Blender vs Google SketchUp
- Thread starter metouto
- Start date
Just thought I'd give my $0.02. Blender is far more powerful than google SketchUp so I'd stick with that. On the other hand, SketchUp is easer to learn, but again, rather limited, eg. limited texturing ability, no animation, etc. As for working with Terasology, if terasology is going to use a standard format like .obj or something, then it wouldn't really matter what people use to model with. If Terasology is going to use a custom format that someone wants to make a blender addon for, then that would be the best I think. I also kind of doubt that maintaining two separate export addons for seperate apps would be real time efficient as they would have to be very different. And if animation data ever wants to be included we are basically stuck with blender because something like SketchUp doesn't do animation (AFAIK).
I would recommend striving for a format that is supported by many tools or for which many well-tested importer plugins exist. So a simple solution would be OBJ-files or... The non-plus-ultra: Collada (which supports just about everything).
https://collada.org/mediawiki/index.php ... nge_Schema
https://collada.org/mediawiki/index.php ... nge_Schema
The problem with SketchUp free version is you can't export as .OBJ, i don't think there's even one common format where you could export into, then take it in another soft and re export etc.. There's ways around that, and actually I think I read the native format of SketchUp free version is a somewhat standard format encapsulated (like in a dumb zip file) but I'm really not sure about this. Also I know some people have made a Blender script for importing a SketchUp file (that could allow to then export as .OBJ for instance), but I never tried it. Some googling would be required to sort that issue. Else, the PRO version of SketchUp lets you export in different common file formats... if you don't know either one and need to learn only one, I'd say maybe try Blender first, you'll need to learn a few different shortcuts yes, but the basics are not really any more difficult... #my2cents. 
OK ... the only reason I ask this is that I had a little personal success with Google SketchUp and I had NO success at all with Blender .... but sense I had made this post I see that the use of Blender is better suited for the needs of Terasology and Google SketchUp in all probability would just be an unnecessary added load to the game
thanks for all the input love input
thanks for all the input
love input
Well, I'm glad you have success with SketchUp, don't stop just because Blender is more powerful! Like I said, it is also a lot harder to learn. As far whether either of them are suited to the game, I don't think it really matters. Saying that either of them is a "load to the game" would really only matter if someone was maintaining a complicated export addon for them both. As it is, I think that some form of standard format might be used for models and stuff. In that case, you can literally use anything that exports to that format. If animation is ever going to be needed Blender, of course, would really be the only choice. But if models are the only thing needed and you can make them in something else, go for it.metouto said:OK ... the only reason I ask this is that I had a little personal success with Google SketchUp and I had NO success at all with Blender .... but sense I had made this post I see that the use of Blender is better suited for the needs of Terasology and Google SketchUp in all probability would just be an unnecessary added load to the game
thanks for all the input
