[Half Life]

I've got 3 of the planned 6 video series done and they are up here:

http://think.maxwellrender.com/tutorial ... ategory=28

These were really quick because the release of Sketchup 8 threw off my entire schedule that I had planned and I didn't want to keep new users waiting for at least something to get them started.

After watching the final I can appreciate the "spastic" mouse movements need to be cut down and I'm going to reduce the size of the cursor highlight to something less obtrusive... any critiques and comment are welcome and I will keep them all in mind when I produce the full length Sketchup plugin video tutorial series.

Best,
Jason.

[JDHill]

Sticky!!!

[doowym]

Thanks Jason! Great style and clarity.
You refered near the end of the second video to your Maxwell Studio tutorials.
Where would I find these tutorials? I would like to use Studio more and I think your teaching style and knowledge would help out greatly.
The only comment I would make about these tutorials is to " keep them coming" and perhaps some more advanced user tutorials.
These tutorials compliment JD's plug-in quite nicely. Keep up the great work.

Cheers,
arne

[Half Life]

Hi Arne,

Thank-you.

The video series I referenced has been recorded and is in the editing phase and should be released any day -- It features about 10 hours of instruction on MXED, Studio, and the Core Render App. The first several chapters of which will be on the THINK site for free... the rest will be available through the publisher I work for (VTC) as either online videos or physical CD's.

I have all 6 videos for this current series recorded and the 4th should be up Monday and the other 2 early next week.

I am really looking forward to being able to take my time and really dig into all the features of the Sketchup-to-Maxwell workflow in a full-length series... but for right now I am working on a Sketchup 8 Pro series that will explain authoring dynamic components thoroughly as well as get into some in-depth understanding of Layout as well as dealing with all the other assorted Sketchup Pro features... So that will take me till mid November.

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Looks like the rest are up now... feedback encouraged.

Best,
Jason.

[stefan_kaplan]

Great videos, Jason!

Calm and clear explainations.
I never used IES through SketchUp because I didn't know how to... But I do now

I love your point with the WYSIWYG-intentions, which is why I try to convince JD to automatically translate colored transparent materials from SketchUp into AGS with same color in the 0 and 90 degree slots - just like the AGS Wizard in Maxwell Material Editor. You can always choose AGS in the Materials-tab if you want more realistic / less WYSIWYG'ish results...

To select materials in the scene, I often use the eye-dropper tool (either the Alt+Paint Bucket or the Maxwell Select Tool) instead of the list in the Materials-tab - it tends to get quite long. Maybe this feature could be implemented in the videos?

The 6th video doesn't seem to run...


/Stefan

[Half Life]

They are all up now -- sorry I guess I jumped the gun a bit on announcing they were up

There are really quite a few features I glossed over in the course of the videos because my goal was to get through the whole process as quickly as possible... I'll definitely deal with all those issues in the full length series. Right now I'm thinking that it will likely be an 8 hour course digging into several different workflows and solutions to Sketchup-to-Maxwell specific issues.

My goal is to make sure Sketchup users will know how to get the very best out of Maxwell.

Best,
Jason.

[Richard]

Jason

Mate after reading Stefan's comment about IES emitters I checked out the emitters video considering this might be an option to get around the nightmare I'm having with the bug where emitters light from the reverse normals.

Exploding whole rooms to fix the mirrored emitter issue, ain't gonna work this end!

I must say I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more a real life example of how to utilise IES as it's fairly glanced over and dealing more with general materials. I'd love to have seen how to apply these in a fitting, how big does that sphere need to be, does it matter, how can one get it to actually illuminate it's self so that additional emitter planes aren't necessary (see above issue), and I guess are IES emitter subject to the same flipping issue? Just finding that video a bit lossy on detail.

Cheers mate, any help would be appreciated.

[Half Life]

Unfortunately IES is limited to exactly what you see -- it works great if it is what you need... especially if you are using it as an off-camera light source. But it really is just about un-tweakable.

The point of IES is to avoid having to model the fixture -- IES isn't really a emitter material at all its a "virtual light fixture" material if that makes sense.

The nice thing is you can get IES files from just about any major lighting manufacturer in the world and they are highly accurate... however multi-light will not work with IES so your workflow will most likely not be suitable for IES inclusion.

Best,
Jason.

[Richard]

Champion!

Sorry mate, in that case how would one use it in a ceiling for example? Half bury the sphere in the ceiling and hide from camera? Or stick it up inside the fitting? Sorry dude, bit lost!

[Half Life]

Yes, you can simply move the sphere partially (about halfway or so) into the recess you want it to emit from... to hide the "black material" of the sphere just set it up like the hidden emitter material from the video tutorial link Maggie just posted in announcements.

The size of the sphere isn't all that important but it should be somewhat small -- definitely small enough to comfortably fit within the ceiling recesses for sure...

Best,
Jason.

[Richard]

Thanks so much mate!

[Half Life]

Hey Arne,

the Maxwell Tutorials I was talking about are out now, the first 3 chapters are up on the THINK! site here:
http://think.maxwellrender.com/first10s ... egoryFS=21

If you want to purchase the rest of the series you can follow the link in my sig. Something important to note is because of the very large file size of the workfiles for this series you have to request the files by sending an email here:

onlineuni@vtc.com

They will validate that you are a VTC subscriber and either mail you a DVD if you are based in the US or email you a link to download the files if you are based outside of the US.

Obviously if you purchase the physical disk set the workfiles will come with it.

Best,
Jason.