[chedda]

I love using Sketchup but recently I have been suffering. To my recent discovery through Jason maxwell loves polys Sketchup basically hates them. I am running into problems preparing objects for maxwell through Sketchup. I often import 3ds or obj files clean them up and texture them in Sketchup. Beds chairs with upholstery or other high poly objects are just ridiculous. It takes a day sometimes just to explode something lol. Then when they are finally prepared they have super high fast benchmarks in maxwell. I am starting to think they are not really suited to each other. I am looking in rhinos direction right now as they have a beta for Osx. Does anyone have experience in other sketchup like software for the Mac which can handle large files ?

[JDHill]

Regarding Rhino, just keep in mind that there is currently no plugin for Rhino on OSX, so you would need to use something like an OBJ > Studio workflow.

[Half Life]

There are things you can do in SketchUp to make things more responsive in high-poly scenarios -- but at some point I always retreat to Maxwell Studio because it can handle an absurd amount of polys without complaint. Aside from not being able to edit or create geometry it is the most ideal environment to setup Maxwell scenes in, since every aspect of the program was created solely to work with Maxwell settings.

I always wonder how Maxwell Studio manages to look better, be more powerful, and handle many times more polys than SketchUp...

There are tons of apps to edit geometry and unwrap UV's in... Maybe you might want to check out http://www.daz3d.com/i/products/hexagon? -- it's free right now , has a mac version, and I've heard good things about it.

Best,
Jason.

[chedda]

I guess I will have to soldier on. I am hoping in vain that Sketchup 9 can up the poly count, it should be out this year ? I know handling larger geometry has been a request for some time now. I suppose I can dream ! It does seem like a logical progression especially for the pro version. I'll skip Rhino for the moment then JD I dont need another stepping stone in my workflow. Jason thanks for the link for free it's worth investigating. I'm just so fluent in Sketchup change is gonna hurt.


Just checked hexagon looked promising until I saw no lion support !

[Half Life]

Oh, I know what you mean -- I know SketchUp pretty well too

However I also have a pretty good basis in SubD, so I can move between the two approaches pretty well -- Nurbs are still something I'd like to get more into just out of curiousity, but I've only got so much time and so many neat toys to play with

If the timetable holds up with previous releases we should see SketchUp 9 in August/September... so you shouldn't have to wait long.

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Man those Apple people really hose you guys with the whole backward compatibility thing -- I know this is heresy but what about boot camp or parallels?

Best,
Jason.

[chedda]

Your right about the time factor Jason that's why I have to make a calculated decision. Moving to maxwell has been great so far although I forfeited my extensive Artlantis libraries. That's why I am re making the whole damn lot through Sketchup again ! (bigger & better this time)

[Half Life]

Have you looked at http://www.formz.com/products/bonzai3d.html? It has a Maxwell plugin too (which would be free to you) although it's still pretty new...

Best,
Jason.

[chedda]

Got parallels, win7 & max totally lost so alien for me i cannot operate a thing lol ps I used a drawing board at university, I'm from the generation just before cad was mainstream perhaps that's why Sketchup feels so natural.


Thanks for the bonzai tip I'll investigate. Thanks for your time.

[Half Life]

I'm a sucker for anything free -- which is how I got started with SketchUp, but I also have a ton of experience working on a drawing board... I was an early adopter of 2D graphics applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, but 3D didn't interest me much until later -- mostly because I'm generally not terribly interested in animation/video games and that's all I thought 3D was for a long time. Discovering Maxwell was a revolution for me because it allows me to limit my reliance on existing photo reference for my artwork, and still get the results I need.

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Duh! I totally forgot about Modo -- I've been tempted with Modo myself so it may be a good choice:

http://www.luxology.com/modo/

It's a bit pricier, but very capable... not to mention some very good Maxwell users are also Modo users so you would be in good hands with advice.

Best,
Jason.

[numerobis]

It takes a day sometimes just to explode something lol ...

Yes, it's really incredible how long some actions can take in sketchup that are working in realtime in other packages... i hope, they will improve this in the next release - but i don't know if this will happen since there was almost no improvement since v2 at all...
Maybe this is due to the inference engine of sketchup, i don't know.

... Does anyone have experience in other sketchup like software for the Mac which can handle large files ?

The problem is, that there simply is NO other program like sketchup, even after 10 years of success...
I've looked into modo, bonzai and silo to replace sketchup in my workflow, but none of them can compete with sketchup in terms of snapping, navigation and flexibitily and directness of simple editing in arch modeling.
For high poly objects and complex modeling i import the scene to max and finish it there or use it as basis to populate it with high poly objects and combine the two scenes in studio.

I'm really waiting for the mxs referencing in sketchup... this will be a real game changer!

[Half Life]

Absolutely, and this seems like a popular workflow -- and as I said in the beginning Maxwell Studio is (to me) an indispensable tool, which when combined with MXS referencing in SketchUp is going to eliminate alot of the high-poly bottlenecks SketchUp presents... game changer is a great way to describe it.

I'm also not holding out for much improvement in SketchUp in terms of poly-count handling -- however if they can just provide good tools for UV's in SketchUp combined with MXS referencing in the plugin I would be content... as it stands now putting proper UVs on a Sketchup model does almost as much damage as increasing the poly count (in terms of file size).

Best,
Jason.

[chedda]

Thanks for the feedback Numerobis. I did some research on bonsai it was said it is like sketch up on steroids and has unlimited polys. Wow sounds perfect then i came here and very few threads, (i suppose this could be a good thing). The sketch up 3ds and obj importers also really suck i spend most of the day waiting, other programs boom it's open ! I don't think i am alone in finding the limits of sketch up i'd just be interested in the route others took. For now i will use studio for adding high poly stuff as i convert things, it's just preparing them that is the problem. I do have a little hope for the next sketch up update, i believe a lot of the community are seeing the same problems the pro version should get more powerful imho.

chedda

[chedda]

As a reference to other users i have done some research.

Bonzai looks the most similar to sketch up and solves the poly issue, however there seems to be a low user base especially here on the forums. Also no fire as yet which is kind of important. The price is good very similar to sketch up. I found some great resources over at get method.com to give me some insight. Sketchup files are supported so this a big plus for me.

Modo, looks like the full package this shows in the price also. They have a great site a bit like next limit they even have models ready. I suspect there isn't anything modo cannot do.The plugin has fire ! but no .skp importer ! Animation, rigging and plenty more that i don't really understand. This application looks like something you can really grow into and never have to leave (only for studio or maxwell)

I am going to give both the trials a go, but i have a nagging suspicion neither can really be as intuitive to me as sketch up. My best case scenario at the moment is to hope sketch up 9 solves my problems. I have also a feeling this is pretty much of a long-shot although as i've discovered i am not alone in these high poly import problems.

The user base behind sketch up is huge something i know both google & next limit are aware of so evolution should be on my side in both cases.I also know sketch up has that hobbyist feel especially in the free version, i am just hoping now that google step up and expand the pro version because from my understanding it is used widely by architectural practises. I have found that using the cleanup script after the .3ds or .obj file has eventually imported, does help reduce the geometry and ultimately the file size and performance of sketch up. Also never dream of showing hidden geometry or shadows or any of the sketch up styles it's basically game over.

The maxwell plugin does not yet support proxies ? But this could be the answer and a game changer like Brodie & others have suggested. It seems like next limit has identified this problem. I would however have to make low poly versions of all my objects to work in sketch up this is a pain and i wonder if it could be automated ?

Thanks again for everyones help.

Chedda