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Does anyone know how to assign an emitter material in Sketchup? I created a material named 'emitter' but nothing happens. Is there a setting in the 3ds2max ini file that needs to be adjusted?

Thanks.

How do you assign other materials to objects in sketchup ? It'll be the smae process, the emitter shader/material needs to be assigned to an object that'll emit light in your scene.

Thanks, Phil.

Yes, I assigned the material to an object. I also ungrouped the parts of the object that have the emitter material from those that don't.

Any other suggestions?

are you saying that you are not getting the desired results from your render then ? the emitter isn't showing ? can u post a screen shot please

Can't really give u an answer as there could be multiple reasons for an emitter object not working as you expect it to.

Attached is a screen shot. The pendant lights have been assigned an 'emitter' material, but it doesn't show.

The emitter material is assign to a "whole" object and not sub sections of an object ?
What is the Wattage of the emitter ?

No. Currently in the utility that converts sketchup to mxi, you have to explode the group, otherwise, the whole group/block/instance is treated as an emitter.

the wattage is specified in the 3ds2max.ini file as:

[BigLightBulb]
BASIC_TYPE=EMITTER
INTENSITY=24000.0
UNITS=POWER
TYPE=D65

I exagerrated the wattage to make sure it was bright enough.

i would ungroup them before converting them if that is possible.

Yes. You have to ungroup them each time.

Ok i'm thoroughly lost, why is everything grouped in the first place?
Just model something, apply a material and then process your scene from there. The sketchup process sounds really screwy to me

Sketchup, like most other modeling programs works with instances. Some programs call them blocks, some components, some groups. Whatever they are, in order to render a light, you have to explode the block/group/component/instance so that the "emitting" material is an object on its own. If you applied the emitting material to a block/group/component/instance, then everything in the light assembly would light up, not just the lamp part itself.

None of this is the issue. The problem I'm having is getting Maxwell to see the "emitting" material so that it casts a light. I was hoping someone with experience with the Sketchup plugin (yes the unauthorized one not made by Next Limit) might know.

Thanks.

If the material in Sketchup is called 'emitter' then that's the name that should be in the brackets in your .ini file, isn't it. So your example should be:

[emitter]
BASIC_TYPE=EMITTER
INTENSITY=24000.0
UNITS=POWER
TYPE=D65

I'm not sure where 'BigLightBulb' came from. If I'm not misinterpreting something you've said, then try this.

One other thing, do you use the 'Group by textures' Ruby after exploding all components and groups and before exporting using 3ds2mxs ??

Yes, you're right. The material name is the same as the setting in the 3ds2mxi.ini file. The reason mine isn't named 'emitter' is that I have several different lights at different wattages.

I haven't used the 'group by texture' ruby script. I will try it. How will that help?

I've discovered that if I don't run the 'group by texture' ruby before running 3ds2mxs, then my textures get all jumbled, i get glass randomly assigned to surfaces where it doesn't belong. But it doesn't look like you have any trouble with that, all your textures look like they are assigned correctly.

I also noticed you have the intensity set much differently than the default intensity in the default 3ds2mxs.ini file. Have you tried testing different settings for the intensity??

Other than this, I can't really tell why they're not working.