[fv]

I am trying to use SU6 and Maxwell but all I get are problems.
-no stabil mxm conversions, works and then suddenly no conversion
-crash when export, have to restart SU to export again at almost all renderjobs
-Studio unworkable with duplicated objects and textures

Would love to hear from SU6 users if things work out for them. I am on a intelmac macbookpro with 2Gb ram.

For now I have decided to go back to version 5. The plugin is not yet ready for SU6 or SU6 is not yet on proper order.

[fv]

Tried this evening again but now at this point SU6 just crashes at export and giving me folders with random jpg's. I have no idea why this happens. So tomorrow morning the first thing I do is update back to SU5.

One other good reason never to render straight out of SU is that exporting takes a long time. After ten or so crashes I give up. Working out of Studio is at least fast and quick.

Such a pity that SU6 is useless in combination with Maxwell. Will I ever be able to model as easy as SU and render as good as Maxwell does. I really don't want to be stuck in this mess for much longer. The Sketchup forum here at Maxwell seems very quiet as well, am I one of the few left trying to get something out of Maxwell. If so and Maxwell is no longer in focus for SU I might as well give up on the combination all together and move on with more speed to another set up for my architectural visualisations.

[messire]

well Fv,
I've had the same issues...now recreating all my materials in SU6 etc...so the auto mxm works... found there was a few face orient issues..

Found a small trick for the emitter / w issues btw:
I model one spot lets say 50w low tension halo times. I then apply a 5000 w emitter to it and duplicate it ten times. Make a box where i put all the ten components. I insert the box in the project hidden where its nowhere to be seen. Then i just grab 1 to 10 lamps into the project and i'm sure the power is 50w . This way i do not have to recreate loads of mxm's with diff powers..just use one 5000w emitter for those 10 halo lights, use 5 but still have the right power

We still have to trick around a lot to use SU>MR without the studio, but i'm still so much impressed by the results i get, that i'm ok with it...Hope they put more investment in it ( man power) so it works easier in the future...

Nils

[fv]

Hi Nils, good trick thanks.
Last night SU was just crashing and my model no longer results in a export to Studio or Maxwell. I've given up and are now back in SU5. SU6 has only few benefits and as you say the results by rendering in Maxwell are great.

I don't understand ho anybody would like to render out of SU. I am using Studio and I can do many more test renderings and finetuning in Studio in a fraction of the time I would need by using SU. Imagine a big model and for each rendering having to export. In Studio I just click render and within seconds I am rendering. I just add the edited models seperately and move around camera's in no time. Studio is perfect for asembling big models that in SU are a drag.

[fv]

I just wish someone from Next Limit would give a sign when to expect the problems with the plugin and SU6 are ging to be solved if they can be solved. Sometimes I feel I am on a Chinese trainstation waiting in long lines for all the other plugins and issues are solved. It makes me feel Maxwell is not a professional tool for the industry I am in.

[messire]

why i'm using solely SU to MR plug is that i want to have a model i can render over and over during the conception time without having to think of it as a 3D file....I'm setting everything ready in SU and render directly this way the model is always up to date when it comes to render. This is pretty usefull for competitions when the model always evolve ( did that for stockholm).
The export works flawlessly here... and is not that slow.

I'm not sure to understand what the process is in studio thu so might be the reason why i'm sticking to SU
I also wish Pavol or any developper from NL working on SU > MR relationship could explain us more often where they are, and what they are doing for us...

N

[fv]

My exports take a few minutes and are full with light sources. If I can't work with Studio I have to export the whole model from SU all the time. Really very bad practise. I just update parts of the model I keep working on in Sketchup and finetune the whole big model in Studio. With the new plugin and SU6 this is impossible. Just tried 1 cabinet as duplicated 8 times. HAd just a few pieces of stainless stail in the cabinet for hinches. Opened up the model in Studio and found over a 100 textures Stainless stail duplicated and numbered. Totally useless export. Not a word by next limit so far on this forum if this is just me or a common problem with the plugin. This is no fun..

