks.
No I cannot have Catia always open since that would mean monopolizing a licence. That's a thing that my colleagues would not appreciate.
BTW, I had a basic course about using Catia. I never practiced for the following reasons:
1 - Catia is overkill for most of my needs.
2 - It is slow to start.
3 - Licences are not always available.
4 - Its tree structure and it philosophy of use implies that you must already know all the details of the object you are about to model.
OK, I was spoiled by SketchUp and, anyway, I have a team of technicians that are much better than me with Catia. So, I leave them to use it while I quickly create sketches of my ideas.
Why I was spoiled by SketchUp:
1 - Its is efficient.
2 - Its is quick to start even with plugins. It took SU 5 seconds or less to start as new and now it takes about 15 seconds to start after I added a few plugins.
3 - It has a simple interface without too many tools. Well ... with too many plugins, I may end up with even more tool icons than Catia. I am not there yet.
4 - Its inference engine is quick and powerfull.
5 - It has a good palette of tools that covers about all I need. The missing ones can be obtained with plugins.
6 - Its rendering modes are more than enough for me to add the realistic touch that I need.
7 - Models are easy to modify.
8 - It perfectly fits my workflow where I start with a general idea with rough components and then add details here and there to finally obtain a complete detailed model.
9 - Its fun to use.
10 - It doen't interposed too much between my ideas and the final result.
11 - The Pro version is not to much expensive.
12 - There is a good help available.
13 - There are many ressources to find help like SketchUcation and other forums.
14 - The 3D Warehouse even if some models are not very well made.
Just ideas.
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I've also had a fair bit of abuse from the 3ds max crowd in my time. Most of those being snobby or attacking are running pirate copies, at least sketchup is affordable. The proof is in the pudding however I continue to see some great archviz work created with sketchup.
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All the folks that hated on SU in the past are now using it.
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@jackson said:
The sad thing about this attitude is that it is not based on either knowledge or experience, purely habit.
While I think this is true on the surface the underlying cause is protectionism - much in the same way as church services and prescriptions used to be in Latin and computer programming in Fortran. Sometime soon html and javascript will do everything we need to achieve using machine rather than paper-like processes. Elites will be defined by levels of creativity.
Well it's Sunday ...
Edit: ... and another Toffler quote for good measure:
"Idea-assassins rush forward to kill any new suggestion on the grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, no matter how absurd."
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Forget clients, I've even had architects scoff at me working in skecthup, until I prove them wrong by producing far better work in far lesser time. (In fact I have converted a few architectural practices to sketchup where I consult, they gave up on their precious 3Dmax!)
I think most people are not aware how genuinely intuitive it is to work in sketchup, because either they have not tried it seriously or never knew the Ruby Scripts.
I find Sketchup the only software that lets me 'Design' as opposed to 'Draft', and that says it all!
Just my two bit -
I have noted the sales strategy of Autodesk etc with some disgust at my local university.
Essentially a bunch of clueless, impressionable students get a "free" version of some incredibly complicated expensive software. They think they are scoring becuase clearly they have got something of great value for nothing, they then proceed like good little consumers to invest the enourmous amount of time it takes to learn do even the most basic design work in this "free" software. By the time they leave school and are ready to go to work they have to believe that all the effort they have made to learn a particular package is worth something and therefore feel obliged to buy the useless piece of crud or go work for someone(read:previously suckered student) that puts a value to their investment in it.
This process is something akin to handing out free cigarretes to schoolchildren as far as I am concerned. The fact that universities accept sponsorship from these predatory companies so that they can flog their dubious wares is a scandal to my mind.
It also explains the attitude that these "suckers" have to sketchup. To them its like a slap in the face being shown that they have been duped and the emporer actually doesn't have clothes on. Nobody wants to be told that they have made the wrong choice especially after they have invested so much in it.
The fact is no other 3D software competes with the returns on investment you get with SU. First off it costs almost nothing to purchase and you only do that when you are actually seeing financial returns already, secondly it takes so little time to learn how to do usefull stuff with it that you cant really lose even if you only use it a little. Finally if you do choose to invest a lot of time and go and install all the extensions which make it brilliant in your particular field chances are you will find it just as powerfull as anything out there.
