Google Life?

Google buys SketchUp. I'll be honest, I'd never heard about SketchUp until five minutes ago. However, digging through their site and the press release, I came across this: "Architects, builders, woodworkers, gamers, students and my Uncle Bob all want basically the same thing: the most intuitive tools to help them create and share their 3D dreams."

Right now SketchUp has a hefty price tag, but then again, so did Keyhole's map service before Google bought them. Blogger used to cost money too, until Google bought them. If SketchUp were free and connected to Google, would it replace Second Life?

I don't know, I'm asking. Has anyone out there used SketchUp? What's it like? Is it intuitive?

Here's a user comment of the Mac version:

"Nick Sloan
SketchUp is the antithesis of those 3D modellers which have a zillion tools and an interface like the cockpit of an airliner. SU has a deceptively simple interface and very few tools, which makes it quick to pick up and a delight to use—but far from limited: the more I try to do things which at first sight seemed impossible, the more amazing depths of power reveal themselves.

It is not Cinema 4D or VectorWorks: there are plenty of things it does not attempt (like sophisticated numerical curves or naturalistic rendering), but this just enables it to do much better and more directly what it excels at: incredibly speedy and direct conceptual modelling.

Coming from Illustrator, I was frustrated at first by having to take a different approach to drawing, but once mastered, the SU way knocks spots off any other 3D techniques I have tried. With excellent tutorials, an energetic forum and countless other resources, this is feeling like an extremely worthwhile investment."

3d modeling tools are the least of the worries if you want to replace SL. running a persistant shared real-time world is a massive undertaking.. sketch up is a bunch of easy to use 3d tools and nothing more.

That said, Google is a bunch of really smart people who could make a much better replacement to SL. Question is.. is that gonna be their goal? Probably not. They are gonna be too busy working with your government to censor your ass and spy on you.

More realistically I'm waiting for Sony or Blizzard to get a load of SL and start thinking....

Interesting.

I've used Sketchup a bit at the office. My boss loves it. It really would have no relation to SL, since its main purpose is creating architectural conceptual models. It is very easy to learn and works well for getting a quick idea of the basic massing of your project. The idea is a 3D napkin and pencil, not a full-featured photorealistic modeler.

You can download it for free

I just downloaded the OS X client and played with it for half an hour.
Yes, it IS intuitive and fun like Kid Pix.

You can "evaluate" it for free for 8 hours, after which it will cost 495 US$.

i'f used sketchup. as the name implies, it's very good for making 3d sketches. it's really intuitive but the lack of precision limit it's use for schematic designs. as far as schematic goes, it's very fast!

it's also useful for communicating. designers do most of their collaborative communication through drawing. 3d aps are not very good for drawing ideas quickly during direct communication. sketchup is really a leader in that.

if precicion is important, the project will have to be take to another platform tfor further development. if you need high quality renderings you'll also have to do the same.

i really like sl for sketching ideas too. i find sl is really fast for massing out an idea. sketchup is obviously mouch more elaborate than SL. but SL ads a dimension of immeditate scale and immersion which 3d softwares don't.

IF Google decided the end goal would be to make it be like SL, I'm sure Google would beat the pants off of what SL can do now. After all, they're partnered with SUN, not to mention, many others,

I'd say.. Good luck Google!

I've not heard of SketchUp until now, but I want to check out Writely--unfortunately my arrival at their website came after they were acquired by Google, so I'm in the signup queue. I'm looking forward to giving both a spin. Thanx for the pointer on SketchUp, will learn more now.

As a single gridded world supporting a painfully limited population of people that possess cutting edge machines utilizing broadband connections, and are willing to work in a beta atmosphere, I doubt SL will have any competition.

Who would throw money down that bottomless pit again?

Google might end up producing a useful, collborative 3D building tool that existing communities can use to construct and link small 3D worlds to share ideas with each other and the general public.

If by competition you mean that, given such an option, communities of people will shift from SL to Google, maybe. Good poll material that.

I originally discovered SketchUp through this:

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/index.php

which, even if it is not devoted to software *only* gives a daily pointer to something "useful".

It's now my startup page on Mozilla, so I get to see a new "cool tool" every day.

I've played with SketchUp's trial version a bit for a 3d class I was in. I wasn't aware of the colaberative aspects of it. But I don't think it's particaruly geared for "building virtual worlds", or that it's likely to compete with SL in that aspect. For things like fast prototyping and stuff people sometimes happen to use SL for, that's definately possible, but I think that's a smaller niche of the SL audience.

I don't think there are any right now. However, looking at Google's ventures into social software -- Orkut and the Google Maps API immediately come to mind -- I can't help but think it could be in the cards. I mean...

SketchUp + GDrive + Google Talk + Google Base + Google Maps/Google Mars = half of Second Life's functionality right there. All they lack is a way to cohese it all together into one "world" like SL, and if the trend continues as it has been, Google fan-developers will mash together something from the API's, ala Frappr.

Plus, you know... It's not like the SL permission system is actually designed for collaboration.

I've used it before. It's a great tool, as mentioned, for... well... sketching out a 3D idea quickly. Which is exactly what it's meant to do. There are vast stretches of wasteland between that idea and Second Life, however. Jumping at every 3D announcement and whispering hushed phrases like "second life killer" in the darkness serves no one.

Jauani, SketchUp is as precise as you want it to be. You can use both imperial or metric dims to various degrees of precision. When you draw or move something, you can key in precise measurements, just like in CAD. I've actually been using it for more than 5 years, alongside other software packages and find that its actually much easier and faster when building linear things.

The renderings, while looking sketchy, has won several clients, simply because it got there on time, faster than when the competitor is getting it rendered through their perspective artist.

Some things that I did using SketchUp

/53/cc/94813/1.html#post944782

For the moment, I'm trying to get my hands on the Maxwell Render plugin for SketchUp.
www.maxwellrender.com

So.... I'll have a new toy if Google makes a free version. Yay!

I don't think google would actually buy SL at this stage in the lifecycle. Mainly because Google buys projects or products that are at least nearly completed. (*snap*).

Least of all the Lindens, eh.

Cause Everyone hates more tools.... >rolls eyes<