All posts related to V2
User avatar
By Richard
#329471
Prior to V2 lights could be grouped and ML would assume a slider for this group, now with V2 I understand that ML sliders are by material which is a real loss IMAHO! :roll: As in most cases I dont need intensity + colour! I'd love to see this as a selectable option (and god I hope soon) as just starting with V2 I've now realised it's upset a really simple workflow!

Will the use of IES lights grouped over come this issue?
User avatar
By Richard
#329477
Mate there will likely be differing views. I found it really easy through Sketchup to just group the desired light fittings. and only use one, two or 3 at the most emitter materials.

Now I have so much work it is possibly worth rolling back to V1.7 seriously. I will now have more emitter materials than all other materials in anyone single scene combined and will have to continously repaint all emitters and loose with that any option for using components as a source for lights and there also global geometry editability of those fittings.

Anything gained from V2 has been lost due to the adding of so so much work now with this one oversight it's almost ludicrous! Serious I kid you not the workflow will now be bum fight! So darn disappointed as I've been hanging for the plugin release so I could start with V2 and now likely forced back for a still longer wait!
User avatar
By Mihai
#329491
How many different types of lights do you usually have in a scene? If you can describe your workflow in more details maybe something can be adjusted in Maxwell. In 1.7 if you at any time decided to remove or add any emitter geometry, you would have to first merge that geometry again, reassign the emitter material and adjust it depending on how many emitters you removed/added. What do you mean by repainting all emitters?
User avatar
By Richard
#329502
Thanks Mihai for tuning in!

Mate I use a lot of internal and external emitters for exterior renders!

Remember this is SketchUp! To my exterior scene I drag internal furnished / fitted standard internal rooms with lights and push to shape! The grouped light fittings for the ceiling and lamps act as ML channels for each room I normally then get away with only two materials for the whole interior! I'll add a few lights here and there internal or external again using the same emitter material and a few others in a warmer tone and done. Channels are created by simply grouping geometries of the light fittings just the same as the place is hard wired! Exterior flood panels again same materials just kept as one off channels.

It's a really darn easy workflow! I dont care about the light power and any math I just crank up the ML channel! And now with the PS plug can further adjust the colour post!

I can then get away with the absolute lowest material count and almost non existant steps to get what you want! You can see why now if I want 13 channels I have to incorporate all these materials all the effort to create a map that can do most interior schemes seems gone to waste!

You can see why editing down to lowest geometry to paint the emitter to it's group is an anticipated hassle!
User avatar
By Richard
#329504
I'll have to check if the new plugin can handle materials painted to a default material nestled in a group as then I could do a bit of workaround by painting the group with an emitter to replace the material set as the default in the imported geometry. Though still the materials!
User avatar
By Half Life
#329505
Hey Richard,

If you are using components you can simply paint the components with the materials you want and save them back out -- anytime they come back into a scene they will have all the Maxwell materials already in place (including emitters). Should be really fast that way...

Edit: to clarify I mean simply make a couple of versions that cover the main lighting schemes for each component... with your experience you should have a really good idea of what you need and it should require next to no editing afterwards to get what you want in the same way as the old workflow.

I mean it's essentially the same thing except now single emitter material works the same as grouped geometry has in the past -- either way you would have to select the geometry and assign it to something... material or group is =, no?

Best,
Jason.
User avatar
By Richard
#329507
Half Life wrote:Hey Richard,

If you are using components you can simply paint the components with the materials you want and save them back out -- anytime they come back into a scene they will have all the Maxwell materials already in place (including emitters). Should be really fast that way...

Best,
Jason.
Yeah that's how I work now mate - all components though it is still the issue of grouping and editing emitter groups and of course so darn many materials!
By JDHill
#329512
As I have suggested before, this issue could be completely solved by the addition of a single emitter option, 'Group assigned objects in Multilight', could it not? So, with it disabled, you would obtain 1.x-style behavior, while with it enabled, 2.x-style, on a per-material basis. Since a material can have multiple emitters, the option might most sensibly appear at the material-level.
User avatar
By Richard
#329531
Exactly JD! An option as I said in first post. For me that is what I think is needed in the main engine the ability for options to be more customised by the plugin!

As each app will either force or lead to workflow preference and these may vary, I think it is important more so when making a global change that may effect one of these workflows the option to elect the new or existing functionality makes sense!

I think it is a bummer that some can have a major impact! I will say though that I applaud the approach to ensuring change happens to improve overall workflow and add feature and particularly when they come from the blue like the PS plugin and much of the wow functionality of the new SU plugin - still smiling lots there JD!

I think I've worked around this somewhat but the mats are a bugger for me only because I'm ANAL on keeping shit simple and as most testing of mats are done with the client and hence why I use one material for all interiors and one for most exterior elements, this keeps my material list down to generally between 12-20 for a whole scene!
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