[JDHill]

Yes, that would be the basic idea.

[gtalarico]

I think some has brought this up before:

Anyway the plugin can sort materials alphabetically?
I use "-" and "_" prefixes to group/sort emitters together, MXMs, unresolved materials, etc.

Thanks JD.

[JDHill]

This has been requested before, and I added it in a previous version. Testing with those characters, though, it looks like the sorting algorithm works differently on different operating systems -- I assume you are on OSX?

[gtalarico]

SU 7, Mxw 2.6, plugin 2.6 for SU 7
Win 7 x64

[JDHill]

Is the problem that the "_ StainlessSteel-polished" material is showing up at the top of the list? It looks to me like there is a space between the underscore and the first S.

[gtalarico]

I feel stupid....
You were absolutely right...

I guess I knew that in the past materials were not sorted, so I just assumed that was the issue.

Thanks for your patience.

[stefan_kaplan]

JD, I assume that you have all of my previous requests listed, but I can't help repeating a few here:

1. Simulate scene scale at export in order to exaggerate the effect of narrow depth of field (lowest possible fStop value is currently 1 which makes no real impact on depth of field in e.g. city models).
2. Make materials transparent (called 'opacity/mask' in the Material Editor). Here Half Life has made a workaround with a perforated black png-texture, but controlling the transparency directly in the plugin would be much more flexible - perfect for placing 2d-people, trees etc in quick arch-vis'es.
3. Adjusting attenuation distance for Glass and Liquids (I believe this would greatly help users understand the behavior of color in tinted glass/liquids).

/Stefan

[Richard]

JD just wondering if there could be an option for HDRI creation of the set physical sky from the plugin, or option to set "use current sky as IBL"?

[JDHill]

Yes, that is possible, I'll put it on my list.

[Richard]

That'll be a winner!! Cool mate!

[stefan_kaplan]

Today my students stumbled upon a couple of issues/requests:
1. Smooth geometry, eg. a cylinder, renders without smoothing if not in group/component. I remember this from when Fire was introduced in SketchUp, but never noticed it since.
2. In the Maxwell Scene Manager it would be great if, when choosing a custom made preset, the name of the preset would be written in the top line. Instead it keeps saying "custom presets".
3. They all had trouble with FIRE's automatic update of camera- and environment settings. When moving the camera around, they had to update Fire using the Re-Export button. I never experienced this on my machine. They were all on 2.6.10 Standalone, PCs and Macs.

/Stefan

[JDHill]

Thanks Stefan -- going one by one:

1. It is a SketchUp glitch. If you export an MXS from the File > Export menu, ungrouped geometry is smoothed, but not if you call the export from Ruby.
2. Don't be too in love with the presets for now -- they will most likely disappear in the UI rewrite and I cannot predict if/when they will return.
3. I have never observed this; theoretically, it could be caused by a conflict between this and another plugin, so I would ask them to check that.

[valerostudio]

1. Proxies that exist outside your SketchUp file for hi poly stuff
2. Imperial Units

[chedda]

How about an empty cache button, this could help & even automate the emptying of the temp folder. Also how about a benchmark value in fire just to give an indication before rendering ?

[gtalarico]

I would love the fire benchmarking feature too!
I often click render after adding new complex materials just to check if it is not affecting the benchmark # too much.
Fire would be perfect for that...