[w i l l]

1.

If I have a complex part which needs a material applied to all surfaces except for a couple of faces (which have another material applied) what is the best way of selecting these faces. In Photoworks you would just select the whole body, apply the material and then pick a face off of that body and apply the next material. Surely thats easier than the method of using the plugin where you have to pick all the faces of the part except for the ones that need to apply a different material to.

2.

Has anyone experienced a problem/bug whereby when rendering from the plugin Maxwell opens 11 windows of Studio, which crashes the PC? I get this a lot with different parts/assemblies.

[JesperW]

You can do the same here, just switch the selection filter first to bodies, then to faces. Selection type icons are to the left of the selection list window.

(Although I'm not shure if it actually has the desired effect, I stopped using the SW plugin a while ago)

[w i l l]

It doesnt work. If you select the body and apply a material you cant then select one face and apply a material to that face.

If you use Solidworks how do you not use the plugin? I thought the workflow was to render using the plugin for 1 minute to get an mxs file which can then be opened in Studio. Is there a quicker way?

[Fernando Tella]

It doesnt work. If you select the body and apply a material you cant then select one face and apply a material to that face.

I have just done it. Select the triangles and drag the material to the triangles.

[Eric Lagman]

In the past I have had the body then face method of material application not work, but in the last plugin it has been working ok for me. I select the body apply maxwell material to it, then select just a face and apply a material to that. Is it a problem in a part file or assembly. My problems in the past were mainly when I tried to do this in a medium size asembly.

[w i l l]

Its not working here. Fernando are you in the plugin? You can't select triangles in the plugin (only faces).

[superbad]

I saw you mention that on the PD forum about rendering for one minute. You don't need to do that at all. Deselect the "Launch render after saving MXS" option. Then when you click Render Scene, the plugin will just save the MXS.

I don't normally have to select faces, but a couple times I have created a 0.001" offset surface in SW and just selected that as an object in Studio. Very kludgy though.

[w i l l]

I'd rather just click 'launch studio'.

[Eric Lagman]

I saw you mention that on the PD forum about rendering for one minute. You don't need to do that at all. Deselect the "Launch render after saving MXS" option. Then when you click Render Scene, the plugin will just save the MXS.

I don't normally have to select faces, but a couple times I have created a 0.001" offset surface in SW and just selected that as an object in Studio. Very kludgy though.

Or just click save as mxs. That is an option, that I dont think was there in the past. You still have to have a camera in your scene though.

[w i l l]

where is 'save as mxs' in the plugin?

[Eric Lagman]

where is 'save as mxs' in the plugin?

If you have the latest one just click file save as, and mxs should be an option to choose from.

[w i l l]

Duh. I already checked that and couldn't see it. Thanks, its there!

[Fernando Tella]

Its not working here. Fernando are you in the plugin? You can't select triangles in the plugin (only faces).

¡Oh sorry! I was thinking about Studio. I don't use SW.

[JesperW]

If you use Solidworks how do you not use the plugin? I thought the workflow was to render using the plugin for 1 minute to get an mxs file which can then be opened in Studio. Is there a quicker way?

Use Save As MXS and Studio for smaller objects, that's propably the quickest way.

For large projects right now I think you need to have a third application to get useable workflow. Mine are way to large. The SW plugin is too slow and unpredictable.

Personally I use 3DSMax as my texturing and scene editor. Mostly because it has Spaceball support and with PolyTrans I get very quick translations and the same database hierarchy in Max as in Solidworks, much easier to navigate than Studio where you just get a flat list of thousands of numbered objects.

Some people use Rhino3D for the same purpouse. Has good SW import and the Maxwell plugin is better than here.

NL has stated that it's putting effort into improving the plugins right now, but with the current versions you need some workarounds...

[superbad]

Jesper- How well does 3DSMax / Polytrans handle changes to SW model geometry? Can you reimport the model and have it keep all the textures and everything? That is my biggest complaint with Studio right now, that reimporting geometry causes crashes.