FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

[KELPER]

Hi Guys:

I just want to know when the soft will be available for purchase and final release, or at least a FULL Step by Step Manual or guide for dummies to understand the way to work, already PODIUM software creates a great simple ways to develop a render, without so much crazy options.

If I decide to purchase the soft they need to be more easy and clear way to understand the render or only afew people buy the soft, Only the guys that can spend all the rest of his lives try to work out with so many options...

From a user stand point I only buy a soft that I can understand in short period of time....

Regarts, Kalu.

[joe_b]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Yep - we understand that the SketchUp audience is not the same as other applications V-Ray has gone to. As such, the V-Ray options may be a bit much to digest for some users. If Podium supplies everything you need, then Podium is probably the application for you. Every job requires a different tool.

As far as when our product is available for purchase - it has been for over a month at a discounted rate. The tutorials are still being developed and should be getting posted soon.

Also - in all reality you don't need to use every option that is presented to you. But without the tutorials I realize its difficult for you to understand this.

Thanks for your comments.

[dalomar_cg]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Just to go allong with what Joe said, Vray is an extremely versitle and powerful program. Thus it has the amount of settings available, however this doesn't mean that you need every single one of them. We are working towards making the task of working with Vray an easier one with better interfaces and workflow. There is a VRay for Rhino book we are working on (translating from Chinese), and we are considering making a SketchUp counterpart, and that would explain in a sufficient enough detail many of the features of VRay.

In my personal opinion Vray is worth learning, even if the initial learning is steep for some. You can use presets and make it quite easy. For me Vray provides alot of flexibility and the freedom to visualize ideas, and that is worth quite abit. Again Just my thoughts

[kwistenbiebel1]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

I understand that the vray engine is superior to many other render engines around.

I will be keeping an eye on developments of skp2vray but i have to agree also with the statements of Kelper.

The GUI principle of Podium is a touch of genius (the render engine itself needs a little more work). In podium there is no need for a seperate material editor anymore!
I think it would be reasonable that vray for sketchup would follow a same approach in the future.

In the end, Sketchup users hardly ever are 'product designers' willing to finetune every little detail in a scene containing just a few objects.
Most pro SU users are in the architectural field. They also need the best quality output but architects just haven't got the time to spent days on fine tuning details...

There are a lot of competitiors in the rendering soft business getting better and better providing both quality and speed.

In the end the 'ease of use' and 'learning curve' will be important parameters in a customers choice.

Clearly Asgvis and chaosgroup are aware of this. They should be anyway ...
It should be the primary goal to get the best quality and speed with the least hassle and effort.

[joe_b]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Yep - I totally agree with your point. Our UI just isn't geared enough toward the non-technical user. I guess we should revamp our UI before continuing much further along the SketchUp route.

in podium there is no need for a material editor anymore!

You can apply reflectivity and emissive properties correct? So they have an object properties editor instead of a material editor? I mean its the same thing except they've boiled it all down to 2 properties instead of being able to have layered materials. You can do the same thing in our setup by linking to a sketchup material and adding a reflective layer. But again, it definately isn't as easy as having one panel with 2 properties to edit. But you also forfeit customization and advanced effects. I guess its all a tradeoff.

[KELPER]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Yep - we understand that the SketchUp audience is not the same as other applications V-Ray has gone to. As such, the V-Ray options may be a bit much to digest for some users. If Podium supplies everything you need, then Podium is probably the application for you. Every job requires a different tool.

As far as when our product is available for purchase - it has been for over a month at a discounted rate. The tutorials are still being developed and should be getting posted soon.

Also - in all reality you don't need to use every option that is presented to you. But without the tutorials I realize its difficult for you to understand this.

Thanks for your comments.

Joeb,

Thank you for your response, I am still waiting no matter how good is the product, to see a good Tutorial step by step to learn. Wihout this is almost impossible to VRAY be massive purchase as other render programs for Sketchup. The original reazon to succesfull of Sketchup as difenrence with other 3D programs is how easy is for all to develop 3D. Render professional like VRAy I understand is a different animal, but again, my point go to be simple. I need a clear tutorial to understand the soft and with that I can buy the product. You can continue put cheap prices or discounts but untill that nothing matter....

Thanks again.

PS. You can see for the users, how important is the tutorial or guide in your soft.

[joe_b]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

PS. You can see for the users, how important is the tutorial or guide in your soft.

Without a doubt - the beta has been going for far too long without tutorials or other documentation.

[kwistenbiebel1]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Joeb,

Thanks for those replies. It shows that you guys care about the user base. that's good.

