[3dforall]

Problems that I am having:

1.) I cannot import materials into my plug-in scene manager. It imported correctly 3 times during this small project, but started importing as "empty" with no information attached.

2.) The browse button in all the segments of the plug-ins scene manager can only be activated once. After that they will no longer open a browser window. I have to close sketchup entirely in order to open a browser window from the scene manager plugin (environment folders, material browser folder).

3.) The new plug-in 2.5.1 does not export my scene to the render module correctly. The scene is very small and has only 5 materials, all of which come out completely incorrect. The walls are stucco yet render see through, the stone fire place comes out blue and nothing renders the way it looks in Sketchup. I uninstalled the plug-in 2.5.1 and re-installed 2.1.12. and the scene exported correctly to the render module. Whats going on here?

4.) When I click the "browser the MXM gallery" button the material browser opens. I search for "wood" and the dialog box says: "Login Error. Can't login in MXM gallery. Check user account info in the preferences dialog." When I open studio and go to preferences>materials>MXM gallery, my login info is correct and the material browser works in studio. but when I go back to Sketchup it still says I can't login.

This new plug-in seems especially unstable, which makes my job really stressful. Is there anyone I can talk to about these problems, I want to use Maxwell on larger projects, but I am having major difficulty and frustration.

Thanks All

_3DFORALL_

[JDHill]

Going one by one:

1. Please explain exactly (a specific set of steps) what you mean by 'import materials'.
2. Please try setting Options > User Interface > File Browsers to Default and let me know if that helps.
3. Can you send me the scene? (jeremy at nextlimit dotcom) I cannot really guess about what you mean.
4. Please set your login info in MXED Preferences; Studio Preferences are only for Studio.

Also, please provide information about your operating system and version, and the version of SketchUp you are using.

[Burkhard]

Same here for Point 4...should be mentioned in the manual.

But I can confirm that I have similar Problems after install the 2.51

When selecting a Sketchup material it does not show up in the Preview window.

Windows 7 ... Sketchup V8 ... Maxwell 2.51 ... SuPlugin for 2.51

[JDHill]

If you re-generate the preview, does it appear to fix the problem? I am trying to determine whether it's related to opening an older file or not.

And on 3dforall's issue #3, he sent me a SketchUp document, and I was able to find the bug. If you have MXMs which reference textures with upper-case extensions, the plugin won't believe that they're valid textures, and will disable them when writing the MXM into the MXS during export. So if you open an MXS and find a texture disabled when it should be enabled, check that.

[Burkhard]

re generate does it mean to update the preview? The preview does not show Sketchup Materials by default.

Another thing to proove:
Once you click on the + in Environment Settings and cancel the Preset Dialog, I'm not able to change the Environment Type anymore. It does not open. I have to restart Sketchup to change the Type. Seems similar to 3dforall

[JDHill]

re generate does it mean to update the preview?

Yes, if you update the preview (click the little 'spinning arrows' button in the preview window), then switch materials, then switch back, is the newly-updated preview image shown, or is it still missing?

The preview does not show Sketchup Materials by default.

I may be misunderstanding you, but by default, there is simply no preview to show; it has to be rendered at least once first.

Another thing to proove:
Once you click on the + in Environment Settings and cancel the Preset Dialog, I'm not able to change the Environment Type anymore. It does not open. I have to restart Sketchup to change the Type. Seems similar to 3dforall

Is this still the case after doing what I suggested? (i.e. set File Browsers to Default)

[Burkhard]

Okay by default I mean there is nothing in the Preview window ...switching, updating..I can't get it to work.
Previews for mxm are well.

Meanwhile I noticed that using Jasons Test Scene from the Think site does not show any Material in the Render-mxs and in Studio.
Also in Studio one cup is missing. Jason is right by saying disable instances when exporting to Studio ( Thread "Missing Objects in Studio" )
Seems the 2.51 does not work as expected.

The File Browser is set to default, but makes no differences

Should say I'm working on Win7 x64

[JDHill]

Okay by default I mean there is nothing in the Preview window ...switching, updating..I can't get it to work. Previews for mxm are well.

Well, I'm on the same operating system, and not able to reproduce missing previews so far, but I'll try to theorize about what could cause a failure.

