[Burkhard]

Hi JD,

I have some questions about features for Maxwell standalone. So basicly for the Sketchup Plugin.

- I like to play with Colimo- http://www.motivacg.com/colimo.ph- At the moment I use the Thea Render because of the easiness.
Is it possible to get a better access to the export just by the Plugin? Or does this require a better integration into the Maxwell core in
general...and that means a Motiva problem?

- I find it hard to set the shadows in Sketchup for a good ambience. Does it make sense to implement the Earth Globe in the Plugin, ie. below
the Sky Tab?

- In the Material Tab under Presets I miss an easy way to manipulate some textures / colours
It is possible to create a Preset ( Advanced Material ) which contains some basic funktion like:
Diffuse ( included Textures ) Reflections ( included Textures ) Transmissions, Roughness, Refrection, Fresnel, Opacity... ( just examples )
This allows users to manipulate some Materials quick and easy in its basic settings, by using Fire for the Preview.

- What I also prefer are Texture scaling possibilities ( UV tiling and scaling ) with some sliders in the Material Tab, for faster Texture changes
This can be seen in Fire in Realtime.

Are these Questions for the Maxwell core, but also for the Plugin?
For those who works with Studio it does not make sense, but in terms of the simpleness with Sketchup, I miss this.

Burkhard

[JDHill]

Hi Burkhard, I'll just go point-by-point...

1) the Standalone plugin is not designed for you to access the output at all, other than by saving a rendered image. As I assume that the Colimo application would not deal with MXS files, I also assume this is a non-factor. So the question becomes: what exactly are you looking for? I am not familiar with that application.

2) I doubt it; the plugin is designed to take its cues here directly from SketchUp, so what you are asking would seem to fall in the category of improving SketchUp itself, and not so much the plugin. Meaning, the tool you are asking for would actually add functionality to SketchUp, and could just as well be implemented as a general purpose SketchUp plugin, unrelated to Maxwell; the Maxwell plugin, would automatically take advantage of this improvement. Do you see this as a valid way of looking at the situation?

3) The way of accomplishing this is through MXM files. The plugin's built-in material will be extended over time, but it is not intended to ever take the place of MXM files.

4) I'm not sure I understood the question -- the plugin's material editor already does allow you to change texture tile and offset; just click the texture thumbnail to enable the controls. Is this what you are requesting, or is it something else?

[Burkhard]

Thanks Jason,

1) I refer to the thread: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... lit=colimo and some from the wishlist.
But I see that such a solution is not really implemented yet, so it can't be done. In Thea you just have to select the Objects and check repeatable when using materials. As an Interior Designer I love this feature.

2) You are right when you say it should be improved by Google...but it is not. I had hoped that the opposite way could be easely done through the Sketchup API.

3) It should not replace the MXM files. I just talk about a simple way to add some values which are sampled in one category. Sketchup is
quite simple, so some Materials do not need that high quality. The Material editor is not really intuitive for a Sketchup Plugin user.
ie. You have under Metals the Roughness, Nd and K sliders. Some sliders more like Opacity, Refrection..., call it Advanced settings under Type Tab and we can simply create easy Materials . But it is just a suggestion.

4) It is the same I mentioned above. A few simple scale slider in the Material Tab and we are able to see the changes directly in Fire.

Anyway, I was not sure if it does make sense for anyone here. The last two points are based on the Keyshot workflow. But I probably mix up some things here, with a Plugin and a Host Application.

Thanks for your answer.

Burkhard

[JDHill]

1) Thanks for the link, it clarifies things a bit. From Alejandro's last post in that thread, it appears to be something that Colimo needs to implement (apparently they accomplish it, in one case, by writing custom shaders for mental ray), and it does not seem likely that you could do that entirely within SketchUp. Perhaps Maxwell would be able to render what Colimo needs by means of some new render channels, but I do not know; better to ask that question in the general Maxwell forum.

2) It is trivial to tell SketchUp to set a particular time of day, but it would be rather involved to implement a globe-type widget.

3) Yes, as I say, the (embedded) material model will be extended over time, but there are higher-priority things at the moment.

4) I think that either I am misunderstanding you, or you are misunderstanding me. You can change texture tile & offset in the plugin's material editor, and those changes are shown instantly in Maxwell Fire. If you change tile size in the SketchUp material editor, you have to use the Re-export Scene button in the Maxwell Fire window, since doing that changes the UVs of geometry.