[Sheik]

I don’t know what is going on with the duplicated material, but I’m trying to find out.
I have had some duplicated materials, but no duplicated textures (ie only one copy of a texture exported), but just a few extra objects occasionally.
I usually don’t use groping on over one level, so I don’t have groups inside groups.
I now tried one test where I made several levels of groups of one material. I made a box with one material; I then made several copies of it. Then grouped one box to the next, the next box I groped to the previous group etc.
The groups formed separate objects in the mxs, but not exactly as I had them in SU (probably not enough levels are exported), and every object has its own material. But again only one texture exported.
So take a model you are having trouble with and explode all groups before exporting. Does it export differently after that?
Are the extracted textures also duplicated, or just the materials?
Are you on PC, Mac or IntellMac?

I get an occasional crash on export, maybe every 1/40. Usually export stops at [img]Exporting%20Sky[/img]for some time, and then it crashes. The situation was the same with SU5. Opening the file and re-exporting works fine.

My AutoMxm works fine, never fails. Maybe this could again be nested groups related? You did use the mxm filename, not the material name?
I have a problem naming SU materials when creating them in SU6. I first have to create, and then rename them, as the name entered on creation is ignored.

Sheik

[messire]

when i create a new SU6 material here is the steps i make
( first i make sure the images are reduced down to max of 250 kb to make library faster to load and refresh)

- create new material
- name it the way i want ( eg: wood 03 )
- get jpg texture
- add ( this adds it to the in model folder)
- rewrite the name on top of window ( wood 03)
- apply it to any face in SU
- right click save as ( gives it wood 03 name only IF you apply the texture first to any face in the drawing)
etc

N.

[fv]

I haven't tested so much yet since I am in the middle of project trying to struggle myself in a postition to get something worthwhile billing ...lol.

example.
I had a cabinet with stainless steel hinches (components), very simple, just 6 side cubes. All the hinches came in Studio seperatly and for each hinch two objects and two textures all together 8x2 =16 textures and objects. And then my whole project fell apart like that.

Creat one cube in SU. Assign a texture, a new one not the default one. Then on import in Studio you will see 3 textures, the defualt one, the one created in SU and one extra created on export and numbered. Its just a duplicate. This means my models are very hard to manage in Studio. I am not sure if only mirrored components get further duplicated in Studio or that all components are. Just regular SU objects are just devided into two. Usually the first pane you draw is one and then the other 5 are grouped as the duplicated object with a new duplicated texture.

When I assign a mxm material by the plugin and not through the conversion this duplicating of textures does not happen. I have changed my workflow now assigning all my textures using the plugin. Lots of work of course but at least I will get something done.

Components that are mirrored (scale -1 in SU) are also duplicated with seperate textures in Studio. There is absolutely something seriously wrong with either SU or the plugin and the way it translates geometry.

I aslo have good working models straight out of SU but many don't render or crash, especially with components and nested objects.

I can not really work straight out of SU, my models are too big although in SU very small. Out of Studio I can just click and render all the time testing and finetuning, all very fast. In SU my models stay small and I can just make amazing things like that. Its frustrating my work is for a client that would fire me instantly if I publish anything on the web (actually I would get arrested...seriously..).
I get paid well but these past weeks I have lost my profit messing with the bugs for 80% of my time. The problem is I can not go back to SU5 either since export out of 5 works fine but there is no mxs file to render.

[fv]

-So take a model you are having trouble with and explode all groups before exporting. Does it export differently after that? -

exploding works but exploding takes for ever. I woudl need a seperate computer to explode my models. Often even my system goes to sleep without any explosion ...lol..seriously even 50 or so components takes a long time to explode


Are the extracted textures also duplicated, or just the materials?
The converted mxm materials are duplicated as well. Only assigned by the plugin remain solo.

