[ran]

Are there any tutorials available on editing materials of SU plant components within Sketchup or Maxwell Studio? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Ran

[JDHill]

Nothing quite so specific (there is nothing particularly special about a material used on a plant, it just is a material like any other), I don't think, you would just want to become familiar with the MXM material system in general. You can find a good material tutorial here, and the documentation for the material system here.

[ran]

Thanks JD. The reason I asked is that the leaves of many Sketch Up 3D plant components rendered with Maxwell do not display their colour but are grey and not of a quality to keep in drawing.

Randal

[JDHill]

The thing to do there is to find out why they're exporting like that. It could be due to one of a number of reasons, and it's not possible to guess from here without seeing a model. I would look at the exported MXS in Studio to see what material is assigned to the leaves, and then check how that material is built, looking at it in Studio's material editor. If the material seems to be a different one than is assigned to the geometry in SketchUp, I'd check the material assignments in SketchUp -- what is on the front of the face, and what is on the back -- to make sure that the intended material is actually being used. As I say, though, it's difficult to guess; if this doesn't help, please upload an example model (you can use dropbox or similar), so I can take a look.

[ran]

Below is the dropbox link to the file which includes a problem plant component.
The plant component may not be suitable. I may have to look at importing Xfrog plant files into either SU or Studio.
Thanks for your support.
Ran

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1eot4mjynerjkkk/CROSSSU.skp

[JDHill]

If you open the material for the leaves (i.s. s-Fern-g-01) in SketchUp's material editor and change its Opacity to 100%, it will work better. The way it is set up, the plugin is guessing that it is some type of glass to be used for a building -- it was not rendering grey, it was just smooth, and reflecting the grey atmosphere in your model. Better yet, instead of that, open it in the plugin's material editor and switch the Character from Automatic to Plastic or SSS (Single-Sided).

[ran]

Thanks JD.
Simple. I am just starting to try and learn Maxwell again. I recently exported my SU model to 4D cinema and love the Maxwell Plugin and the plant options from Xfrog. I have started watching the Cinema 4D tutorials on the forum but can not work out why my scene is rendering black. Is is a scale issue? However, my model seems to be at the right scale. Any suggestions?

[JDHill]

Again here, it's not really possible for me to tell you why that would happen, without seeing your model (in the format of whichever platform you're using, SU or C4D). First, though, I'd again recommend taking a look at the MXS exported to Studio; that can often help to make clear what is causing a particular problem.

[ran]

Below is dropbox link to Cinema 4d. I am a also a novice in Cinema 4d. When opened in studio I still could not work out the issue.
Please take a look. Much appreciated.





https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4rn9cklnz6mitm/CROSSSU.c4d

[ran]

The Sketch up file was exported into Cinema 4d as FBX. I tried exporting as Collada and the scene renders. Do you know the best export option from SU to C4d?

[JDHill]

In the Environment tab of your Scene Object, Location & Time group, the time of day is set to 21:34:38. Just below the Location & Time group you will fine the Sun Indicator group -- if you enable that and adjust its Scale Factor appropriately for the overall scale of your scene (5000 works well in this case), the plugin will draw a representation of the sun in your viewport. The indicator is drawn centered on the location of the Scene Object, so just drag that wherever it may be conveniently seen.

On the most recent question, no, I don't really know any reasons to prefer one over the other. You may want to ask that of other Cinema users, in the Cinema forum section.

[ran]

Thanks again!