Author Topic: Corona for Sketchup Discussion  (Read 21982 times)

2014-12-20, 19:37:41

The Pixel Artist

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Hi all!

I've mentioned to KM that I'm interested in helping to develop a "Corona for Sketchup".  I am not much of a programmer myself, so I'm looking to find someone with the right programming skillset to help me make this happen.

I was hoping to start a discussion in these regards to see if anyone was interested in helping and also to hear some general opinions/wishes for it's development.

Thanks,
TPA
Adrian Alan Brown
The Pixel Artist Illustration
www.thepixelartist.com
Behance Gallery: https://www.behance.net/thepixelartist

2015-01-02, 19:22:41
Reply #1

cosbu

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Corona for SU is a dream I hope to come true someday!
civil engineer

2015-04-03, 10:11:03
Reply #2

spadestick

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I totally support this.... look how successful Sketchup podium has become with a huge market share.... they have the the same philosophy as Corona minus the extremely high quality output... which is simplicity and speed. a typical simple render takes around 10 to 45mins depending on model complexity.

Indigo Render is also another to learn from, unfortunately it is 100% unbiased which means it can take more than 24 hrs to push something out.

the simplicity of both SU podium and indigo focuses on 1 click to setup environment settings, 1 click for material palette with emissive shaders, 1 click for ies lights, and 1 click for instancing and scattering. the second click is the render button.

I hope corona renderer will consider the market viability of developing an in app solution for sketchup. i know I will pay vray price for it.... I hate the useless over complication of vray. I am a visual artist by trade not a technical programming guru.

Here is a render I did with Sketchup Podium approximate 20mins to render, another 20mins to post process with photoshop, but as you can see it isn't very good, imagine how much better it could be with Corona Renderer.
« Last Edit: 2015-04-03, 11:41:39 by spadestick »

2015-04-03, 14:02:41
Reply #3

spadestick

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tell me there there isn't a large active user market, I will prove you wrong... this link below says this :

"There have been more than 30 million unique activations of SketchUp in the last year, with more than 2.5M of them active on a weekly basis. Every second SketchUp is launched by 30 people around the world."

https://extensions.sketchup.com/developer

I am not sure which year they are referring to in terms of user adoption, but I believe like Apple, things work exponentially, because the entry price point into the market and learning curve isn't as high as 3d studio max or Maya, all of which are owned by the beast of a corporation with complexity in mind.

the only thing why your poll is skewed is because you are posting your poll primarily on your website which only caters to a very specific interest group that has had prior knowledge of 3D rendering engines. Try this on a forum like www.sketchucation.com and see the response you will get - and yet Sketchucation is only a small segment of the overall Sketchup market catering to the more advanced users, which can become your best evangelists. As of now, there are about 350,000 members in sketchucation alone.

I sincerely hope you do seriously consider Sketchup as a potential source of development for Corona.

2015-04-03, 14:48:14
Reply #4

Ondra

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30M is nice number, but... how many of them are paying for the software? How many of them would appreciate Corona, and would be willing to pay for it? We talked a lot with a lot of people about a lot of different software, and yes, outside of 3ds max/maya/cinema, what we usually heard was "nobody appreciates photorealistic rendering enough to pay for it". This is also a factor we need to deal with. There are a lot of great people we would like to hire, but they are not cheap.

But I am not saying that sketchup plugin is not being developed... errr - i meant "I am not saying it will not be developed" ;)
Rendering is magic.How to get minidumps for crashed/frozen 3ds Max | Sorry for short replies, brief responses = more time to develop Corona ;)

2015-04-03, 18:23:41
Reply #5

spadestick

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Great to hear that you look positively at the thought of potentially developing it Ondra. As mentioned, I for one, am willing to pay for it after seeing some video demos of the process and results. I know I am only seemingly one of them - but there are many others like me. I have personally purchased both Sketchup Pro (USD$800) and Sketchup Podium which cost me USD $198. I have also spread the word to friends who made subsequent purchases, and influenced my last 2 architectural studios purchase the Podium Plugin separately.
This simple fact alone, and aside from the countless companies I know that have bought Vray for Sketchup and tried to use it to the best they can with limited success and lots of post editing or giving up and giving it to professional rendering studios for the professional shine.

