I know KT is good and most of all its free, but this one is fun.. I just never got any easier render software than this one, Before i was know z-path render which is kind of the same behavior like renderin.. but have no further news from the developer. And after all the rendering process need to take to post production work, to make it look better... so for me this software is fun My test render: [image: nelsonvillajimbaranforr.jpg] Explore a bit more and you will fall in love with this software.. regards, vd

Do you have anything 'wwx' auto-loaded from the Plugins folder ?

Thank you for the feedback Jason, I'll experiment with the psd method, I didn't think about saving it as .hdr - it will be interesting to see how it appears inside maxwell

For future reference on the Twilight Render website there is a "Tutorials" link. There you will find the video tutorials for Twilight Render SketchUp plugin. They are made in such a way that people that do not understand spoken English so well can still learn how to use the plugin. (Videos are also available in Spanish and Japanese) The next place to go for beginners would naturally be the FAQ section of the user forum. In this case, it is not a list of some odd made-up words that no one actually ever asks about. No, it's actually a list of the most frequently asked 'beginner' questions. Warming up the sky: There are many controls for physical sky, and color of sun, sun radius (how soft the sun shadows are) in the Light Editor dialog for Twilight. Check these tips for beginners wanting to warm up the sun and sky, and speed up renderings and general working in SketchUp: Default Sky Setting for Twilight... and speed up SU (includes an excellent default sun and sky .skp template file) First thing to do to warm up the Sun and Sky In addition of course you can use any spherical sky image in .hdr or .jpg format. If somehow the User Manual (comprehensive, fully hyper-linked, well organized, and searchable) does not have an answer to your question, you can check out the Best Of Tips and Tricks - The Master List Lastly the Twilight Render community forum is very friendly, helpful, and welcoming to all. It is very similar to the lovely folks here at the SketchUcation forum. Finally, users of the free trial still get free support from our user forum. People who purchase a Twilight Render license get access to the Red Carpet Section of the user forum, a lot of free advanced video tutorials, user content, scenes, etc.

@kingsi said: Hi Adam. Was going to ask these questions via pm but figured they might be of interest to others. Sliders were not on the link so could not change time of day Had some problems with element z-ordering in some browsers. Should now be fixed. Try again. @kingsi said: Does your lightup logo always have to be on the player. For example if I were to use it and have it on my site or offer to embed on clients site would want my logo or theirs (sorry my bad) When you export, you can set any watermark image you like AND set a website to go to when the user clicks on the watermark. The default is the LightUp logo and a website of http://light-up.co.uk, but you can set both to anything you like when exporting. @kingsi said: Apart from that I am loving a. the help you have shown and just as importantly b. the quality of the plugin Many thanks Simon Glad to hear. Adam

Thanks Charly Had a look at the website and am slightly confused by what this software actually does. I shall try the trial and see what happens.

Really nice !!!!

@jd hill said: So in light of that, I made two major changes in the first update after the introduction of the standalone. First, I added an option, enabled by default, for directing the window to auto-start the export/render upon opening the window. Second, seeing that the majority of users would now likely have no idea what goes on in Maxwell Studio, I redesigned the entire window: [image: su-fire-window-empty.jpg] That's what it now looks like when first opened; if you have not disabled the auto-start option, then once the model has been exported, those graphics & links in the main area slide away. I hope you think this is an improvement. JD - Happy Friday! Finally had a chance to install the current maxwell render plugin - Awesome job!!! I like the UI improvements, but the render improvements are huge!

Ok there is actually a work-around to do this, but I never try it. http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?59457-Matte-Shadow-Fake-Shadow-on-HDRI-Background-Tutorial

Same thing is happening to me. I installed Podium to try it - and after install, I don't see any toolbars. The folders are in the plugins directory and everything else seems to work, but no Podium.

@ecuadorian said: But Chris, if the model is already done in Revit, what would be the purpose of exporting it to SketchUp? Just to add entourage and render? If you want movies, there's a direct path from Revit to Lumion. If you want stills, you can export to AutoCAD and... well, wait until they release the Thea plugin for AutoCAD. It is for rendering still images (Indigo, Vray ..). Getting a revit file into Sketchup is just a pain. The exported DWG files are so heavy and no materials make it hard. I do use Al Hart's 'Convert Layer Names to Materials' but the whole procedure of it all is tedious and the SU file I end up with is nearly unusable.

@unknownuser said: How can I make a Windows app look like a nice Mac app?" you should be thinking "How can I make a Windows app look nice, like a Mac app?" so true

Hi everyone, Just to let you know that a new more stable version of REALIS3D is available at http://www.realis3d.com Look forward to hearing your feedback... RV Team

Hello Jason! Thank you very much for the detailed information I'll try to follow the guidelines and try out your RAL version - looks very promising!

Very promising. It was long ago that last tried it, but since they now have a SketchUp plugin, I think I'll install it again! Apart from our good commercial renderers (Thea, Vue, etc.), it is an inestimable value to see another renderer accompanying Yafaray and PovRay that is Open Source.

What render settings are you using?

you're right, it's not going to be easy...in Kerky I'd say the translucent component corresponds to the transmitted with zero shininess, it's a sort of fake SSS since the final aspect is not related to the thickness. Nevertheless the correct parameters for SSS (the panel "fog") are a bit difficult to be managed, and very time consuming

I have the same problem. I've checked there are no hidden objects. I've also exploded all the components so there are no component origins in random places to confuse things. I've also purged all unused geometry, components and layers. Still no joy. Any ideas?

Looks like some sort of bug. Managed to recreate it too. If you load a bitmap as a spherical sky, everything is correct. [image: dpJ8_AlmostBlack.png]

Might be worthwhile to look through Brodie's posts. I seem to recall he was explaining some of his workflow for the maxwell competition a little while back.