@jenujacob said:

Hi Chipp..
Are you planning on releasing a 'Definitely EEVEE: Definitive Exteriors' course? Being an architect (who does not always indulge in interior design) I would like to do some quick exterior renders using blender and eevee (using HDRi etc). Or do you think it will be helpful if i get the 'Definitely EEVEE: Definitive Interiors' and apply the concepts for exteriors? (PS : I am not proficient in using blender and so that is why i am hoping for someone to guide me through the paces)

I've had many a request for such a course and I think it would be a great idea. Unfortunately, my time is limited currently as I'm dealing with some health issues, but your idea is on my list.

I don't see any reason exteriors would be difficult for EEVEE. FWIW, I'm also playing around with Blender XR which is a VR addon to Blender which would let you walk around in you interior.

@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!

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

@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

Differences between Blender 2.8 for Windows and macOS?

Hi, I haven’t tried Blender 2.8 yet, because of the early alpha stage it is in at the time I write this. But I’m eagerly anticipating switching to 2.8. I’m wondering though: will there be differences between 2.8 for Wi…

Blender Artists Community (blenderartists.org)

@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.

A peek into what I'm currently working on for Blender...

@xtov said:

Hum....it is your choice, and you may have right at the end.
BUT...SU lovers, check this Blender QUICK References Card...
You may regret SU simplicity...event with some plugins loaded...

[attachment=0:1igs9ypl]<!-- ia0 -->blender-infographic-1280-SM.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1igs9ypl]

That's the old version of Blender, which relied too much on keystrokes. I would hate to see what a similar map for SU would look like if it included all the same features (from plugins).

Please see the 2.8 Blender app for a much simpler interface.

Without seeing the .blend file, it's hard to say...

@ntxdave said:

So what is the best way to move my models to Blender 2.8?

I tried .dae and only parts showed up. I also tried fbx but got a message in Blener 2.8 that it did not support fbx.

See my YouTube video above. It walks you through all the settings.

@pilou said:

Don't know if it's indispensable...because collada format seems working...
(i see that Premium SKetchucation members has a cool

Awhile back, I bought that, then tried to contact the author-- all with no results. It's dead for sure. Even if it did work, it wouldn't work in 2.8 as they now use Collections instead of Layers.

Hey all,

As many of you may know, I have a course that takes you from modeling in SketchUp to rendering and animating using EEVEE (Blender's realtime photorealistic renderer) in Blender.

It's at https://gum.co/EEVEE

Also, here's one of the lessons from the course which may get some of you started. It's on IMPORTING from SketchUp to Blender while keeping the proper scale units.

I switched to Blender.

Mostly for the reasons outlined at:
https://forums.sketchup.com/t/sketchup-in-2019-where-great-ideas-get-to-work/87199/602?u=chippwalters

A couple of points folks might find interesting.

1. I typically stay away from OS software... especially Blender. What a PIA it has been to ever try and work with. I love developers, but they should never be in charge of GUI. Period. Ugh what a mess Blender has had to overcome.

On a related note, the same can be said for SU. The myriad of modalities, buttons, color palettes, and font faces on plugins has created a true hodge podge for GUI. The absence of any standards whatsoever is just sad. Blender has plugin APIs so things tend to look similar. SUs API UX/UI seems to only consider a single button and menu item.

2. The Blender group finally hired some world class interface designers, and man have they made a difference. Blender 2.8, besides being so great technically, is now very very usable. This, IMO, is huge. The 2.8 product is updated every single day. I and many others (largest installed base in the world) use the 2.8 beta with little to no problems.

And one thing they did get right. When I download a new .zip of Blender (Mac/PC/Linux) and then unzip it wherever-- it just works. It uses all the plugins I have installed and all the prefs and the current startup scene. One of the biggest hiccups with SU is trying to get all your plugins loaded each year with a new release. Argh. Not so much with Blender (and besides, you don't need 100 plugins for Blender either-- stuff like bevels, SubD, rendering, etc come with the program).