You have to understand the Sketchup platform - there IS NO inherent renderer in it, which gives any photo-realistic rendering engine maker a huge incentive to market their add-on / plug-in through. I have tried almost everyone of them, and the closest to hitting the mark (but still way off) is Podium - you have that edge both over Vray (slow, and horrible complex settings using geek jargon, not English) and Podium (superb interface, speed, and so-so quality), the other is Thea Render (slow and cumbersome interface). I believe Corona will knock over all of them flat-out and the take up will be swift.

This and as well as the changing market. Now a lot of work is self initiated and driven... the once high entry levels for artistic creations through computer apps had been once high but because of programs like Sketchup (ease of learning) and Blender (free but terribly difficult to use), the bar has come down. We are going into the new trend of AI driven websites that design themselves like www.thegrid.io, design your own websites like www.wix.com, and so forth.

Vray's creators are simply resting on their laurels by not furthering their product to become simpler to use, and the folks that used to champion their cause are now coming over to you, which I am enthused to become a part of, because you are one of the rare few developers that believe in the tenets of simplicity and ease of use in plain English while limiting parameters (so that stupid things don't happen in the renders whether out of context {way too dark or way too bright} or speed degradation because a wrong radio button was checked). Less is truly more.

ALSO, it seems ODD that on your website the main images show architecturally related imagery... and Sketchup IS mainly used by architects and interior designers... about 80-90% I believe, so there is another advantage to develop this as they ONLY want photorealism and are unable to settle for anything less nowadays, hence the need for so many studios built around architectural and interior work (I may be lynched by the studios for mentioning this).

Just remember that all you need is 0.1% out of that 30 million users, and you will have 30,000 users, which is not bad for profit in my opinion. Thanks for reading some of these points, and have a great weekend.


« Last Edit: 2015-04-03, 18:42:00 by spadestick »

2015-04-03, 21:56:11
Reply #6

Ondra

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I am not saying that sketchup is not an interesting platform, only that the number by itself is not the whole story ;)
Rendering is magic.How to get minidumps for crashed/frozen 3ds Max | Sorry for short replies, brief responses = more time to develop Corona ;)

2015-09-08, 13:53:14
Reply #7

Ocularcentric

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SketchUcation forum would be the place to seek out potential coders - a lot of talented folks there. ThomThom comes to mind as number one as he has some experience in architecture studios and based on my experience working with his plugins. Tidy!


2015-09-17, 21:48:37
Reply #8

sunlooksgreen

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any news on this front? the more I use sketchup the more I like it. Great tool for architects and designers, huge spread on this comunity (europe). With corona it would make a great combination

2015-09-18, 13:10:55
Reply #9

sunlooksgreen

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i read somewhere an alpha version was suposed to be out this past summer..is that right?

2015-09-20, 21:38:49
Reply #10

sunlooksgreen

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looking for info I've found this..

https://corona-renderer.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/corona-sketchup.jpg


care any of the developpers to expand on the subject?

thanks in advance

2015-09-21, 14:01:58
Reply #11

maru

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If there are any news on the development, you will most likely know about it. You can also regularly check our roadmap for new entries:
https://trello.com/b/EfPE4kPx/corona-road-map-3ds-max
Marcin Miodek | chaos-corona.com
3D Support Team Lead - Corona | contact us

2015-11-07, 16:04:27
Reply #12

Dex

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Hi Michal, (Prokš),
I have just seen the great news! You are on the sketchup dev team.....full time!

Good luck with your new job.
Will you be starting a trello board for sketchup? It may save all the annoying post asking for news on the development.
Sorry, I cant help it.....how is it going? how long until the first alpha release? Can I join your beta testers? :D

2015-11-18, 21:41:41
Reply #13

Ryuu

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Thanks. If you want to apply for the closed beta, please follow the instructions Ondra posted in this thread https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php/topic,10237.0.html

It will certainly take some time before we're comfortable with the supported feature set, performance and stability to start an open beta. Until we go public, there's really no need for a trello board. You would then just be able to see how much I'm slacking off (I have other responsibilities besides SketchUp plugin development, like being the official office jerk) :)

2015-11-24, 19:03:21
Reply #14

spadestick

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I'm just crazy beside myself at this point! O__O

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!