@rv1974 Unreal is not dummy proof indeed. Its a very powerful game engine but it requires people to model & texture & lay out UVs 'nicely' or it won't work (well)(yet).

If you have overlapping geometry in SketchUp, if you don't alter the lightmap resolution of the objects in Unreal, etc etc the results won't be good.

In a few years, GFX cards will be powerful enough to do just real-time lighting (no more lightmaps needed). At that time, a lot of of the problems people complain about might be gone.

Tried it.

• Its easy to get models from SU to Unreal.
• Lightmap uvs are generated automatically.
• materials are converted to simple Unreal materials (instances so easy to change).
• Texture sizes are converted to 2^n sizes.
• smoothing is exported

• The exporter adds a lot of extra nodes to the hierarchy in Unreal which makes finding objects a bit hard if you need to.

~ Haven't tried with complex (blobby) models and expect that to still be a problem (the lightmap uvs).
~ Even with the exporter, you still will have to make a 'clean' model in SketchUp or you won't get nice results.
~ Spending time learning Unreal will be necessary to improve your results.

Its still under development so some things might change / improve.

Any things in particular you would like to know?

For framing the shot: maybe try a watermark (style) and a transparent png with just the 3x3 lines visible? (not tested it though). When you're ready use another style

nice atmosphere / style!

not sure if its related but when you disable 'redefine thumbnail on save' (model info - file) saving is a lot faster compared to when its enabled.

@valerostudio said:

I just read that Apple with deprecate OpenGL in Mojave... so maybe a rebuild will be on the way?

a web based version

According to some rumors on the web, Nvidia will release a new 1180 card this summer. If you can wait a bit - I would expect a small price drop for the 10-series at that point as well.

Tested the GO yesterday. In short;

For 200-ish $/€ its amazing you can actually do vr now.

For not too complex models it works better than expected (150k poly).

Not always getting 60fps but for archviz of designs for my clients that is no problem. Again - its only €200.

I expect optimizations / changes to the model will be needed for a stable 60 fps / 72 fps.

Using free locomotion works quite ok. Haven't found templates for teleportation for the GO yet(or Gear).

Having 'just' 3 degrees of freedom (rift/vive have 6) isn't a real problem for evaluating an office or house. Sure, when you're used to 6dof you will miss it a bit.

Using Unreal Engine, you do need to make a separate project for the GO because several settings must be changed and UE will re-calculate all shaders for the GO (optimizations, loosing some fancy effects in the process).
This way, you can't have just 1 project that runs fine on desktop, fine in the Rift and fine in the GO as well (until now I did have just one project for desktop & Rift).

You probably also have to do optimizations to your 3d model / project for it to run nicely on the GO. That can turn into a time sink.
Using an Oculus Rift for the last year, quite early I upgraded my gtx1060 (that runs fine with most of the AAA-games) to a gtx1080 just to get more gfx power so I could import any 3d design without having to do optimizations to the model for it to run nicely.
With the GO that will be different I expect.

Still have to do more testing...

@samnorth. Will do. Maybe also keep a look at the UnrealEngine forums - VR sub section. I'm sure there will be posts about the GO there soon as well.

If you're familiar with UnrealEngine (and maybe Unity as well?) you should be able to build an app containing your 3d model to the GO. The GO is compatible with Oculus Gear apps and UE can export to that one fine.

Edit; as far as complexity of models - some presentations suggest around 100k to 200k polys and 100 to 200 shaders would be all it can handle. Will depend on the model (lods etc).

Hope tot test it soon. GO hasn't shipped yet (and lacking time)...

Ordered one yesterday. Already using the Rift but expect the GO to be useful as well for smaller projects. Clients don't really need 6 DOF and teleporting is ok for them I expect (prefer free locomotion myself). GO is more easy to take along and also can be nice to lend to clients for a while.
Polycount won't be a problem I expect, shadercount might be (using UnrealEngine). Have to wait until its delivered and find time to test...

Also curious for experiences of people who had the chance to test it already.

The 1050 would be a deal breaker for me. It depends on what you want to run and its better than nothing but more sooner than later I'm afraid the need for more power will rise again. Also, it has not enough power to do even low end vr which would be a nice option.

Edit; a nice list of eGPU enclosures can be found at https://egpu.io/external-gpu-buyers-guide-2018/

@Paul - thanks! that one works fine for me (after renaming the file to .zip)

very smart idea and generous! will definitely have a look.
Edit; anyone else have a problem with the zip?

The size of leafs seems way off... Also, whats the triangle count of the trees? 1k 10k 100k?

nice. never seen this plugin - always thought this was a missing feature in the selection toys

Blender has a video editor. I use it whenever I need to edit videos, add overlays etc. Outputs to many formats.
I expect it to have all kinds of cool-effects if combined with the 3d capabilities of Blender 3d mode. Probably have to look for video tutorials to get to the ease-to-use factor...

Edit: for seasoned cad/3d people - Blender's UI might be too different. Children do learn fast though. Why not look for a nice video tutorial and see if he likes it and wants to try?

If you're on Pro - you can download the SolarNorth plugin by SketchUp. With that one, you can easily set the north angle.

I don't know if this is a new feature but I was pleasantly surprised to learn about it:

In the 3dWarehouse, select a model, look at the statistics in the panel on the right, if you hover / click on a tag (materials/components) you can import just one of those elements instead of the whole model.
Great feature if you just need 1 material of 1 element from a collection.

Same feelings like JQL - I hope you recover soon Kristoff!!