3. I was very lucky to have hired masterxeon1001 to my Augmented Reality team. The backstory:

@unknownuser said:

A couple of years ago, I ran across a very interesting tool, called Hard Ops by masterxeon1001. Up until that time, most all Boolean modeling was done in solid modelers, like Fusion 360, Onshape and MoI3D. His designs and workflows were impressive, and not something I'd ever seen in polygon modelers. So, I got on the phone and called one of my buddies, Rob Baldwin, who works in Hollywood doing FX there. I asked him, "Have you seen this Hard Ops product?"

Rob said, "Yep, it's a pretty fantastic workflow tool. And the guy who started it is right there in your backyard." He gave me masterxeon1001's contact info and we met. A friendship started and we ended up working together on some really interesting projects. Along the way, he convinced me to give Blender a try, and I haven't looked back!

4. I used to think Open Source was just a dollar short of going away. Not anymore. Adobe just left me high and dry with a bunch of MUSE and Bus Catalyst websites, so if they can do it, anyone can. Today I give to the Blender Foundation Development Fund each month.

This does not mean I advocate everybody switch. It's just what's right for me.

For anyone interested: I replied to their reply of the ridiculous reason for not sharing their roadmap:

SketchUp in 2019: where great ideas get to work

Well, it has been quite a year (plus a little) here at SketchUp HQ, with tremendous amounts of coffee consumed and today we’re finally ready to spill what we’ve been working so hard to finish. There’s quite a lot to shar…

SketchUp Community (forums.sketchup.com)

@solo said:

Rich O'Brien is fluent in Blender, he'd be a good tutor as he comes from SU and understands the issues most SU users have in Blender, I vote he starts the revolution, even I will join.

Hats off and a huge thanks to the plugin authors, they have been keeping SU alive the last few years You know they are listening as a few new importers and poly reducers are on the horizon, too bad we need such tools due to SU's poly limitations.

I'm glad to help out how I can. I love the SU community and have many longtime associated and friends here, Pete among them.

I just posted an open letter to Trimble over on their forum which may be of interest to some of you. I hope they consider becoming more transparent with their road map.

An open letter to Trimble

Dear Trimble, So, 14 months ago, I previewed much of this current scenario. My first ask was about how to implement plugins in the cloud to which I was told SU was actively pursuing a strategy. Didn’t happen (yet). At…

SketchUp Community (forums.sketchup.com)

@rv1974 said:

Chipp, if you are in contact with Blender management try to convince them to deliver even deeper a-la SU mimesis ( on-the-fly dimentions input, material eye dropper+bucket, double click to edit, component concept, etc etc). User base will swell exponentially.

Some of what you ask for can be implemented with plugins called "addons" in Blender. I've had lengthy discussions with top devs on how to use the knife tool as a line tool (that's what it really is) and how to do Push/Pull. He believes it's imminently doable. In fact there was a PP addon for 2.79 but it got pulled when they switched boolean engines. Blender already has a very robust and intuitive beveling/filleting engine, and Joint-push-pull just works by selecting the polys you want moved and extruding them out (but not in).

You can display on the fly the dimensions of lines, angles, etc. There's a setting for that, but you can't parametrically edit them easily. Once you learn now to Snap when moving, it gets like you are sorta working the SU way.

There's the plugin Archipack now available for 2.8 which makes short work of floorplans, adding windows and doors with accurate dimensions. Haven't yet spent a lot of time with it, but there are some decent tutes out there on it.

The biggest challenge for SU to Blender is you really have to think in a different modeling paradigm. At first, at least for me, it was difficult. But I started to 'get it' and now it's second nature and I'm now even faster than I was in SU-- which I think is saying something for me as I built the whole Alamo reconstruction in a few short months with historical accuracy for Experience Real History: The Alamo. I also created a full Hyperloop user concept for Elon Musk entirely in SU. There was an article about it at Fast Company.

I really like SU's sketchy line renders. I'm working on creating a tutorial to do the same in Blender (see my chippwalters twitter account for preview if you like).

