I’ve not spent much time working with The new Free browser version so my opinion is based off my attachment to the capabilities that Make offers or rather offered. after my initial rage and frustration finding out of the change i thought I should at lest try the Free but being used to Make i quickly became frustrated and disappointed, i imagine for new users the experience will be much different.
like most of the users i can’t justify paying for the pro yet. with the future goal of starting an indie game company someday. the great thing about make was like Unity we’re able to take time to become proficient in using the programs, while still working. sure their’s the free trial, but how much can we really learn if you only have little spare time to spend on it, its taking me months and i’m finally just starting to get good at it.
SketchUp seemed to always offer a free version based off the pro version, so what I question is what does Trimble have plained for the Pro Version? is SketchUp free moving in a direction away from Pro or do they expect the free version to still be the bait for those that need the pro features & licensing. the short time i’ve spent using the web version i can say that It would not at all make me interested in the pro version or aware of it’s possibilities
I currently use photoshop and learning unity with a duel display setup, I know sketchUp has always been designed for single display use, but could be nicely setup and in my opinion better utilized with two monitors. so that’s a major disappointment with the move to the browser version.
for me the only possible benefit of the move towards a browser version which, thinking of it now is most likely entirely the reason to go through the effort of rewriting a new web based program is that Trimble now offers the capability for a mobile platform. wether or not this will change my opinion and disappointment in the discontinuing the make version is yet to be known.
Obviously Trimble thought this decision through and honestly it’s no surprise, every programs moving towards cloud accounts and mobile availability, Though I’m not so sure the challenge of such a small screen and potentially lack of precision will be worth the effort. Additionally with Make I use and assigned shortcut keys to most all tools i use, definitely an upsetting factor when comparing the new Free version &/or mobile devise
One thing that has me questioning the future plans Trimble has for SketchUp pro. as a mac user i have in intel iris graphics card. was I mistaken that it was suggested not having an intel based graphics card. Should not be surprised to see the day that sketchUp pro is no longer available for a mac platform?
perhaps repetitive of other posts but I also want to let Trimble know If your so inclined to continue to update Make or create an “I’m trying to go pro but not their yet” version based off of Make; I too would be willing to pay a reasonable fee, hopefully the SketchUp community has shown enough interest to consider a potential market.
Thank you for reading my opinion
P.S. slightly off topic and perhaps coincidental, but did anyone els notice the timing of the change to web based coinciding with the the Net Neutrality debate, perhaps its relatively irrelevant, just saying Trimbles a big company had things been a little different seems they could have stood to make a lot of money by doing this?