sketchUcation

Chaos Group have just released V-Ray 2.0 for SketchUp! V-Ray for SketchUp’s rendering capabilities which will provide SketchUp designers with faster rendering, better lighting tools, and the ability to create and visualize complex scenes. The combination of the V-Ray’s rich feature set and SketchUp’s intuitive tools and interface lets users visualize their ideas with upmost quality and realism.

In the New York area for Maker Faire this month? SketchUp's Community Manager, Mark Harrison, has some tickets up for grabs for anyone that chimes in on the discussion in the forums.

Just leave a comment and be in with a chance to rub noses with the SketchUp team and enjoy one of the greatest shows on Earth.

e-on software, makers of the leading solutions for Digital Nature, announces the immediate availability of Plant Factory, its revolutionary new technology for creating and rendering high-quality 3D plants.

Plant Factory is designed for the CG, SFX, Architecture and Gaming communities. It offers solutions custom-tailored for all audiences. The technology available in Plant Factory represents the culmination of e-on software's decades of expertise in the field of digital nature and delivers unsurpassed realism and performance.

Solid Iris have released set of 20 high quality HDRI Studio for Image Based Lighting to illuminate your models in Thea Render.

A simple drag and drop into Thea and you have your whole scene set for rendering awesome product shots.

With Thea Presto GPU rendering you'll have exquiste images in minutes.

Oh...and they are FREE for Licensed users.

Revizto lets you communicate visually to design and build projects faster. Revizto 1.3 for SketchUp (and Revit) has just been released!

Download a free 30-Day Trial now! Revizto 1.3 is available for Revit® and SketchUp® and includes 2Gb of free storage and collaboration space on the Revizto Workspace. Free Revizto Viewers for PC and Mac can be downloaded from the Revizto Store. Viewers for iPad and Android are available on iTunes and Google Play.

Cadalog, Inc., developer of popular SketchUp plug-ins like SU Podium V2 and Podium Browser, has released Viso3D Mac version to export SketchUp models for the iPad. Viso3D will export SketchUp faces and textures, add a lightmap and then provide the ability to view and navigate the 3D model on an iOs device. The lightmap will simulate SketchUp sun, shadows and indirect lighting. The Viso3D iPad app supports walk thrus, orbiting, panning, lines for edges and SketchUp scene positions.

Kerkythea just updated their site after months of interupted access. It has a whole new look and feel and the previously hard to find download links are all restored to their former glory.

Here at SketchUcation we are big supporters of Kekythea as it introduced free rendering solution for SketchUp users all around the world and paved the way for Thea Render.

You can check out the new site here.

SketchUcation PluginStore for Chrome Browser in now available for download in the Chrome Webstore.

Get instant notifications for new plugins and extensions as they are shared on SketchUcation.com.

Don't worry FireFox users will soon have there own version but for now all you Chrome users can keep up to date with the newest additions.

Everyone loves jazzy backgrounds for their desktops and mobile devices. Now you can have your very own SketchUp backgrounds to brighten up your Mac or PC. There are even versions for your iPhone 4s and iPhone 5 to give your mobile so extra SketchUp flava!.

With the trend for Flat UI these days we created some pseudo 3D icons based on the current SketchUp icon. Read on the get the download links.

Yesterday (August 6), Google announced that user generated 3D content for the official 3D Layer of Google Earth will soon (with October 1) be over. With this move, an era of over seven years will be over. Google acquired SketchUp in 2006 and immediately released a free version of the software in order to encourage modellers to populate Google Earth with 3D content. Later Building Maker was also added (this was stopped in June this year) and eventually 45 Degree 3D Imagery was also added - this latter one to finally replace 3D models made in either SketchUp or Building Maker.