[chedda]

I just stumbled on moi 3d it's still in beta for the mac so it looks free for the moment. It can import rhino files and then export to sketch up . This is super handy it even gives a dialog box asking for the amount of polygon detail needed in sketch up, The app itself also looks great and follows the sketchup & bonsai ethos of being minimal & powerful.

moi=moment of inspiration !

[Half Life]

I've also heard good things about that one too -- and I was thinking of looking into it when I get some time, so I would be very interested in your experiences when you have used it for a while

Best,
Jason.

[chedda]

So far it has been an excellent conversion app a sort of swiss army knife in the fact that it can deal with conversions, exporting to 3ds is proving more robust than .skp but it's only a beta. It has that sketchup simple & powerful feeling if not more so.

[artiscon]

hi Chedda..reading your post, I am threading almost the same path.Bought Bonzai last year, but ddin't have time to use it properly...just here and there,where Sketchup is useless.On another subject:Textures. Since I'm creating new library of objects too,I found
arroway textures to be far superior to anything else.Jason was kind enough to write conversion Skp to mxm of two arroway sets i have bought(concrete and wood floors).It was well worth investment,renderings do look convincing finally.
I am trying to do the same with wood textures.If you (or even easier if more people join) would be interested to share the cost of buying arroway wood textures for Jason to do conversion,it would be easier on budget.
Of course, then we have to buy our own sets .
I did contact Jason, and he's willing to do it.
btw...I'm using OS X and ,for me, automatic conversion from Skp to mxm doesnt work-meaning that Studio can not find hi-res textures automatically when I export Skp textured model to Studio.Not a big deal, I do it manually.Probably a Mac issue.
.....also Fire sometimes(most of the times) doesn't upgrade automatically...have to Stop-Star (refresh) as in older version....
thanks
tony

[chedda]

Hey Tony, at the moment I am just using the maxwell materials on the next limit site. I never got round to creating linked libraries. I am aware that arroway textures are great though. When I came to maxwell (recently) I had to forfeit my extensive Artlantis texture & object library. So basically I am starting from scratch again. I am interested in anything of quality at the moment. How does the legal side work ? Does the license cover us all ? I have some bought textures somewhere I can dig out and add to the share I think they are metals & rust.

[Half Life]

I can make textures into MXMs to share so long as I own those textures, however I cannot share the textures themselves, which means the users of my MXM's would need to purchase the textures separately.

Best,
Jason.

[chedda]

Right okay you already own them, so I just need to buy them ? But Tony wants to share the cost EULA allows this ? I am struggling in the recession at the moment and have lost my full time 3D job so I'd prefer to pool resources and share costs. I realize there are legal implications. That's why I try to source free objects etc at the moment. Let's see the cost and we can make a decision. I do have a DVD of textures to contribute if need be.

So I get a Sketchup library of textures that are linked to the mxm's I suppose this would save a lot if clicking !?

I am sort of learning on the fly here.

[Half Life]

Why don't we wait for a bit on this -- there may be another solution for me to get the textures, which would mean I can share the complete Arroway MXM sets with everybody and all you would need at that point to to buy whichever textures from them you may want.

I will say for sure that nothing I've seen compares to full-rez Arroway quality... so while they are not cheap they are very much worth their cost.

To put it into perspective it takes me roughly a week to create a set of MXM's and linked SKM's per set of Arroway textures -- (including testing time)... so yes it would be well worth it to get them for free from me, in time saved if not quality gained.

Best,
Jason.