-Are you on PC, Mac or IntellMac? -
Intel Mac

[Sheik]

Exploding really is unbelievably slow in SketchUp. There are some scripts that will help in the process, so you don’t need to explode every component separately.
http://www.smustard.com/script/Bomb
It is useful to be able to be able to export some groups/components as separate objects, so emitters can be assigned power by separate fixture, but we need more control over the grouping. Hopefully it will work better soon.
Until then, all I can suggest is Bombing the SU model before export, or assign mxm to geometry. ...if going directly from SU using Automxm is out of the question.
Or if you still have an older version of the plugin you can re-install it in SU5, and manually also in SU6.
Sheik

[fv]

Thanks Sheik for your advise and link. Very appreciated.

Well, instead of exploding the best is delete all textures. But in SU that means one by one. The defaults texture is not duplicated thats why I thought applying mxm materials by the plugin was a workaround. Its not since all materials are duplicated other than the default. I can finish my project but it looks sad compared to the work I did before. Its now 90% battling the geometry in Studio and 10% artistic work. The final model keeps crashing out of SU6 without any mxs file produced. The model I have in Studio is a total mess of hundreds of textures and objects totally uncontroble for any adjustments. Its also very frustrating Next Limit is not around to at least give some idea that the problem is identified and worked on.

Personally I am no longer all that interested anymore in Maxwell. The few people at Next Limit simply don't have the power to provide for backup I need to commit myself to projects. I no longer believe in modeling packages without integrated render power. This is madness really, I charge my clients not even half of what I need to get the job done.

Btw I used that bomb script once, it took a few hours to explode my model. Then had to do it again for some minor update of the model. Its not worth it.

Tried to reinstall the plugins for SU5 but now SU5 does all the typical export things but at the end there is no mxs file generated. Its could take an hour to find the cause it could also take a week. Can't talk to my clients like that tomorrow.

Our books fom Amazon on Modo have just arrived. Modo is not very fast either and the modeler is not really for architecture. But I have a feeling my future lies there looking at the galleries and models made by relative unexperienced users. I also do not feel good about SU6, it seems not to take off as a professional tool. Of course my utter frustration with the unfinished job shows up here as well. A month ago I was very happy with Maxwell. Thanks to some helpful users we are still on board, not for the service Next Limit provides.

[Sheik]

Btw I used that bomb script once, it took a few hours to explode my model. Then had to do it again for some minor update of the model. Its not worth it.

That sounds like some monster model you have created there fv. One hour for bombing is a looong time . What are the statistics on the SU model? File size, faces, components etc? Did try using the Purge Unused and Fix Problems buttons before saving?
SketchUp is not the ideal program if you have a really huge model, but I have been able to export large models without crashes. It sounds as if the PC version of the plugin still works better.

I also have Modo here, but I really haven’t gotten into it, imo SketchUp is better at ArchViz modelling. Then if you really do detailed stuff and construction drawings you are probably better of with something like ArchiCad… but there is no ideal solution.
SketchUp would have the potential for so much more, but I am afraid Google doesn’t have the will to take it to the next level. Still I am sticking to SketchUp and Maxwell.
I hope your clients still like the job you did, despite of the troubles you had.
Sheik

[fv]

its not really a monser model, it was for the asplund competition. I don't have the model around here to check but its was mostly made up with components. Maybe the trees messed up the explosion. Still exploding models all the time is not the way to go.

Last night I have foudn a workable way to deal with the bugs for a while at least. I draw all in SU default material and assign only by the plugin. I now get clean and good models in Studio. So I am ok now and it saves me the hassle of using the materials in SU. Also I can clearly see the front and back faces. My models are well organised or portioned exported to Studio so I don't need a visual check in SU. I never have complete model in SU anyhow. Actually I work faster than I did before. Disadvantage is that I no longer can quickly make some sketchy output in color.

There is no ideal app in regard to rendering and modeling. If there was I would go for it. Modo is very good though, just made a macrodo draw windows. Very simple, I just select a bunch of faces and with one click they are all converted into windowframes and assigned textures in all different sizes. Modo is not good though for walls and typical architecture since it lacks snapping and proper dimensioning tools and a typical architects workflow tutorial...or I haven't found that yet..