Because Blender renders significantly more polys and much faster than SU, poly count isn't as big a concern unless you're doing game models. There are many types of modeling that can be done: Sculpting (with billions of polys), SubDivision surfaces (with better workflow than SU), and my favorite: non-destructive boolean modeling. I just finished a secret investor project and the non-destructive Boolean workflow saved my butt as it was super easy to go back an change stuff.

Here's a really good example of it (not my video, but sweet none the less!) Check it out. You won't believe how simple the originating shapes are that created this box. Non-destructive modeling in Blender allows you to go back in and change every fillet, wall thickness, opening, pin size, etc in a matter of seconds. Cool beans.

Also I'll share with you a really cool addon our team created lately. There's the free version which works in 2.79 and will be released for 2.8 this week that has most of the features of the PRO. The PRO version allows you to make your own INSERTS (components in SU language) libraries called KPACKS. One of the best things about Blender is it has a far superior boolean engine than SU and realtime crazy fast. KPACKS are now being sold in many Blender stores. You can buy them and use the Free version to insert them. With over 100K Blender users, we hear KPACK authors are doing pretty well. We also help them advert on kit-ops.com

This quick tute shows at the beginning how fast you can populate a scene with INSERTS (just as you can with components) but even better, it cuts windows and doors ALL THE WAY THROUGH WALLS, unlike SU. Check it out:

@l i am said:

<snip> and Blender (Ugh, that interface) and perhaps others. </snip>

You really need to take a look at Blender 2.8. Brand new interface created by top UI designers. Left-click to select. Navigation controls are *EXACTLY like SU (orbit, pan, zoom). Imports textures from SketchUp files (use OBJ export). Superior rendering with realtime render EEVEE (google it, amazing!)

There are many many users switching from Modo, Maya and others to the free version of Blender 2.8. You can even just use Blender to render and animate your SketchUp files. Cool beans

@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.

New SketchUp 2019....no new in-demand features. Predicted this a year ago here in the thread and on YouTube. At that time I started the migration to Blender. You should check out my video at YouTube for more info:

Also, I just relased a course specifically aimed at SketchUp artists who want to model in SketchUp and render using Blender 2.8's FREE realtime photoreal renderer: EEVEE. Check it out at

FWIW, I was in a message thread predicting the lack of features for Pro this coming year, and also predicting the eventual move of Pro to the cloud, which I specifically stated would take longer than a year. I've already received KUDOS on my YT channel for the predictions.

So, I placed the above message in the SketchUp forum thread (not Sketchucation) this all started. In less than 45 seconds a moderator killed my post. So, just a heads up, it's now clear they will want to control the messaging around the dire straits of SketchUp.

Hey guys,

As many of you may know, I've been hard at work on a SketchUp to Blender Rendering pipeline. And I've been working with many top SketchUp artists to create a course that brings the power of the FREE Blender 2.8 EEVEE renderer to SketchUp users.

What this means is you can continue to model AND EVEN TEXTURE in SketchUp, then port your scenes to Blender where you can create photoreal renderings and animations in seconds. This picture literally took under 2 seconds to render! (the render is on the RIGHT-- the left is a photograph)

One of the key goals in this course was to give the minimum information necessary, in a compressed format, so you can jump into Blender with your SketchUp files, without having to learn UV Mapping, modeling, complex shaders, node editors and compositing tools. I've done all the hard work for you to try and make it as simple as possible.

If you want to learn more:

and here as well:
https://gum.co/EEVEE

@mike amos said:

When will Blender 2.8 be released? All I have found out so far is that release is delayed.

I'm hearing sometime in Q2-2019..BUT there many people are now using it since it's been in BETA. Beta typically means all the features are locked down but there may still be bugs. I've been using it for a few months now and it's pretty darn robust. As Pete says, you can download it now.

Regarding DL'ing of Blender 2.8. You should consider updating your download every couple of weeks. I know this sounds silly, but it's pretty amazing how robust the daily builds are. I've yet to have to 'revert' to an older version, and I've been doing this for both 2.79 and 2.8 for quite some time now.