[valerostudio]

Playing with MXS References inside of SketchUp and I have to say this is hands down one of the best features I have seen since Fire. Totally incredible. High poly trees in SketchUp rendered lightning fast in Fire. Love it! Now I can finally use my Onyx trees in SketchUp!

[JDHill]

I'm glad to hear that. Please let me know if you think of any improvements that could be made.

[valerostudio]

A method I am trying is to load the MXS and then replace the component with a billboard object. I noticed that if I reload the MXS (I moved the file) then I lose my billboard. Is there anyway to have it update the MXS location/file and not reload the component entirely?

[valerostudio]

It would also be incredible to edit the materials of the MXS directly inside SU through MXED. Right now, I have to open the MXS in Studio and edit that way. An alternative may be to directly open the MXS through SketchUp, the same way you can open/edit an MXM file. I might be pushing it, but that would be cool.

[JDHill]

A method I am trying is to load the MXS and then replace the component with a billboard object. I noticed that if I reload the MXS (I moved the file) then I lose my billboard. Is there anyway to have it update the MXS location/file and not reload the component entirely?

No, there's no way to do that, the update function is designed primarily for when the MXS has been altered, and you actually do want to update the proxy representation in SketchUp. I understand your scenario, but I would question whether this is something that occurs frequently enough to warrant an additional function appearing in the UI. That aside, here is a Ruby one-liner that will prompt you to choose an MXS; when you do, it will change the definition of the currently-selected component to point to that MXS:

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(d=Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].definition)?(f=MX::Env.browse_for_mxs)?(MX::Util.set_attr(d,'mxsref',f.mx_to_json);d.name=f.file):0:0

In the interest of keeping it short, it does not check whether you currently have a component selected; if not, you'll get an error.

It would also be incredible to edit the materials of the MXS directly inside SU through MXED. Right now, I have to open the MXS in Studio and edit that way. An alternative may be to directly open the MXS through SketchUp, the same way you can open/edit an MXM file. I might be pushing it, but that would be cool.

The first way is highly unlikely to be implemented, since there's no support for that in MXED. The second, though, actually I have implemented such an "Open MXS in Studio" button in other cases, but it was more of an afterthought, which didn't occur to me here. So go ahead and assume that I'll add that.

Edit: in the meantime, since I have the Ruby console open, here's another one-liner, which opens the MXS for a selected MXS Ref component in Studio:

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(d=Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].definition)?(f=MX::Filename.from_entity(d,'mxsref'))?(MX::Env.open_with_studio(f)):0:0