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.
