Alan, if you go through the Lively sites you can start to recognize the models from the 3D Warehouse. What do you think it was for? For years people have been talking about a Google "Second Life" competitor...I always assumed it wouldn't be retarded, though.

Do you know I get scolding mail from various architects suggesting I am a fraud because I teach SketchUp to architecture students? From random stranger-architects who find my class sites? I've had to add a couple of particularly obnoxious ones to my spam list. Who has the time to do things like that?

And I actually lost (or rather, was forcibly removed from) one particular teaching position, a studio, because I was willing to let my design students use SketchUp for their work. They fired me in the middle of the semester!

Geez, maybe my antagonists were right though. I always suspected I was a fraud for different reasons, but maybe SketchUp isjust a dead end.

We should start a final "alternative modeler" thread: "Now that SU is a toy, what application should we port our projects to?"

I've noticed a great many of the Google team looking at this thread.

Do you get the message, guys?

As I wrote in another thread, I think I will be jumping ship shortly for a real 3D modeler, now that SU has been relegated to being a toy for teeny-boppers. Way to go.

I was just noticing that Max 5 has finally come out...it looks like you could use the Jitter component for animation and rendering for 3D models...30-day trial...

Of course, you could also do this with VVVV, which is free for non-commercial use.

@-rb- said:

Thanks again, I am currently looking at VJ stuff also so will have to have a good flick through the links. Was looking at (is it the MIT based?) Programming language for a bit but as is always the case there ain't enough time in the world. BTW the new Nine Inch Nails live show looks pretty spectacular, if you haven't YouTubed already.

Does anyone know which generative software bands such as Autechre use? Shot in the dark but hey, this forum looks to have a pretty broad knowledge base.

Autechre uses Max much of the time, or rather they use Max to design their own sound applications. There is a screenshot of one of their "patches" (that is the term in Visual Programming for a script or program) on the Wikipedia entry for Max that I listed above, and I've linked to it below.

Incidentally, I've been led to understand this video for Autechre was produced with one of the Visual Programming applications...Max, PD, or VVVV would have been capable of it. I should write the designer and find out, I suppose.

If you mean Processing Language from MIT...that's great, but it is in fact a customized version of Java designed for artists and not a true Visual Programming Language. It is a textual computer language, like Java and using Java syntax with some graphic command additions. I've met the two principal developers...they are very devoted to computer applications for the arts.

I will check out the NIN live show stuff...I've enjoyed the recent albums.

@-rb- said:

Thanks again!

Do you know what Eno is using too?

Well, he was involved with a program called Koan, which is apparently obsolete. I just looked it up, and there seems to be a successor program. However, I just scanned the site, and it's based on textual scripting. I don't know if Eno uses this.

I'm not so much interested in "generative" design as I am in that Visual Programming idiom, although of course Visual Programming can be used to create generative design (and apparently often is).

@-rb- said:

Wow, Designreform looks great - thanks!

Haha can't handle the Blender UI so will stick to Grasshopper for the moment. Oddly enough the UI in Grasshopper looks alot like some of my peers live DJ 'chain of effects' tools. I wonder if they operate in similar ways.

VVVV (freeware) and PD (open source) are both used by VJ's and DJ's, although PD's older brother Max is more common among musical types. And it has been around for ages...look at the Wikipedia site to see who has been using it. It was looking up Radiohead's tools, oddly enough, that introduced me to this programming concept, well before I discovered shader makers or Explicit History.

By the way, if you are reading this and have a Mac, you have a VJ-ready visual programming application already: Quartz Composer. It comes with your OS.

@-rb- said:

Arg Grasshopper needs Rhino SR3...

Have you been using this a bit Lewis? I'm very intrigued.

I used the previous beta, which was originally titled "Explicit History." It was great but missing some fundamentals (like instances for objects). Since the update I've been caught up with a more conventional modeling project, but that will be due in 9 days and I'll have the time to play around with software for a bit. Diego has assured me that many of the limitations in the earlier beta are being dealt with.

Here are some nice tutorials on Grasshopper. This site also contains some interesting work. Also, do a search on Youtube and you can see some screen recordings of it in action, affecting Rhino models. Finally, the main Grasshopper site includes a nascent but enthusiastic forum (Google Group).

If you're really interested in visual programming, however, there are plenty of open source or otherwise free applications--see Diego's and my posts at the top of this thread.. PD, noted above, is FOSS, quite mature and well documented (if not particularly pretty). Blender has a shader developer that is very intriguing (and free). I have used that, and it's a wonder, but of course you have to get past the Blender interface to model something to use it on. Lily is FOSS as well, and looks interesting (I found it through Wikipedia's entry on Visual Programming).

@unknownuser said:

Lewis,

We have made the switch (not really a switch as SU is still our primary design tool) to modo and I could not be more impressed. I will say that if you go the route of modo I would suggest the signature training dvds. They explain the workings of modo very well. They are also close to releasing the SU plugin that will bring in a SU with textures into modo. They had it for 301 but not yet for 302. The rendering capabilities are excellent as well once you get your hands around it.

Scott

Thanks, Scott. Apparently I get academic pricing on Modo, as well. I just need to finish one high-priority project before I can jump into that. --Lewis

Rhino also has a tool for setting clipping plane distance...how cool is that? Given the stupid news about Google "Lively" today, I think I better resolve to port all my architectural projects over to Rhino more or less permanently now. SU is destined to be a toy for tweenies and social misfits who can't handle reality.

