SketchUp Personal/Learning

What is the latest on “free for personal use” in SU? It’s been over a year since I worked on tutorials. I was hoping to get back to reating models in order to learn the program before commit to subscribing. Will I be able to save my models if I do decide on the Pro subscription to render at that point?

You can either use the free web version of SketchUp, here:

https://app.sketchup.com/app

or you can download SketchUp Make 2017 from this page:

If you were to get a Pro subscription, one thing to know is that Mac OS 10.11 and 10.12 are not supported by SketchUp 2020.

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On 10.14, so that’s good. So, if I use the most current free web version, will I later be able to use/render those models once I have confidence in my abilities and subscribe to Pro?

You can save and download all of the models you create using SketchUp free, yes. And those can be used to generate renderings using rendering software.

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Please update your profile. Still using a machine with the Intel HD 4000 graphics ?

(If so, please know that it’s reached end of life, will not be supported by Intel any longer, and you may see future support by software makers being withdrawn. It’s OpenGL support is capped out at v4. SketchUp’s desktop latest editions require OpenGL v3.1 minimum. The web based editions are a bit more forgiving.)

Thanks. Updated. Forgot I even had that info. in a profile. My approach to this in the past has actually been to export the work as a JPeg and continue with backgrounds and people in Illustrator or Photoshop—though only testing. Is this going to work with my current Intel 4000 graphics? I don’t believe I’ve actually rendered anything in the past. Everything in the link shows “for Windows” so not sure what a Mac user should do.

My work which I’m matching: https://nathanmclement.wixsite.com/nathanclement/digital-art

Jpg is losey. Use png instead.

Apple is unique in that they take the Intel driver code and modify it and compile it themselves for their platforms. So you’ll get longer life out of Intel integrated GPUs on an Apple platform.

Don’t worry too much, perhaps the machine will wear out and die before the graphics are no longer supported by the webGL used in the Free edition.

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You shouldn’t have any issues, but you are working with hardware that is several years old and almost outdated completely. It isn’t going to be as fast with the newer resource heavy software as it used to be. That’s across the board.

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True. Maybe I can upgrade with the royalties from this next book, but gotta get through it first :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: