I’m struggling to find positive aspects to LCs right now.
I just spent 3 days doing tutorials and following videos on how to create LCs and I have nothing to show for it.
and yes, this is a rant post. I’m human, I’m allowed to rant.
Trimble Creator. From what I’ve been told, it’s inspired by interfaces like Grasshopper. great. But it’s a whole different language from Sketchup, a different logic filled with terms like vector and array and bits of code like =!=. It’s not as intuitive. at all.
Plus, it’s not translated, nor localised (glory to the decimal point that american use where the rest of us uses a decimal comma). That doesn’t help.
Interestingly enough, I didn’t find any good learning material on the subject. A handful of videos from Alex Schreyer and Justin Geis, they were more intros and overviews than actual lessons on the subject. For a tech that has been around for the past 5-6 years (and available to toy with for 4?), the lack of documentation is alarming.
Also, it seems the tool is still on beta 9, at least it told me so when I first got there. Beta 9 was released in december of 2023. Does it mean it’s getting the same treatment as DCs ? not abandoned, but not really the focus ? just maintained ?
I went back and read comments from users about LCs, and the global opinion was “it’s too complex to create, and if you’re into making complex things, might as well make a DC instead”.
and yeah. yeah I get it. Also, DCs don’t require a connection to a distant server. LCs do.
Existing LCs from the warehouse are fine if you need generic elements. Just don’t explode them, it’s a mess of triangulated groups in there.
DC:s were introduced, if I remember right, with SketchUp version 4. IMO they too are still in many ways in beta, with unresolved bugs introduced on day one. I lament that such a great concept seems to have been abandoned. I would still like to see the functionality brought into core SketchUp, and the 3D interface expertise of the SU developers used to make a set of good graphic tools for creating their parametric features, unlike the clumsy Revit Family editor, AutoCad dynamic blocks or Archicad GDL editor.
No, it is extremely complex and not very intuitive. And having to depend on connection is something that makes it worse. Even dynamo for Revit is easier, and Blender’s visual programming gives it a thousand turns.
Absolutely. But at work I only use my company’s permanent license (SU2021) for 1-2 days a year, which is more than enough. It’s not worth fighting with IT about the firewall…
I can access it from home, but learning the creator is beyond my - otherwise great - patience.
yesterday, I did a thing, then in the middle of nowhere, I got disconnected. couldn’t save, couldn’t do anything, 3d view part frozen.
today I had more luck, but I did a half-LC : I made a window in SU, exported it in trimbim (sure, no skp support), managed to make it scalable,
but now, whenever I try to save a project under a specific name, it gets savec under “untitled”. so I have one untitled project with inside of it all the different tries.
I guess it’ll be fixed in beta 10
(can’t send feedback either, the window pops up and closes.)
LC’s aren’t even fun to use, developers should check Blender’s geometry nodes, I can spend hours using geometry nodes, the most I could spend on Trimble Creator was like 10 minutes.
There’s a plugin called Viz Pro, I haven’t used but I was tempted to buy it some years ago when everybody was talking about grasshopper and rhino, but back then I didn’t have the time to learn how to program using modes, then geometry nodes was released and it had a lot more of information and resources for free, I watched some videos and decided to invest my time on it and was totally worth it.
I managed to make a few LC’s, for a customer, even! I actually had fun figuring out how they work, but their logic is very different from grasshopper so it took a lot of figuring out. The link to the documentation helped a lot, especially since they contain examples as well.
For me the main advantage of LC’s is that the user is presented with the options to choose and doesn’t have to go looking for the options window, which was a major drawback of DC for many users.
After I made my components I wrote to the 3DWH team and they gave me a list of improvements to make, which helped me learn even more. I’ll share some findings later.
no, SketchUp 7.0. But version 4 is indeed a starting point with the APIs, and especially version 6 with the dictionaries. An independent developer could have developed parametric code before the DC.
I’ve tried both and chose to stay with DC’s. So are you saying that LC’s are easier for the user?
My use is Construction plant and making them move exactly as they do on site. So I’ve gone with DC’s for these. But keen to understand if the user interface would be easier? Particularly if you’re sharing the model with those who are not very digi-eng savy. Would be nice to have something that makes it easier for them. But saying that the only thing I can think of that would make DC’s easier for the non-savy is to make it obvious somehow which things are DC’s and an easy button to get into the Options Panel.
And I find the DC Attributes to be a logical way of setting a model up to move. So not sure if LC’s would be any quicker to set up than DC’s. But would love to know if I’m wrong. To me it seems one should be chosen as the survivor and put all the effort there.
Hello,
I dove into the LC adventure at its launch, but I was quickly disillusioned! Aside from the instabilities, it’s a collection of non-negotiable criteria that are very damaging:
The first is structural: being forced to work on a remote server is counterproductive, with latency and security issues…
The next two are the lack of openness in LC’s input and output: you can’t inject values via attributes, nor retrieve them from the output.
So it’s just drawing, but you can’t quantify it, making it far from a professional tool. The generated sub-elements don’t have their own axis system; it’s cumbersome, and even exploded, you can’t use the geometries to quantify your projects. I wrote a plea to change course, but it was ignored.
Today, to compensate for this drift, I prefer dynamic components despite their weaknesses. and create plugins adapted to a professional workflow.
It’s a real shame!
Due to the complexity of the nodes and the learning curve, a minimum background in vector mathematics and geometry is necessary; otherwise, one might quickly become overwhelmed.
This is exactly the use case I wanted live components to fix. To be able to create a crane model that had easy to use sliders to change the boom position and angle etc.
I hope in the future Sketchup figures this out and we can get some interesting interactive models in the Warehouse.
I find it funny that no Project manager or dev working on LCs has come to defend the thing yet.
it’s telling
Guess I’ll have to train myself on making DCs, I haven’t really made any for the past 15 years… unless you count adding simple text attributes (for layout) as making DCs
