Really nice texturing, love it! However, it would all be cast concrete, right? So the bricks showing through look out of place.

These are lovely sketches, thanks for sharing them here!

@rv1974 said:

It's not.

I know, that was the point of my comment. Seems like yet another year SU adds some small tool tweak and "performance improvements" in the name of keeping the $$$ubscription model afloat.

@rich o brien said:

But if the extension ecosystem is used to feed their 'roadmap' then that's not great if you've worked on a tool for years and its simply cloned.

1000%

That's another underlying point I was snarkily making, best exemplified by solo's meme above.

@rich o brien said:

3d for everyone...

But they do keep adding tools... that's why I am posing the question about pace. SU devs obviously have to evaluate if the tools can be made "for everyone"

Good question about what one might consider the major plugins. Things like FredoScale, Weld, Tools on Surface, some Extrusion Tools, SmartDrop, Align, ThruPaint, Cleanup, Make Face. Just offhand some of the less complex (on the user-end) ones I use pretty much daily. (Not getting into more complicated ones like Quadface & Vertex tools, Skatter, etc.)

Yes, that is the underlying question, is the cost worth it for something so incomplete. (And will it ever be offered in a "complete" state?)

I saw a post on the Enscape forum that one user was experiencing all sorts of bugs in the SU 2023 installation, so I thought.. why install the latest SU release? I see a major new feature is the "flip" tool... which sounds like the mirror plugin from the mid aughts with a few tweaks and spit-shines. Also, some parts of selection toys seems to have gotten incorporated as well. So here's my guess that by about 2040 we'll see most major plugins of the last 2 decades incorporated into base SU. You heard it here first, check back in the next decade and let me know how it's progressing.

Yes, Blender has gotten rid of "remove doubles" and now relies solely on "merge by distance" now. Never did fix the collada export issues, but doesn't matter as I'm only using Enscape and not rendering in Blender lately.

Incredible! Thanks for sharing!

Such a horrific situation, truly. There's an archviz studio ArchCGI (I think I'd bought assets from them before and am on their email list) have sent out a plea for donations. Some of their employees are in Ukraine. Here's the donation link https://savekyiv.org/

body of their email:

@unknownuser said:

Dear colleagues!

We are ArchiCGI 3D rendering studio. Today, we are writing to you not for professional reasons, but to ask for help. Our production offices are situated in Ukraine, and the country is now invaded by Russian troops. They destroy villages, lay siege to towns and cities, bomb and shell residential quarters. Tonight, they attacked our nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe. Last week, the troops occupied the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Some of our 3D artists had to leave for safer parts of the country, and some joined the Defensive Army. We help them by volunteering. We raise money, buy necessities in Europe, take them to Poland, and then — to Ukraine.

We take care of the elderly and gravely ill who cannot find the medicines they need, and often don’t have the means to buy food. So we deliver necessities across Kyiv right into their homes.

So far, we have raised 174 910,14 USD. You can see what we bought and where we took the humanitarian aid in this presentation.

View the Presentation

Unfortunately, that’s not nearly enough to help everyone, and the situation in the country degrades.

Would you like to join forces with us and help those in need? You could do this by donating at https://savekyiv.org/

On this site, you will find how we organized the process, what we buy, and how we take it from Europe to homes in Kyiv.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write to us.

Wishing you peaceful homes and thrilling projects,

Best Regards,
ArchiCGI Team

@box said:

I think we will be using flying unicorns to get about

Sounds like the approximate timeframe of when we'll all be satisfied with our rendering software!

@rv1974 said:

I link skp's into Max and Max has Live link to Vantage

Thanks. Is there an integration of Vantage into the V-Ray for Sketchup plugin? Or does that have its own real-time engine that's different from Vantage?

Lol, I was like - "what's Vantage?" I see that it's a renaming of Chaos' Lavina realtime effort. Again - how does its integration with Sketchup look? Having gone back and forth over many years between different better or worse integrations with SU, I am not likely to ever choose a "linked" but not integrated rendering solution for primary rendering again.

@rv1974 said:

@unknownuser said:

What do you think this will mean in the near and long term?

I have even higher hopes regarding Vantage now (absolutely hate idea to switch to UE)

@solo I guess we have somewhat different use cases. Doing regular arch-viz, I don't need object animation (fly-throughs & panos are really all I need) or volumetric lighting. I keep seeing reports from various folks that UE is the future - but in what way for arch-viz specifically? So much of this depends on the CAD platform underneath, that the jumping back and forth during design is going to be a constant negative factor. Do you see any better integration in the future or is UE going to continue to be a separate platform?

Thanks for the insight. How do you find the less integrated workflow of Twinmotion compared to Enscape & Sketchup? Time is money, and I can do everything so much faster with Enscape. I was using a Sketchup to Blender/V-Ray workflow for a long time before switching to Enscape, and the productivity I've achieved was not possible before.

Interesting that the email that Enscape sent out says nothing about the private equity money behind the 2 companies. Here's the email, which has some notable differences from the public press release:

We have some exciting news to share with you today!

Enscape and Chaos, two of the most well-known names in visualization, have merged into one company dedicated to developing the world's greatest end-to-end ecosystem for visualization and collaboration.

Chaos is widely known as a world leader in visualization and computer graphics, offering an ecosystem of 3D rendering, real-time visualization, and simulation software. Chaos' flagship rendering solution, V-Ray, is the go-to visualization tool across multiple industries, supporting everything from architecture, product designs, and world-class advertising campaigns to visual effects in film and television.

Together with Enscape's unparalleled real-time rendering and design workflow optimization software, we have the unique opportunity to provide an entire range of tools to help architects, designers, and artists from diverse industries to visualize their ideas in the best way possible — from concept to completion.

The newly-combined company will operate under the Chaos brand name. We will continue to develop and sell all products from both company portfolios, including leading products, Enscape, V-Ray, and Corona. Both companies will work together to continue the development of your favorite products but also provide you with new innovative solutions and services to help you better visualize your ideas and designs.

As an Enscape customer, nothing will change for you in the short term. You can still expect the same high level of development, support, and commitment from us. We will continue developing Enscape as the leading real-time rendering and design workflow optimization software according to our planned roadmap.

Thank you for your continued trust in our company and our product. It's going to be an exciting year, and we're grateful to have you with us.

We'll have more to share with you soon, so stay tuned!

Huge announcement! (At least for people in the rendering world)

Enscape and Chaos "merge"--> https://enscape3d.com/press/enscape-and-chaos-merge/

What do you think this will mean in the near and long term?

My hope is that V-Ray quality comes to Enscape. My fear is that V-Ray pricing comes to Enscape, as well as the slow development cycles. I am also afraid that this likely puts V-Ray for Blender even further out of reach, but unfortunately that seems to be a white whale for a shrinking sliver of rendering enthusiasts. I hope my pessimism is unwarranted, but pretty much every significant merger and acquisition we've seen in the rendering field has meant profits over service.

For a mirror, it's what material is applied to the surface that matters, not whether an object is a solid or a face. As far as the reflection/refraction scene settings, this was done many, many versions ago, and I don't know where the settings are currently found.

I may have missed an update, thanks for that clarification.

@box said:

That behavior changed in a release about a month ago, the one today addressed some other issues.
Note that the toggle still works, they added back in the ability to hold it down. And a double tap of ctrl before you start turns on the repeat paste option.

I just installed the latest SU update they rolled out today. The crtl+move stickiness is gone and it's back to the traditional behavior where you have to hold ctrl to copy. Yay! It's been bugging me ever since I installed 2021 a month or so ago.