Enscape for Sketchup

[ntxdave]

I finally found the video:

Video

Look at the 0:04 mark for a few seconds but in particular, look at the end beginning at 5:58. If they bring these capabilities to SU that would be awesome.

[jenujacob]

Wow!!! Ntxdave... this would be awesome in sketchup!!!

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[ntxdave]

A couple more samples of rendered images. I am particularly happy with the quality of the metal in this image.

Enscape_2017-03-08-11-04-10.png

Enscape_2017-03-08-11-15-22.png

I am having one problem with the plugin (but then again, this is just an alpha version). Every time I start SU, I get a message from the Extension Manager that there is an update for the plugin but when I click to update, nothing happens.

[jenujacob]

Hey Ntxdave!
The metal does work really well doesnt it?? And i get that message too and indeed it does nothing whrn i press update... i am sure its nothing to be bothered about. Just one of those things that need to be ironed out in future releases!

[ntxdave]

Big disappointment...I updated to the new version they released this morning and now I cannot create any images or videos. I have tried contacting them but since the support team is in Germany, I will not get any response back until tomorrow.

I hope this is just a hiccup and that it will get fixed tomorrow!!!

UPDATE
OK everyone, you should now see a bright red glow from my face all around the world. I made a horrible mistake with the post above. I just discovered that there is now a 2nd toolbar for Enscape that is Enscape Capturing. It has all of the icons for capturing your screen as an image, video & panorama. I was 100% in error.

I left the original text just so everyone would see my stupid mistake if they installed the Enscape trial and saw the same thing I did.

[ntxdave]

Just tried a couple of panoramas with the latest version of Enscape for SketchUp:

Version 1
Version 2

Just changed the settings a little between the 2 versions (experimenting of course). IMO they could be a little sharper for I will keep trying to see what I can do with them.

[jenujacob]

Hi Dave!
Thanks for the heads up for the new version! i tried a quick pano with it here!
Me like what i see... it works very well for my purpose! sure.. still missing more controls for the materials... but i am sure we will see it in due time!

[cadmunkey]

This looks great, as a current Lumion user I will watch this develop with interest.

[ntxdave]

Found this today..........

Materials.PNG

I will be testing these sometime later today or over the weekend. Hopefully I can come up with some samples worth sharing...........

[solo]

I'm down to 5 days left of my trial, has been a fun program so far, sure there are issues and bugs, missing basic features and all but this has some great promise. I have seen many animation software for SU for exteriors that work great, not many have a good enough GI for interiors besides some sort of AO engine with complicated add-ons to get an acceptable result. Here is an old model used years ago to test Thea, perfect to test interior GI, there are no lights yet in Enscape so this is all filtered sunlight. You will see some artifacts and uneven lighting but I mus say for an alpha this is a robust product and very enjoyable.

Video

[ntxdave]

OK - What the heck am I missing? Is this a number of smaller animations that you sewed together or did I miss something about using scenes and the SU animation?

Again, when they get some of the things you mention fixed, wouldn't it be neat to use Animator and Enscape together!

BTW: If you contact their support team, they will give you another trial since it is still in alpha.

[cadmunkey]

That looks great Solo! Good demo for them for sure.

[solo]

Another old scene test, model of home by Castroman, bubble copter my model.

Video

Dave, yes I did stitch videos together in 3rd party editing software.

[pilou]

Very clean!

[solo]

Here is another quick one. I normally have NDA's for a lot of my work, but considering this location was changed so technically I am not showing the final set that will be used.

Video

A large percentage of my work is for TV, film and stage, so having a tool like Enscape will be a powerful additional product I can show producers, I would do more but I need the lighting ability which is still missing, most of my sets are very heaving studio lit.

[ntxdave]

WOW Pete, that one is really cool. When you are able to control the lighting better I think it will be powerful.

Just out of curiosity, did you use any of the material key words I posted earlier in the thread or are these just native SU colors?

I would LOVE to be able to develop stuff like that.

[solo]

I am using the material names, unfortunately, it's all we have for now. I do not know the folk behind this software I just hope they realise how powerful this can become and how large the SU market is.
So many things are needed, this is going to be a long road.

[ntxdave]

I agree with you. I have tried to encourage them both on their forum and via a PM.

BTW: I sent you a PM as well.........

[jenujacob]

WOw! Pete! That is awesome! Really cool projects you get involved in!!!
Wish i got more time to play with Enscape!! A 2 month old baby is quite a handful!!!!

[solo]

Okay, I believe I have had enough time to give my evaluation of Enscape as it is currently.

The Pros:

- Interior GI, by far the best I have seen from any animation software linked to Sketchup
- The integration and workflow within SU, live updates and very smooth flow, not sure if it's based on my Titan card but it was really smooth on my side.
- The control over shadows, direction of sun, the ability to animate sun movements
- Depth of field, I really liked the ease of use and the way it animates.
- Sky and atmosphere, very smooth and highly controllable
- Rendering animations are based on what resolution you want, 4K is slow but 1080p is pretty fast at high settings.
- Fun, this really is a fun program, I literally got so involved that I lost an entire day without noticing.
- Very nice clean images and animations can be achieved.


