[nagy20]

I have always applied random colors to objects in sketchup in order to differentiate them when I import into maxwell studio. The materials have always imported as separate objects allowing me to apply maxwell materials to each of them. Now for some reason all my objects import as one multimaterial object regardless of their color or material. I can see the colors and materials in my materials list in maxwell studio, but I only have one object in my layer. When I click on the multimaterial logo it shows me the various materials applied to the model but for some reason combines them into one "multimaterial" object. I thought maybe it had something to do with sketchup materials importing into studio so I tried using maxwell materials with the sketchup plugin and got the same result. Does anyone know how to fix this or know what the problem is? I am using maxwell 2.5.1.1 and sketchup pro 8 and I can not upgrade to a newer version of maxwell without upgrading my OSX.

[JDHill]

In the Maxwell item in the context menu for groups and components you should find a Separate By option -- switch this to Material, and the plugin should split the faces for that group or component up by material.

[nagy20]

Thanks for the quick response JDHill. I tried the "select by" option and chose materials and it worked! I am curious how it reverted to "none" rather than materials? I never even knew that option existed in sketchup.

[JDHill]

It doesn't exist in SketchUp -- that menu is added by the plugin, and by default, None is the default. I believe in a plugin as old as the one you're using, you will need to set it to by Material for every single group or component that you want to have exported that way. In newer plugins, those properties cascade, where children inherit or override the value of their parent, in much the same way that material assignments cascade in SketchUp.