Just dont try and tell someone who is already hooked on some other package that-they just dont want to hear it!
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I'm not sure about all of this. I am deeply conflicted about SketchUp because I do know it so well, but I'm also equally aware of the competitions strengths. I cannot tolerate elitists snobs, but at the same time I find it difficult to entirely dismiss their dislike of Sketchup as unfounded (or based on jealousy, etc.).
It's true there are no perfect modeling packages, and it is also true that most pro packages cost more than SketchUp Pro -- however there are free alternatives that beat SketchUp free in terms of sheer power (I can name several), and also a few that beat SketchUp free in terms of intuitive interface (although they lack some power).
So I think the thing to bear in mind is while SketchUp is good (not great) for what it is, it is very limited (even with free ruby plugins to flesh it out)... to make it suit a power modelers needs needs you really need to purchase pay plugins (several come to mind). And by the time you do that along with purchase pro you will find that it becomes much closer in price to more powerful applications.
I feel the only real strength that SketchUp has over the competition at this point is the large and active user base -- which really compensates for most of the glaring weaknesses of the software by delivering work-arounds, tips, and plugins (often free of charge)... and also the 3rd party vendors who also prop up the weaknesses of the software (often for profit).
This lack of real power may (and hopefully will) change in the future due to the intervention of Trimble -- but it could just as easily not. Part of that is due to the fact that the dev team has made it very clear that they do not see SketchUp as a solution for power modelers... so it's inevitable that the best will eventually outgrow the package, or at the very least supplement it with other packages. Bender seems to be the popular choice for this here, I personally made different choices, but the end result is the same: SketchUps limitations force users to embrace other software to grow.
Best,
Jason. -
Jason,
In your opinion,then, what's the natural progression to another modeller for architectural work? (given ease of use and reasonable cost--not talking about Gehry buildings or skyscrapers...)
I don't encounter it, but it seems a lot of the "snobbery" people are noting is not from modellers or based on power. Few would argue the idea there's a lack there.
Peter
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Well that's the sticky wicket isn't it -- I don't really do Architectural stuff, or at least not traditional stuff (more sci-fi/fantasy)... so I could not say what an architectural person would say for sure.
However I'm of the mindset that good modeling is good modeling, and usually when I get past the "anti-SketchUp snobbery" I encounter elsewhere I often find underneath is a solid reason for disliking SketchUp. Namely the geometry that SketchUp creates is not terribly good in many cases (sometimes the fault of the program, but often the fault of the modeler using it)... and when those users are forced to deal with SketchUp made geometry in other apps it is frustrating (to say the least). The same complaints are often made about Revit, but since I don't know anything about that software I cannot confirm.
Now to be fair it IS called "SketchUp", and one would think the choice of name is purposely telling you that this is meant more for "Sketches", rather than high-end models (and results often bear that out).
I'm not into undermining this forum with talking too much about specific competing products, but I will say that after spending considerable time with the latest version of form.Z I found it to be much more powerful than SketchUp Pro, even with a slew of free and paid plugins... it is often used for architectural work, and the price is not far off from Pro.
My reservations about that software really came down to some odd UI things I wanted sorted out before I tried to teach it -- If I was using it only for personal work I would have purchased for sure, but I didn't want to spend the first 2 hours of my course explaining how to customize the UI... I prefer to cover those topics after the student has a understanding of how to use the tools, so they can customize with their own workflow in mind, rather than blindly follow my lead. So my intention was to include some UI presets to get through the bulk of the course quickly, but they were having issues with monitors of differing resolutions on some operating systems exploding the UI (think SketchUp toolbars problem but worse).
Personally, for the work I am more likely to do, I think I would prefer Modo, but that software has some issues of it's own -- I decided to hold off there due to a relatively underdeveloped/immature API for 3rd party plugins (namely my render engine). And I didn't choose MoI (my other top choice) for the same reason (non-existent API).
My other main 3D related softwares are geared more towards organics and high-end textures . As it stands I'm am taking the "wait and see" approach with how things pan out with Trimble -- if things don't move in a direction I like I will make a switch at that time... I can say for sure that I already really hate the decision to do an Autodesk-like annual release (SketchUp 2013... lame).
Best,
Jason. -
Right. Form-Z has been an architectural staple for a long time. That makes sense.
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