I think I'll be giving both Silo and Modo a spin, as well. No reason to pretend anymore that SU is to be used for any serious design work. And to think that I have had shouting matches with people about SU, defending it as a legitimate tool for architetural design.

I wonder if this could be taken as a case study: how to take a disruptive technology and make it so puerile that its most advanced users become ashamed of it. Hmmm...that's pretty long for a title.

Seems like the world of uber-geeks agrees with my previously-expressed sentiment concerning this new app:

(tech.slashdot.org)

Some of the posts are really funny:

Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World - Slashdot

I think something is wrong with my lively account.The first time I logged in, some funny looking feller who looked like Colonel Sanders greeted me, "Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the google. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which d...

(tech.slashdot.org)

Those of us who noticed the scrolling list of current Google queries on the wall in the Googleplex reception room will appreciate this one:

Google Launches Lively, an Avatar Based 3D World - Slashdot

I got bored waiting for it to load, then it crashed ff3 so I gave up.There was an interesting loop in the waiting room though, displaying what I can only assume were search queries.One query in particular confirmed this....

(tech.slashdot.org)

But I think, all-in-all, the very first post really pronounces the damning judgement:

@unknownuser said:

The Shark...Has officially been jumped at Google.

What's next, a program to install animated smileys to your Outlook e-mails?

Stupid music video with "Bratz"-type avatars:

[flash=425,344:24jerzfn]http://www.youtube.com/v/5YbwfOucET8&hl[/flash:24jerzfn]

So this is what SketchUp was destined for, all along? To be a content-producer for a virtual world of prepubescent, hydrocephalic twits with bad taste in electronic music? Time to call my stockbroker and tell him to dump my Google shares! Whatever happened to the Snowcrashbusiness-plan?

It has "issues" with certain graphic-heavy PDF files, and printing limitations. No frills is what you get...Foxit is bigger but handles more PDF types.

I don't think that is quite what we're talking about, TBD, although it is close to the hidden recorder that was in SU1. And a great idea, too, I should add.

But this is the sort of visual programming we have in mind: Rhino's (still-beta) Grasshopper. It's not a macro recorder--it's an object-oriented programming language with a visual interface that immediately indicates connections and flow path between data objects and methods.

Here's the interface for PD.

The idea (at least for me) is to not have to deal with the non-natural grammatic patterns of a textual computer language. Since human beings are primarily visual and haptic creatures, a scripting/programming language that permits immediate visual feedback would be the most natural language of them all (in theory). In this sort of environment, you move your data/method nodes arround, pull out connectors to tie objects together (indicating data flow), and then run to see output (some variants, like VVVV and PD are live...output happens as the nodes are assembled, which is why DJs and VJs are so fond of them as performance art tools).

This visual evolution in programming should be considered equivalent to the visual evolution in operating systems from primitive versions such as DOS to windowized modern ones. It could also be criticized in the same way...but did we really become dumber once we went from DOS to Macintosh OS?

I think it would be very important and quite in keeping with the whole original sentiment of SketchUp: "3D for everyone."

"Programming for everyone."

It would have to be more than just Ruby (I think that might be too slow) to make this...well beyond my current programming skill set and my limited Java and Python. But once my current project finishes up at the end of the month, I don't seem to have anything to do besides worry about my personal economic status...perhaps this would be a good time to learn a new skill.

@basic.woodworks said:

is there a question or request here? Or are you just offering "doodle" make work project?

BW

He's offering us .style files, that's all. Dave is a particular master at creating them.

@frederik said:

@kwistenbiebel said:

What would be a good workflow getting your Sketchup model into a 3D PDF ?

Check out Deep Publisher, it's free and you can use skp-files directly...

I thought I had to export to 3DS, but it open skp-files directly..!!

Thanks, Frederick. And thank you, US Military-Industrial Complex!

They have military advisers?

@kwistenbiebel said:

@lewiswadsworth said:

Only problem with Foxit is that it can't open those rare 3D pdf files.

I thought the 3D PDF's where still kind of buggy in general.
At least some time ago, but things maybe changed rapidly.
What would be a good workflow getting your Sketchup model into a 3D PDF ?

There's an RPS application they are pushing on the Google SketchUp site, but if you had the Acrobat Pro 3D you could just import an OBJ or 3DS file. I believe I could do it with Photoshop CS3 XT with those same formats, although I don't have time to experiment today. I'm sure there are other ways of doing it. But I really haven't seen a need yet.

@unknownuser said:

SME was a test on having an interface for writing Ruby scripts without knowing how to program (you can play with the limited demo). it creates a simple ruby script after you click on script (upper right)

it was created before SU6 and WebDialogs as a testcase for my Suriko project (WebDialogs daddy in SU5 ), so it can be extended now and have a realtime tool, with instant feedback. it can be turned in something similar to Grasshoper, but it needs some work

Sounds good, but if you take it up again don't forget the visualization and dataflow components. Let me know if I can help...the interesting thing about Grasshopper (which I've used more than any of these others) is that it opens up a separate interface, outside of the Rhino application, with a pretty robust set of independent GUI rules, but the changes in the visual script immediately manifest themselves (in a sort of preview mode) in the main Rhino window.

I'm not following the design ideas, though. Are you still working on an observatory?

I like Foxit, as well, mainly because of the difference in install sizes with Acrobat Reader: something like 2MB versus 90MB. That's a big deal on something like an Asus Eee.

Only problem with Foxit is that it can't open those rare 3D pdf files. If they become less rare, I may have to go back to Acrobat.