The Cons:

- This program is incomplete and seems a while until it's ready for release
- Installation issues and updates seem to break causing more installation issues.
- Non-existing material editor besides a basic name based preset
- No lighting at all, no spots, emitters or onmi lights
- Skybox fail, HDRi's do not work here very well and when they do they are fuzzy
- When you are rendering animation you cannot move around your SU model.
- Nothing is animated, I thought at least water or sky would be.
- materials that are grouped and exploded go strangely small, one needs to close SU and reopen for them to go back to original size, water cannot be resized.
- Something not right with the AA in animation regardless how fine or high you export.


Other notes:

Pricing seems good based on what I hope the final product will be, currently not as it's not even close to a market-ready product, even though I am no fan of software for rent.
Support seems lacking even on their own forums it seems only one moderator turns up once in awhile, almost as if the dev team all have day jobs and this is a hobby.
Revit seems to be the primary product and Sketchup a byproduct that does not get their full attention even though SU users outnumber Revit users a thousand fold.
No real dedicated beta team, no bug tracking.

Wishes:

I cannot see this being a breakthrough product for SU unless it overcomes SU Achilles heel of being poly challenged, so vast scenes with vegetation will never happen unless there is some sort of Enscape supplied vegetation optimized for their product similar to what LumenRT has, or it integrates with Skatter in some way

Animation, nothing here animates, so I'm not saying it needs a library of animated people but do think they need to support animator.

The animation would certainly be a lot better with a keyframe-based system, too limited currently.


As the product is right now I would still recommend Lumion as your exterior animation software and when Enscape offers a material editor and lighting then Enscape becomes the go to interior animation software.

I never mentioned anything regarding to the VR tools, I do not have a head-set so I could not test this.

[ntxdave]

I think Pete has given a really good analysis of Enscape.

The only think I might add is WebGL capabilities like Sketchfab or CL3VER. While panoramas are neat (and yes, Enscape has a panorama tool) I, and I think others, would like to be able to display products in a rotatable 3D environment like Sketchfab or CL3VER. Enscape does have the ability (at least for Revit) to generate an exe which can be shared with customers. However, that does not give me the capability to show products on a web site in a 3D environment.

As Pete said though, this is just the alpha version and it looks like there is some real potential for the future. They will also need to step up their support though as well. Again, Pete was right on.

[Thomas Schander]

Hi, Thomas from Enscape here. I feel honored to read about your interest in our tool!

We are currently several weeks from a real Enscape for SketchUp release. The idea behind offering an alpha version was to gather initial feedback from a few people - if it would not be an incomplete alpha, we would have released it.
The amount of excitement is a lot more than we initially thought - of course looking back, an invite-only alpha would have been more appropriate. Anyway, it's great to read about all your ideas and opinions!

We are making good progress in fixing the bugs you reported to us. In the meantime (beside the fixes), we also added the section plane and a solution for fast grass rendering. I'm sure we can keep up a good development speed to incorporate your wishes!

At least for now, we use your material name as a "hint" for certain parameters, click here for a reference.

The feature set between Enscape for Revit & SketchUp will become the same. Our goal has always been the idea of creating high quality deliverables (walkthroughs, VR, videos, panorama, images) without the need of making adjustments to your project and keeping a separate Enscape project file - all within seconds thanks to powerful real time rendering. I'm happy to have you on board on our journey to make the now "beautiful and fast" Enscape for SketchUp even more powerful

Thank you all for your time and feedback!

[ntxdave]

I found some videos on YouTube about SketchUp and Enscape that I thought some of you might find really interesting:

These 2 videos are by Winning with SketchUp
This one deals with the materials: Materials 14:56 min
This one deals with animation: Animation 1:52 min

This one is from TheSketchUpEssentials is kind of a nice starting point: Rendering in Enscape3D 9:22 min

Hope you find them useful and entertaining.

[ntxdave]

Here is a test panorama to give you some idea of how they can be created in Enscape. Hope you enjoy it.

Panorama Test

[solo]

Having fun with this software, cannot wait for glass fixes, proxy integration with Skatter and ability to control materials and add lights, but so far I am loving it.

Video

[ntxdave]

Solo, I am impressed.

I wish I could learn how to do the landscaping like you have in this model. Between the landscaping and the background it looks very realistic.

[juju]

This looks promising, it has a miniature model feel to it, appealing in some sense.

[solo]

A compilation of videos I have created with Enscape to showcase how diverse the application can be. Cannot wait for some basic features to be implemented like lights, material editor, keyframe controls, and a proxy system. Royalty free music 'ignite to life'

Select HD if you can as it was done in 1080p

Video

[pbacot]

Thanks Pete,

The environmental lighting looks incredible! Killer models too.

Some of the architectural models look a little like scale models. Do you think that is just due to D.O.F.?

Really exciting output.

Peter

[solo]

The DOF in many cases results in a tilt-shift effect, I kinda like it.