[w i l l]

So when's the next super powered plugin released? Any approximate dates?

I'm eager to see if I can cut out using Studio.

Thanks.

[JDHill]

It's still being tested.

As far as helping you to avoid the use of Studio, the most important improvement is support for the native SW texture 'rotation' parameter. So in cases where you would currently need to physically rotate a bitmap file (and then, you're restricted to 0-90-180-270 rotations) you will be able to use the native SW rotation control. By SW rotation control, I mean, the one you get for an object when you right-click > Appearance > Texture > FeatureManager > Texture Properties - although Maxwell has no rotation parameter available, the plugin will modify the object's UVs on-the-fly to match this rotation. So, if you can acheive an acceptable mapping that way, you won't need to use Studio - if you need more complex projection-type mappings, you will. The new plugin will also optionally generate multi-materials for objects which have no Maxwell Material assigned - currently, only component and body level native SW materials are considered during export.

For a timeline...well, as soon as possible is all I'll say.

JD

[w i l l]

So cant we use the Solidworks rotation control now with 2008?

[JDHill]

Currently, no. As I said, since Maxwell doesn't have a rotation parameter, the plugin has to get that information from SW and use it to modify the UVs for every mesh triangle during export. The current plugin cannot do this (not on SW2007 or SW2008) but the next version can.

[superbad]

Sounds promising.