@juju said:

@chippwalters said:

Anyway, you might be interested in this SketchUp to Blender IMPORT addon-- costs a little, but looks like it's worth it.

Thanks for the referral. I bought BlendUp (SketchUp to Blender exporter, worked rather well) back a while ago, the add is still around on SketchUcation but the product isn't compatible with the newer versions of Blender any longer.

Yeah, this is an entirely different one and works with current version ss

@glenn at home said:

Blender CAD Transform FTW!

OOPS, I see you were referring to something else...I'll leave this for others interested. Thanks for the win

This video goes into how to import SU models at scale in Blender. It's from my EEVEE Interiors rendering course.

@panixia said:

About Blender.. sure that's free, EXTREMELY powerful and constantly growing compared to SU, but still not perfect for my workflow, because I have to deal with lot of .dwg and .skp from architects, and at least in the past that was a no-go for Blender.. I don't know if this has improved with blender 2.8 that would be awesome, let me know.

Nice post. I used SU with a Unity project a couple of years ago and it did work well, with the exception I ended up running into a problem with too many polys for SU-- but worked fine in Unity. I think the number was around 400K.

Anyway, you might be interested in this SketchUp to Blender IMPORT addon-- costs a little, but looks like it's worth it.

@numerobis said:

@chippwalters said:

The newest Blender, available in beta now, has push/pull
Yes, good to see this happening. But WHY do they have this stupid handle?!? Is snapping working with push/pull?

Yes, it is all quite easy. If you want to snap, just hold the CTRL key down and it will snap to the nearest vertex, edge, face depending on what you're trying to snap to. Or you can "enable" snap mode and it will just automatically work. Think of how great it would be to "enable" or "disable" Blender's snap mode!

I think one of the reasons they have the handle is because, unlike SketchUp, you can select multiple faces grouped together and push/pull them together-- not unlike an addon by Fredo. This way they give you somewhere to "grab."

Also, they have standardized using lot's of different widgets to do most things. These same things are instead provided by the wonderful community of addon developers for SU-- who sadly have no decent UX/UI api to be able to "standardize" on gizmos or other common interface elements. So, unfortunately everyone has to develop their own UX and interface elements for how to manipulate objects.

From my posts at:
https://forums.sketchup.com/t/same-sketchup-you-love-a-new-way-to-buy/127392/59?u=chippwalters
and
https://forums.sketchup.com/t/terrible-move/127409/14?u=chippwalters

I'll c/p them here:

The newest Blender, available in beta now, has push/pull, advanced snapping modes, a crazy fabric brush where you can actually paint folds in fabric, and so much more. The released version has all those things except push/pull.

The Blender interface just keeps getting better and better. The booleans are ridiculously good and Blender has parametric modeling with modifiers, which makes edits simple and quick. And, real-time photoreal modeling and animation.

Yes, it is way more powerful than SketchUp and it does take time to learn, but with the largest installed user base in the world, and by far the most tutorials and courses of any 3D program, (on YouTube and elsewhere), you owe it to yourself to take a look. Not to mention many of the big studios are now including Blender in their production pipeline-- and some of the biggest names in 3D graphics are now supporting with millions of $$$ in yearly donations.

And it will always be free.

A caveat: if you are a big architectural firm and need the collaborative features of SketchUp and Revit, then Blender is not for you. And if you absolutely must have Layout, then Blender is not for you. And if you don’t like trying new things and still watch a CRT TV, then Blender is not for you.

AND

A personal story for those who fear Blender

A couple years ago, I was invited to teach the teachers VR at Art Center in Pasadena-- the preeminent car and concept design school in the world. I would be working with some very smart professors, but I didn’t know how much they new about 3D modeling, so I instructed SketchUp Make be placed on all the computers there-- thinking that would be the easiest way to get everyone up and running.

As a SU user, I was of course convinced it was the easiest product to learn-- if you have a hammer then every problem is a nail.

When I got there, I found out, to my surprise, how frustrated my audience was at trying to learn SketchUp. The whole “sticking to the ground unless you group it first” thing was annoying and difficult for them to quickly understand. Then there was the automatic snapping stuff, which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t-- again quite confusing. There were many there who had experience with more traditional poly modelers like Modo and Max, and so I said just use what your used to.

And that’s the whole point. If you have a hammer, you tend to pound nails. A screwdriver–you screw screws. It just depends on what you’re used to.
Afterwards, I came home and rethought why I liked SU so much. Well the fact is that I could just model much faster in SketchUp than I ever could in other programs. So, one night, as I worked in SU on a big interactive project, I asked one of my buddies who was a Blender expert, to have a “model-off.” I was sure I could show him I could build things faster in SketchUp with all my plugins, decades of experience and everything.

We chose something simple at first while we shared a GoToMeeting screenshare.

1,2,3 GO! I was off and running and about half way through-- he said, “Done.” What? Obviously it was because the model itself was so simple-- so I next chose a more difficult model. Same results.

It was that exact moment I decided I needed to learn Blender. Took me a couple months, but I did it and would absolutely not turn back. I don’t miss SketchUp one bit. I will always use the best tool for the job-- I get paid $250/hr for my work so money’s not the point for me. In fact, truth be told, that Blender was free was IMO a detriment to me considering it.

I’m glad I did.

This does not mean Blender is the perfect tool for everyone. It worked marvelously for me.

BTW, this guy does amazing things in Blender in only 10 minutes!

@rv1974 said:

@unknownuser said:

There is a VCB like region where you can enter in values.

So I need to move cursor this value field, click there and enter exact numbers every time I push-pull?

No, you can type while PP just like SU.

If you want to know specific workflows for comparison's sake, consider downloading the beta and learning for yourself.

@rv1974 said:

@chippwalters said:

There are currently some pretty good drawing tools and 2.90 version brings an even better version of push/pull than SU s shown below. Plus there's going to be a while new set of CAD like snapping tools as well in 2.9

What exactly is better SU's PushPull? How do you input exact PP values?
And I didn't see even once that external object was used as reference (for PP).

If you watch the video, you'll see Blender's PP removed some unusual cases for interior coplanar faces, which SU cannot do.

There is a VCB like region where you can enter in values.

Snapping is possible, you just have to turn it on (unlike SU where you can't turn it off).

I'm not interested in creating a SketchUp vs. Blender fan thread. if you enjoy SketchUp and how it works then good for you and best of luck.

No. If you need Layout type capabilities, then SU is your best choice

There are currently some pretty good drawing tools and 2.90 version brings an even better version of push/pull than SU s shown below. Plus there's going to be a while new set of CAD like snapping tools as well in 2.9

@hornoxx said:

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Ha ha.

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