I may be kick out of this forum by saying that I rarely use the Sketchup Warehouse. All my models are low poly. I’m interested in using SKP to create quick 3D models to explore ideas and to explain my idea with the client, so the faster the computer the better; the less polys to deal with, the better.
I model almost everything. I look at the furniture catalog and I model it from there, very simple models, again, my goal is to show an “idea” not a “real” model.
Look at the coffee cups in the attached renderings, they are simple faceme geometry. I’ve seen “interior designers” in my firm building models with blocks from the warehouse…their computers are so slow with so many faces.
While true you have to see that a lot of people in the 3D warehouse are young and just cutting their teeth with 3D. This means in general a lot of the models are very busy and over faceted.
I was the same for many many years but thats how I learned. I see it as a free resource so with that you accept what you get now and again.
Commercially, there are so many 3D repositories, if you need ideal meshes quick it’s never an issue.
Edit: now that I have looked at your other posts i realise you are not ranting just posting some nice low poly shots. Just goes to show how easy it is to misread things when you can’t hear the tone on the words. I’ll leave my reply as is anyway as it is mostly relevant.
I’m not really sure of the point of your post, to me it reads like it is trying to be a rant but doesn’t quite get there. You’ve stormed in and described how you use sketchup, in a very normal way. Was there a question or a specific point you wanted to make?
It reminds me of the time 30 German police stormed into my building with dogs and guns, the rushed up the 7 flights of stairs and came to a stop at my neighbour’s door completely filling the narrow staircase with big beefy bodies. They knocked loudly. Nothing… They knocked again, they knocked a third time and said very loud and forcefully “This is the police, open the door now or we will be forced to get a locksmith…at your expense!”
Kinda takes the wind out of your sails when the follow up just isn’t there.
I guess your point is that everyone should be working low poly because that is all that is needed… for your specific workflow.
In truth, you’ve sort of nailed the main point of Sketchup, it can be used for many many things and no one workflow is the correct one.
For you low poly is what you need as you make general overview sketches. For others they need low poly in certain areas but then a high poly coffee cup because they will do detail shots of the coffee table. Others need only high poly because they want the smoothest finish possible on their 3d prints.
There are many other possible scenarios that affect the poly count, no one poly fits them all. It sounds like your colleagues would benefit from understanding your low poly workflow, perhaps you could organise an inhouse seminar focusing on the pros and cons of various modelling methods and how to optimize your workflow.
One of the great things about the Warehouse is that you can see the file size even when hovering over thumbnails. If you click on a file to select it, you get much more info, including the poly count. So it’s easy to avoid over-detailed components.
Many very experienced SU users here have long since decided that it is better to model their own stuff and rarely download components from the Warehouse. They have often said that many components in the Warehouse are poorly drafted and that, if you know what you’re doing, it is often faster to make your own model rather than spend time cleaning up someone else’s.
