[Richard]

@ JD

Mate is it likely a new plugin may be released for both Mac and PC before the current pricing deal expires? next week!

[JDHill]

No -- things are moving right along, but I can say, no, nothing will be released in that timeframe. I'm not sure how rushing a plugin release would be related to any temporary promotional offers on Maxwell itself; a person would end up seeing the new plugin on the same day whether he chose to upgrade during a promotion or not; he would just pay less if he did so during a promotion.

Aside from that, you will get your hands on it as soon as possible; I intend to do a tech preview release open to current customers as soon as it is realistic to do so.

[Richard]

I'm not sure how rushing a plugin release would be related to any temporary promotional offers on Maxwell itself; a person would end up seeing the new plugin on the same day whether he chose to upgrade during a promotion or not; he would just pay less if he did so during a promotion..

I guess as big a part of a decision to upgrade can be partly based on the strength of the plugin to the host application they wish to drive it from! Given the issues of poly handling in SU just understanding if xref of low poly proxies with hi poly mxs is a big one for me I guess!

I'm doing a lot of collaborative facade designs with a few project home builders and in a one day session with them I may export 20-30 options to maxwell and as yet cant upgrade to V2 when still having to export to 1.7.

I guess it really comes down to a bit of a moral issue for me, I guess not feeling like upgrading just to advantage a discount when i cant yet use it! I might email nicole and ask the question as to whether SU users can still claim the discount once the plugin is released!

Good luck on your development there JD! Quite excited about how good likely the new version will be!

[eviele]

I'm just dreaming of animation support...
Either way, looking forward to the new plugin and the tech preview.

e.

[mpoole1]

Lack of animation support is the major reason I have not upgraded. Is it in the plans? This question has been out there since V1.5. I love Maxwell and have been using it with Sketchup since 1.1, bit I really need to be able to generate animations. All of the comparable render plug-ins export Sketchup animation. I would upgrade tomorrow if someone could give some indication that animation support will be added to the plug-in.

[JDHill]

That is really only a question of priority -- if a feature is possible to implement, then it is on my radar. The initial focus, however, must remain on making the connection between the plugin, SketchUp, and Maxwell more cohesive and full-featured: I want to avoid putting the cart in front of the horse. That is another way of saying that I have not yet explored the animation angle. It might be simple, and it might be difficult, so while I cannot speak to a concrete timeframe, I can say that you should expect to see it given attention when it becomes appropriate to do that.

[Richard]

JD you should come to Aust and run for politics! You've nailed political speak!

[brodie_geers]

Not much to add to the discussion, but I get a chill up my spine every time I see an email from NL in hopes that it's a SU plugin. Can't wait to see how it turns out

-Brodie

[Richard]

Yeah after getting news today of the PS plugin which without testing yet but sounds like it is the ABSOLUTE BOMB!!! Man didn't christmas come there!!!!

If the SU plugin is anything near as exciting I'll probably self lubricate!

[mpoole1]

JD thank you for the quick response. It is good to know that the NL team is monitoring and responding to the end user concerns. I also agree with Richard. If you ever get tired of computers, I think you may have a future in politics. I do understand about needing to address first things first. NL has always done a great job, especially given the number of platforms that you support. I posted this question about animation back in 2007 and below is the response I received from Pavol was:

"The short answer is yes - animation support is planned for a fairly near future (no release date set yet though).
Pavol"

I have to believe that the animations is a achievable goal. When the upgrade option first hit my email. I was also in the middle of a large rendering project. The client loved the Maxwell images and immediately asked if I could do an animation. I checked the new features and was discouraged to see that this was still not a feature of the new plug-in. I then started looking at our other options for rendering plug-ins in Maxwell. I will not list them in this post. It is not my intent to talk down Maxwell. I have a lot of time and money invested in this program and I want to see it succeed. That being said I installed trials of 3 plug ins and they all exported animations from sketch-up.

Good news is the Photo shop plug-in looks great. That alone may be enough for me to upgrade my standard license. I would do all 16 of my render nodes, if i could have them busy running animation frames.

thanks again for all your hard work

[Richard]

I've just thought of something that might be a killer option in any future plugin development and wanting the thoughts of others in regards!

JD is gonna hate me!

I run lots of tests from SU direct to render whilst with clients (material tests for mass marketed homes) and always have the problem that some materials from earlier tests will be wished to use again though I've lost the direct link and will need to retest to confirm the materials!

Therefore I wonder if the plugin had a list similar to that of the MXM reporter with the option to store information similar to SU scenes building tabs for assignments 1, assignments 2, assignments 3 etc that quick toggling between tabs would allow the user reference to what was used in previous tests!

This could also be handy for scenes where two or more renders are to be run with varied materials. I guess a similar situation to that of the MXED where material setting variations can be tested and stored.

Thoughts?

[Richard]

The last few days I've been doing a fair bit of rendering and still yet to upgrade system to v2 as I just need to crunch the work and cant afford any issues even with materials so soon as free time!

Though one thing that came to mind whilst running flat out was what may be a very functional material application for the workflow SU > MR!

Maxwell's material browser is brilliant - good material thumbs, click to editor, wizards, small thumb icons in file list - everthing one could want - NOW is there anyway that the functioning of this browser be extended to add the SU material list and drop drag of links enabled? Such a simple really well suited (studio style) to maxwell workflow!

I have to say another thing! How much an idiot am I for not realizing the strength of Mxed to store previews I knew it could but just didn't realize how useful it is it's like the perfect undo button and store of optional setups! Just never used it!

[JDHill]

There are some good ideas here -- I often consult posts on the forum when I'm writing. Some things will tend to be outside the capabilities that we have to work with (the drag/drop thing is pretty much a no-go), but there's no such thing as a bad idea, so please keep on writing them down here.

I liked the mxed stored previews button too. Not just right at first, but I plan for the plugin to have a similar functionality. How it is being implemented is that the scene is divided into a few major categories: material, camera, environment, and output. For the last three, I have already coded it so that you can save a snapshot at any time, and then recall it again at any time from a list of saved (named) snapshots. I'll be doing a similar thing with material state as well, and that will persist across sessions too. That will take longer, just because material-related lists require a more comprehensive UI than is needed for simple lists of camera/etc. snapshots.

[Richard]

Darn just the browser is so good!

[fv]

I would really like it if in Studio there would be a way to store materials into folders. Than I could get all the materials from figures and trees round up together and have a few of the materials I tweak frequently at the top of the list. But that's a Studio thing...

For me doing all my work in Studio these days the best plugin for SU>Maxwell would be the plugin that makes exporting models and parts of models as easy as possible.
Like only exporting the active geometry or exporting camera views only or getting the named SU layers as equally named groups in Studio.
Exporting proxy components to be replaced by mxs models/instances as has been asked before. This is would really be a big timesaver.

Well, the fine tuning of architectural models in SU as the design process develops is part of the normal workflow in all architectural offices. To be able to quickly delete specific geometry in Studio and replace it by more recent geometry is a bit risky still. If you are very experienced you get a decent workflow as it is now but it requires a good deal of thought, more than is necessary.