In one of my earliest posts in this blog, I mentioned that my first impression of SketchUp was that it looked too simple to be a really effective design tool.  In all honesty – I think a big part of that impression was the fact that I knew it was a pretty inexpensive program compared to other CADD programs I was used to using.  That is commonly known as “perception of value”.  Unfortunately, as consumers, we are generally conditioned to believe that the more expensive something is the better quality it is.  In this case – that perception could not be more wrong!

I have been using SketchUp as my main CADD program for over eight years now and whenever people see my designs and renderings, they often ask what program I used to create them.  I find myself convincing people that it was SketchUp that I used to get those results.  “No, really” is what I often say to other designers in the business (again- because they are used to using more expensive programs).

So, to illustrate my point – I will tell you a quick story.  A former student of mine in undergrad, went on to grad school, and during the four months between grad and undergrad, she worked for me at my company.  During that time, with me, she designed the sets for four commercials, some Christmas decor for two different malls, and a couple of other projects.  I insisted she learn SketchUp for the most efficient collaboration process with me, for the designs.

During the three years she was in grad school, they made her use Vectorworks and Autocad on her designs and sort of “poo-pooed” SketchUp when she would bring it up.  After she graduated, she came back to work for me for another year, where she dove back into using SketchUp as her primary design tool (at my insistence of course).  After a year, she was hired to work on a major television show in the art department.  After a short while there, she started to show them what she could do with SketchUp (they didn’t use the program) and soon she was creating all sorts of models and renderings for the show.  Her work on the show (all in SketchUp) was even featured in the United Scenic Artists union magazine.

Because of her work there, less than a year later, she went on to work as an art director with the same production designer for two seasons of a major cable TV drama series.

I have worked with several very well known film art directors who have requested me to assist with the design work on projects, specifically because I am fast and very good at creating designs in SketchUp.

So, the moral of the story is to not judge anything solely on first impressions and certainly not on cost.  Once I started using the program, SketchUp quickly became my favorite and eventually only real design tool.

Take my word for it.  If you are at all hesitant – give it a try.

If you want to see some of my work – follow this link.

If you have been following my blog here on SketchUp (if so – thank you!) you will be aware of two things.  First – you will of course notice that it has been quite some time since I have posted something (more on that later), and second – I really, really like SketchUp.

Except for one thing…

The textures that come with the program.

Since this blog is a part of the two sites we currently manage, one for research images and one for textures, you may think that my criticism is a thinly-veiled comment that is really only self-serving.  While it is true that there is an obvious connection from this post to what we do – trust me – my issue with textures in SketchUp goes back years.  Long before our texture site was even a twinkle in my internet camera’s eye.

Don’t get me wrong – I think it is great that they provide a set of textures to get you started on modeling.  Actually, not many modeling programs provide textures with the program at all, so the fact that they do is a generous addition.  Adding textures to a model helps tremendously in the presentation of your work, and if you plan on rendering your model – then REALISTIC textures are a MUST!   Most of us who do modeling in SketchUp just go out and scour the internet for good textures, but wouldn’t it be more convenient to just be able to grab textures within the program, instead of having to go out and find them…?

The lack of a good selection of nice, high quality textures (in my humble opinion) is the one thing that is holding the program back even just slightly.

Hmmmm… wait a minute… I wonder if they would be interested in working out a deal…?  We could provide them a set of say, 500 hi-resolution architectural textures for free, in exchange for a little mention somewhere on their site… What do you think…?

I think I may have hit on something…

(Okay – admittedly – that last part was a not-so-thinly-veiled plug for our site.  I do, however, still strongly believe that the program would be better with a nice selection of good textures!)