[fv]

Hi JD,
Ik know you are working hard to get us a good working plugin for SU under OSX.
Here are some ideas I came up with using Studio as I need to now:
As an alternative it could be nice to have a dedicated export to Studio plugin. Once in this workflow I am just exporting geometry to Studio. All that I need are better to tools to organize the geometry, like layer names, groups and components as they are in SU. I imagine this is not perfectly possible but maybe you can find a way to maximize the export of the in SU organized geomtry. In such a way that adding and deleting geometry and reimporting into Studio is easier.

When I export from SU I sometimes copy geometry and paste in place into another SU file just to export that specific part. Now I seem to loose the origin of that part when I import in Studio. When I export from the same file the origin is kept and I import the part on the exact same spot as it should be. Does something get lost when I copy paste in place geomtry into a different SU file ?

Another thing is that bugs me is that the world has changed for SU users in the past half a year. For the best renders as we see them today on the web Vray has become the industry standard. It seems to be very fast and in a way friendly to use and supported by an active and enthousiast userbase. There are many ex-Maxwell users there who find themselves productive again with Vray. Since OSX users don't have a functional plugin since V2 of Maxwell came out I see that overhere at the SU-Maxwell side of the forum things have slowly died down. If the new plugin does not arrive in lets say in weeks, we will also give up and move on to greener grass. I feel a little exhausted to keep up with NL. With just one man on the pluginjob, no matter how good, Maxwell on OSX for SU users is simply not an option anymore.
Francois

[JDHill]

Hi Francois,

Thanks for the comments. On one hand, I cannot guarantee how long it will take. On the other, the reason why I can't is because I have some rather ambitious goals for the new plugin; if it were just a superficial re-hash of the current plugin, it would take less time. But that is not what this is about for me - I have worked hard on my other plugins with the goal being that those who use them would have no need to touch Studio at all; judging by comments, this has been acheived relatively well. Additionally, I am creating, from scratch, some brand new paradigms in this plugin which don't exist anywhere else in the Maxwell world; that takes time (this is also why I will not post any work-in-progress news). Sketchup is a pretty 'messy' environment in which to code a good user-friendly plugin, but that is what I am trying to do. I realize that sooner is always better, but in the long run, I just cannot allow myself to cut corners in the interest of acheiving a shorter time-frame. If I did that, in the end there would only be one thing I could guarantee: that both you and I would eventually regret the compromise.

I will look into your copy-paste problem and try to make sure that whatever might be causing it will not be present in the new plugin. Of course, I am also tracking the other issues posted in this forum to ensure that they are also eliminated. Thanks also for your ideas on export organization - there are some limitations to work around, and it is always better to have more input than less.

Cheers,

JD

[fv]

As always, your replies make a lot of sense. I would probably respond the same way.

Time does not freeze though to a standstill once waiting for something good. We see work done by beginners, students and guys like Alex Roman in Vray and that is far beyond anything ever achieved with Maxwell in Archviz. It becomes less sensible to wait for your plugin by the week.

Still, I wish you time and progress,
Francois

[messire]

JD,
thnx much for all the effort, as you can see some of us are sticking to MR beeing there since the alpha or beta versions...so i agree with your philosophy toward the new plugin ( better good than compromises everywhere).
We'll wait for the time beeing ( one thing that is still unexplainable is the slowness of the material editor 2.0 in OSX (has this been solved) that has nothing to see with sketchup, has this issue been solved by your collegues?) and trust your work!
Thanks

nils

[fv]

Nils,
what exactly is slow in the material editor. I find it slow only when I have Maxwell rendering in the background. Otherwise its ok. I do not use the browser though. I just edit materials or open existing ones under the filemenu.

I have another wierd thing going on though, when I render the image does not show. Only when I press the F key the image shows as it progresses.
Francois

[messire]

browsing is the slow stuff: it stucks when you click on folders and the apple spinning wheel goes on forever ( force quit is the only solution)

Nils

[fv]

Hi JD, how's the plugin ?

In the mean time all because of the current plugin I have become much more convenient in Studio.
I see now most of my time wasted before was due to working straight out of SU. I have now mxs-models 300Mb+ that could never have been done in SU. I have models with combined Modo and SU work. Neither possible without Studio. And most important, texturing in Studio is so fast that I much rather finetune texturing in Studio. Also rendering previews without the need to export is a lot faster. And then all my SU models now are devided into different files and as such exported into Studio. Also a big timesaver instead of trying to model files that are too big for SU.
All in all, my workflow has become much more professional and the output I generate now is far more pleasing. I am also getting some fun back in my work. We have even remodelled older projects for our portfolio with results we never thought we could do ourselves.

For the new plugin I would wish the functionality in combination with Studio would be improved.
1. instancing does not work well now in combination with group by material at export. Anyhow I find instancing confusing. I can't really see what is happening in Studio.
2. instancing with mxs models by proxies in SU.
3. export selected geometry only would be great to speed exporting parts into Studio

Well, this post just to let you know I am still here and that things have actually improved as well,
Francois

[JDHill]

Thanks for this further input, Francois. I agree that Studio can be an important part of a Maxwell workflow, and this mainly depends on limitations which may be present in the host application (i.e. 32-bit, poor texturing, etc). It is also great when your workflow involves more than one modeling application, where the applications you are using do not fit well with each other; being cross-platform, Studio can become a very logical point in your workflow for consolidating output from those applications.

Prior to that point though, the new plugin will try to make working within SketchUp as productive as possible, even if it is in the small details, such as being able to see the preview for an MXM, when you choose to use that as a material, or other things of that nature. It will also provide an easier method for managing camera and scene parameters; everything will be consolidated into a single Maxwell window, with a high-class UI, which will give you nicer controls and things like undo/redo, etc., for working with your Maxwell scene inside of SketchUp.

[fv]

Ok, that sounds really good. Obviously control from within SU is a better start for most beginners and as such might bring more users to Maxwell.

But for the more advanced users you might as well incorperate some tools that make exporting to Studio and editing Studio models easier, like the option exporting selected geometry only. That would actually also be very handy in case you would like previewing a part of the model quickly straight from SU. Its always a hassle to seperate certain parts of the model to render. Copy pasting in new files or even deleting the inverse to undo after export. And I also hope that SU material names are independent of mxm material names getting rid of the tedious renaming of SU model material names.

But it feels good to see Maxwell is being served by a new plugin that is going to have a high class well organised UI. That would make a huge difference in total Maxwell experience.

I see lots of CAD and render app's that are great to just make a model, texture it and then render it. But when it comes to the usual endless model changes and finetuning the final image they require you to retype the same information with each preview. For example when I import models into Studio I have to go through the same import routine every time which is prone to mistakes. Or when I adjust projector settings in Studio with the operator I have to uncheck 6 boxes before I can reduce the UV by 50 % each time. Things like that are often left unchanged for years since they are not real bugs but merely annoyances.
well, good luck, and although we bought Vray by now for faster artificial lighted interior renderings I am still holding on to our Maxwell license with good hopes.
Francois

[fv]

just a quick note about my first Vray experience compared to Maxwell. Well, faster, I am not sure.... its slow actually as well.
What is pleasing at first sight is that it has a typical OSX Sketchup "look and feel" .

But to be honest, I am not convinced yet Vray is the better option for interior rendering. Maxwell and Vray might just be equally fast or slow for high quality renders. I think Vray is very easy to learn though, the settings are simple and quick to navigate to. Vray is also buggy I experienced. I am afraid rendering good images is a process of patience and perseverance. In that sense I might have saved myself the cost of Vray.
Francois