Meanwhile I noticed that using Jasons Test Scene from the Think site does not show any Material in the Render-mxs and in Studio.

The scene works as expected here. Perhaps you can be more specific about what you mean by does not show any material.

Also in Studio one cup is missing. Jason is right by saying disable instances when exporting to Studio ( Thread "Missing Objects in Studio" )

No, there is no cup missing in Studio; one of them is exported as an instance, and instances are not shown in Studio's viewport by default.

The File Browser is set to default, but makes no differences.

As with the first point, it is working fine here, regardless which style of File Browser is used. So I'll let you know if I find a way to reproduce the issue.

[Burkhard]

Okay by default I mean there is nothing in the Preview window ...switching, updating..I can't get it to work. Previews for mxm are well.

Well, I'm on the same operating system, and not able to reproduce missing previews so far, but I'll try to theorize about what could cause a failure.

Just to clarify. I'start working with Maxwell again, so I'm not sure if I do all correctly. But I remember to pick up a Material from the mat list
and activate the Preview by the spinning arrows. There is no spinning and no Preview

Meanwhile I noticed that using Jasons Test Scene from the Think site does not show any Material in the Render-mxs and in Studio.

The scene works as expected here. Perhaps you can be more specific about what you mean by does not show any material.

The Materials in the Render mxs are the default ones. Maybe there are some settings which I havn't found yet.

Also in Studio one cup is missing. Jason is right by saying disable instances when exporting to Studio ( Thread "Missing Objects in Studio" )

No, there is no cup missing in Studio; one of them is exported as an instance, and instances are not shown in Studio's viewport by default.

Yep, I noticed that too.

The File Browser is set to default, but makes no differences.

As with the first point, it is working fine here, regardless which style of File Browser is used. So I'll let you know if I find a way to reproduce the issue.

Have you tried what I suggested with the Environment preset + Tab?

Thanks

[JDHill]

Just to clarify. I'start working with Maxwell again, so I'm not sure if I do all correctly. But I remember to pick up a Material from the mat list and activate the Preview by the spinning arrows. There is no spinning and no Preview

To clarify, the arrows do not actually spin in this version as they did before. When you click them though, the material preview should be rendered using the mxs preview scene selected in the Scene dropdown. So could you tell me which scene is selected?

The Materials in the Render mxs are the default ones. Maybe there are some settings which I havn't found yet.

When I export this scene and open it in Studio, it contains several materials: middle emitter, left emiter, right emitter, cups, cups accents, etc. Do these not show up when you export it?

Have you tried what I suggested with the Environment preset + Tab?

Thanks, now I understand what you're referring to, and I can reproduce it here.

[JDHill]

Have you tried what I suggested with the Environment preset + Tab?

Thanks, now I understand what you're referring to, and I can reproduce it here.

Okay, I found it; this has been hiding in the code since the beginning, and should apply to any drop-downs in the whole UI. Basically, if the Presets dialog pops up (any of them, not just for the Environment page), it disables controls on the page -- when it closes, they are never correctly enabled again. You do not have to restart SketchUp to work around it; closing and re-opening the Scene Manager should also work.

[Burkhard]

Hi JD, thanks for your patience.
I've made a test with the same scene ( from Jason ) by using Mac Version and Maxwell 2.1.00 and Sketchup Plugin 2.1.12

No Problems here.
Export to Render works with Materials ( except IES file - but that was mentioned by Jason in the Tutorial/Video )
Export to Render show Materials too
Use the dropdown list from the Scene Manager for a Material and hit the arrow tab. It immidiately start to spin and the Preview works.

For 2.51 see attached images. No Materials, Material List in Studio is greyed out and the Preview in the Scene Browser does not start.

Forget the attachement thing, so you got a mail...

[JDHill]

Thanks, I see what you mean. Could you please send me one other file? When you export, the plugin writes a log file, and these are located at [documents]/Maxwell/SketchUp/logs. Could you go to that folder, delete the existing log files, then do a fresh export of the scene, exactly as you did in making the MXS for the screenshots you sent, and send me the log file for the export? This should help to pinpoint where things are going wrong.

[JDHill]

Please check these issues with version 2.5.11.

[Burkhard]

You got it. Works now on non english Versions as well.

Thanks for the fast fix