About the GUI strategy. Clearly the Podium interface lacks some feautures like bumps, gloss maps, clip maps, etc...
But the advantage of using that slider system (instead of a seperate material editor) is that you don't have to create a new material if you want to change some parameter of a particular surface or object . You just click the surface or instances of the object and change the parameter of choice (e.g make it more reflective, ...). No need for a new material creation. This is a very speedy way of working.

In vray, if you change a parameter of a material, this will automatically apply to all instances with that 'material' (=diffuse texture).

Another thing: in beta 3 there are new kinds of materials (vraylinked,vray2sidedmtl....). This is getting more and more difficult to understand. I would have hoped that the newer updates would make things easier instead of more complicated.
This is not a question of the user not being 'technical', it's a question of how to implement as much functionality and still make it easy to use. There should be more K.I.S.S strategy involved in the developments of SU2vray.

Don't get me wrong, i like vray very much and i have no intention to talk bad about the software . These comments are meant as positive critique.


Regards

[bigcahunak_cg]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

You can apply reflectivity and emissive properties correct? So they have an object properties editor instead of a material editor? I mean its the same thing except they've boiled it all down to 2 properties instead of being able to have layered materials. You can do the same thing in our setup by linking to a sketchup material and adding a reflective layer. But again, it definately isn't as easy as having one panel with 2 properties to edit. But you also forfeit customization and advanced effects. I guess its all a tradeoff.

The Bad thing about how this works in podium is that they do reflection and emission in the surface level, rather than material level. This might work for a simple scene, but sure creates a big headache for a more complex scene, an older scene, or when working on a scene that you didn't create from scratch. Clicking on each surface to see its properties, rather than just checking material ones, is somewhat of a medieval working methods.

Funny thing is that when VRay just came out, after "final render", "Brazil", "Insight", it was considered the easiest renderer to work with. Now, with a stripped down SKP version its considered complicated...

[KELPER]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

I am a business person, not a full 3D Guru to spend the rest of my life with a render. I think that the way you should go with Vray is a simple way to create renders like the basic soft, SKETCHUP. If you try to get the same result of rhino you are in the same boat, mean COMPLICATED= not for all = I do not buy it...

Simple. Make it work easy interface or the other way, make a great book, manual, guide, tutorial, video, etc, what ever to make it easy to learn. I do not see in this great software any of 2 options.

When you have it I move to VRAY....Untill that the Sketchup users go away with other software options.

Also I do not see any good work on marketing for ASGVIS in this soft. Don't expect the users give you money for nothing, just make one or other way to make it easy.

Kelper.
Marketing Director of Google.

[joe_b]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Funny thing is that when VRay just came out, after "final render", "Brazil", "Insight", it was considered the easiest renderer to work with. Now, with a stripped down SKP version its considered complicated...

Well we're not really too stripped down as far as GI and options go. Options rollout is almost a duplicate of the max one. I guess the main thing we're missing now is distributed rendering...I just finally plugged displacement in yesterday

[joe_b]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

I am a business person, not a full 3D Guru to spend the rest of my life with a render. I think that the way you should go with Vray is a simple way to create renders like the basic soft, SKETCHUP. If you try to get the same result of rhino you are in the same boat, mean COMPLICATED= not for all = I do not buy it...

Yep - we want to meet that market, but we want to stay true to people who have used V-Ray in other applications as well. We'll most likely just develop different levels of user UI levels beginner -> advanced.

Simple. Make it work easy interface or the other way, make a great book, manual, guide, tutorial, video, etc, what ever to make it easy to learn. I do not see in this great software any of 2 options.

Yep, its a work in progress.

Also I do not see any good work on marketing for ASGVIS in this soft. Don't expect the users give you money for nothing, just make one or other way to make it easy.

Yeah - we've been holding off until we were comfortable with where the beta had progressed to. We don't want to get the eyes of everyone on us if the reaction from most users isn't where it should be. At this moment it isn't - so we're holding off a bit on marketing.

Just tell Google to buy us - I'm sure they could whip us into shape

[kwistenbiebel1]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

Just tell Google to buy us - I'm sure they could whip us into shape

Don't do that! We don't want another autodesk or microsoft in the make

[KELPER]

FULL TUTORIALS AND FULL VERSION???

As a part of Google Corp.

Sketchup is going to get more fast an easy 3D possible. We do not make Renders, thats the jobs for the plugins in Sketchup. Google, corp have not interest in buy any deal with plugins, maybe some scripts thats all...

Regards,

Kelper.