Great for: Creating bespoke and standard profiles for repetitive geometries.Extend these profiles along paths to create a profile member, and combine profile members to create parametrically-defined assemblies. Create profiles using simple or complex SketchUp faces and polylines. This extension massively speeds up modeling time because it makes repetitive tasks a piece of cake. System compatibility: Available for Windows and Mac.Who uses it? Beginner to intermediate user.

The Unreal Datasmith Plugin for SketchUp also enables seamless exports from SketchUp to Unreal Engine. Image courtesy of Turner Fleischer Architectsĭeveloped by Epic Games and previously deployed for gaming development, Unreal Engine is ideal for creating approachable, super-fast renders that can be navigated in real-time.

Pricing: Lumion €1499 | Lumion Pro €2999 | Free educational license in some countries.

System compatibility: Only available for Windows.

Great for: Visualising your small scale project as you model.

Who uses it? Intermediate to advanced user.

This should give you a sense of pushing and pulling a real-life building. Lumion Live Sync allows you to establish a live connection which means you can model and render simultaneously.

Pricing: Available as part of SketchUp Studio.

Great for: Interactive render viewing and High-quality professional renders.

Who uses it? Beginner to advanced users.

Geek out a lot by tweaking specific inputs or roll with inbuilt presets if you’re new to rendering. Its latest version, V-Ray 5 offers render options that you can quickly select and tweak to suit your style, an interactive viewing window as you model in SketchUp, and a paid cloud rendering option that frees up your hardware for other work. Long established as a robust professional renderer within arch-viz circles, V-Ray 5 delivers polished, photo-real renders for newbies and pros alike. All three offer the opportunity to create professional hyper-realistic renders.” I’m also an avid Lumion user and Unreal Engine apprentice. The rendering power trio: “I keep V-Ray in Live mode, and render from there. Based on a conversation with Anders Hus Folkedal, who’s work at Ramboll we’ve featured on the blog, we’ve shortlisted ten key extensions any 3D enthusiast can add to their workflow to improve productivity and speed up modeling. It is even more powerful because users can supercharge its capabilities by customizing it with extensions to suit their unique workflow. SketchUp is pretty robust straight out of the box.

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