[archigrafix]

Here I am!
1318 cars of 35000 faces each + red and black car paint! consumed RAM 499Mo
exported to studio then...Fire!!!
there it works but not from inside sketchup...
However inside sketchup is limited in its RAM usage isnt it? if so, even though I am no great fan of studio UI, it is better way dealing with high poly



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[JDHill]

When exporting from the plugin, the first copy of a component that references an MXS is exported as an MXS Reference, with any further copies being exported as Maxwell instances of that MXS Reference. So, while you cannot avoid using memory for the initial reference, it does use the least amount of memory possible.

[Richard]

WELL!!! I've been away from the forum a bit (nil rendering part to blame, moving house and busy the other part) and today drop in and BAM! jD has dropped a bomb shell on us! Well done JD this is something to look forward to!

[archigrafix]

Anyway JD it doesnt explain why Fire from studio works fine but not from Sketchup.
It is a bit frustrating cause I feel you are very very near to succeed. As said it's just a matter of coordinates...
About RAM usage (in my example) I tested from studio RAM usage was 499Mo and works fine, from sketchup RAM was about 900Mo and instances are weird.

[JDHill]

The explanation is that Studio uses the native Maxwell coordinate system. And memory usage will be lower in Studio than in SketchUp, because Studio is not hosting both a SketchUp model, and a Maxwell one.

[archigrafix]

Thanx for explanations JD!
but do you feel those problems are gonna be easily solved? from what I see it should be...I know it is easy to say

[JDHill]

I have no doubt it will be solved, the only question is time.

[archigrafix]

But the famous build you did your car image seems already ok no?

[JDHill]

In that respect (axes swapped for translation of parts of instances of mxs references), it was better with some MXS files, but not all, and still had other unrelated issues.

[fv]

Stupid question maybe, but on OSX is there a startup.rb ?
I used spotlight to look in content and a search did not find any ENABLE_MXSREFS
I did find a init.rb but no mxsrefs there either.

Francois

[JDHill]

Yes, it must be there -- not sure about spotlight, but the exact path should be:

• /Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/plugins/maxwell/lib/startup.rb

[fv]

ok, tx.

for somereason I could not find the file using a search. But following your path it showed up alright.

Tried it, works fantastic. Tried cars and trees., Scaled, rotated all fine. Big advantage is as well that in SU you don't get all the materials imported. Saves a lot of hassle with the materials and keeps the file clean.
All I need to do now is set up a library of mxs trees, cars, people etc.

But, the scale was differently rendered. I got 4 identical mxs-trees in SU showing up as transparant blocks. But one of them rendered much smaller than the other 3.

The blocks as placed by the plugin did not cast any shadow in SU.
When I opened SU the first time with the altered startup.rb the colors were broken in the menubar of SU. That later dissapeared. And did not come back.

This is a major upgrade for the plugin. The way it works is also great. I will probably exchange the transparant blocks with a simple "lookalike" of the original mxs reference in SU.
Francois

Mac Intel 8 core, OSX 10.6.8 4Gb Ram

[fv]

When I render a sketchup model, without any scene active, the angle of view rendered in Maxwell is different from what I see in SU. Only when I add a scene and render the scene all is fine. In Fire though it render fine as well.
Maybe its just a bug.
Francois

[JDHill]

All bets are off if you enable this feature -- that's why it is not yet officially exposed. So please let me know if the camera issue you are raising above is something that is reproducible without mxs references enabled. If so, does the behavior survive shutting down/re-opening SketchUp? If so, I would like to get a copy of the model so I can see what's happening.

[fv]

Hi,
I thnk this happened before as well. Rendering a model without "making a scene" results in a different view of the model in the render. I only see it in a new file before I have added scenes.
It happens always, even with just one block. I will test it again as soon as I can. It is never a problem really since normally I only render scenes.

I am rendering a little forest of 100 instanced evermotion trees (80MB per mxs-tree) using your reference plugin. It actually renders fine on a 4Gb Ram Mac pro 8 core. I wonder how that is possible since I see not even all ram is used. Maxwell used about 1,25 Gb and 1,3 Gb virtual while 1,5 Gb ram is left unused on my system. Benchmark is just 10.52 though......

Francois