[SS_RS]

I was just wondering the best workflow with textures in SU & Maxwell SA?

Sometimes I get a WYSIWYG from manually manipulating texture via SU and/or the scale on the texture in the SU material browser, sometimes not. I sure this is completely down to my poor workflow.

Does anyone have advice on this? Links welcome.

Thx

[JDHill]

This will depend on whether there is scale (i.e. Repeat, in the MXED texture editor) applied to individual textures within an MXM you have assigned to your geometry. Texture scale here is applied within the context of UV space, which is what you define in SketchUp. So, if you have a plane showing one repetition in SketchUp, with a Repeat=2.0 value in MXED, you will find two tiles of the texture squeezed into the space of one tile, as it is shown in SketchUp. Though it can be necessary to do this, my recommendation is to always leave texture Repeat at 1.0 in MXM files.

[SS_RS]

Thanks for the reply, great advice as always.

Question: can the repeat be edited in the SA scene manager? I can't see it there. If not, I assume the work around is to then take into account the scale and assume a "2 for 1" when lining up textures in SU?

Cheers.

[JDHill]

No, it's not possible to alter how an MXM renders, using the Scene Manager in the plugin (there may be any number of textures in the MXM, each with its own settings). As far as predicting this, in the case that you don't have MXED (i.e. you are using the Standalone plugin), about the only way would be to render a test to find out how the MXM in question is working, and then, as you say, to compensate by tiling differently in SketchUp (and just to say, the 2.0 number I quoted was random, it could be anything).

[SS_RS]

Thanks, I started using the Maxwell "render selection" in the right click, very useful for quick test and adjustments.

I also just realise that keeping an eye on which "side" of the material Maxwell is actually seeing is kind of vital.

[JDHill]

Definitely, and related, I would also recommend, as much as possible, keeping material assignments off of faces, and putting them up on groups/components.

[SS_RS]

Thanks. Like most things with SketchUp it's easy to blast away without being too meticulous. But as always the more rigorous the workflow the better the results...

[marseille13]

Definitely, and related, I would also recommend, as much as possible, keeping material assignments off of faces, and putting them up on groups/components.

could you please give a short explanation for your recommandation? What are the advantages of this?

thx

[SS_RS]

Definitely, and related, I would also recommend, as much as possible, keeping material assignments off of faces, and putting them up on groups/components.

could you please give a short explanation for your recommandation? What are the advantages of this?

thx

Very simple.

Just make sure you are applying materials to grouped objects via the scene manager, not face by face to ungrouped faces with the SU paint tool.

Example a wooden window frame: group/componant the frame (separate from the glazing) and apply the wood material via the scene manager.

It's like everything in Sketchup, the more careful you are, and the more you plan ahead the easier and better the results.

[SS_RS]

No, it's not possible to alter how an MXM renders, using the Scene Manager in the plugin (there may be any number of textures in the MXM, each with its own settings). As far as predicting this, in the case that you don't have MXED (i.e. you are using the Standalone plugin), about the only way would be to render a test to find out how the MXM in question is working, and then, as you say, to compensate by tiling differently in SketchUp (and just to say, the 2.0 number I quoted was random, it could be anything).

Quick workflow question.

I assume if you are using the same material in a scene at different scales it's better to duplicate it and work with different scales as separate materials rather than manual texture adjustment on faces?

[marseille13]

Definitely, and related, I would also recommend, as much as possible, keeping material assignments off of faces, and putting them up on groups/components.

could you please give a short explanation for your recommandation? What are the advantages of this?

thx

Very simple.

Just make sure you are applying materials to grouped objects via the scene manager, not face by face to ungrouped faces with the SU paint tool.

sorry for the misunderstanding. The question was not how to do it but why do it

[JDHill]

sorry for the misunderstanding. The question was not how to do it but why do it

To be more efficient, by keeping things more consistent. If you assign to faces, it might be to the front, or the back, or a combination of the two, and if you later want to change the material, you have to go in and try to select various faces, and so forth.

I assume if you are using the same material in a scene at different scales it's better to duplicate it and work with different scales as separate materials rather than manual texture adjustment on faces?

Yes, this will be far preferable, especially because by adjusting on faces, you may inadvertently introduce per-face distortion into the texture mapping, which then requires a separate texture bitmap to be written out by SketchUp, for every such face.