FryRender (New Kid on the Block!)

[Stinkie]

Too bad, really, that neither Fry of Maxwell has SkIndigo's intuitive approach to material editing. That's where both apps, imho, really fall short in accomodating SU users. Anyone here care about physically correct floor boards?

I'm not too hot on Feversoft's "access policy": it seems that, as a non-customer, I cannot read the SU-related sub-forums on the Fry forum. Somehow, From a potential customer's point of view that's not very appealling.

[remus]

Just a bit of a sidenote, but is fry an off shoot of maxwell?

someone on another forum pointed out the similarities to me, but to sum it up, theyre both based in spain (edit: theyre actually both based in madrid, so same city.) and theyre pretty much the same piece of software (in quite a broad way.)

It sounds a lot less convincing when i write it down

[plot-paris]

670

[juju]

677. I hope they get the SU exporter done in record time.

[kwistenbiebel]

@unknownuser said:

I'm not too hot on Feversoft's "access policy": it seems that, as a non-customer, I cannot read the SU-related sub-forums on the Fry forum. Somehow, From a potential customer's point of view that's not very appealling.

I repeateldy asked for a seperate section for demo users on the forum, but got a Nay as an answer. (actually they didn't respond which to me is the same).
I have a registered copy, but indeed for possible customers, forum access would be a plus.

[ilay7k]

Chris i understand, and you have NDA too!

Funny thing from "demo" user - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=176&t=648318

[Richard]

@unknownuser said:

Too bad, really, that neither Fry of Maxwell has SkIndigo's intuitive approach to material editing. That's where both apps, imho, really fall short in accomodating SU users.

Hmmmm? I would strongly suggest the opposite - the blended material setup with Indigo for me follows nothing toward a intuitive approach. When Maxwell was in beta it relied upon all material setup being done directly in SU and the best decision they made IMHO was to introduce a standalone material editor!

[plot-paris]

what I didn't like about maxwell (don't know if it changed by now) is that you do not have a representation of an imported maxwell material in SketchUp; meaning that if you apply a material to a model, then link a maxwell material to it, you do not see this linked texture on the SketchUp model. in order to get the UVs right, you have to import the diffuse map to the material manually.
if I import an indigo material however, the dif map is applied to the model automatically.

[Richard]

@plot-paris said:

what I didn't like about maxwell (don't know if it changed by now) is that you do not have a representation of an imported maxwell material in SketchUp; meaning that if you apply a material to a model, then link a maxwell material to it, you do not see this linked texture on the SketchUp model. in order to get the UVs right, you have to import the diffuse map to the material manually.
if I import an indigo material however, the dif map is applied to the model automatically.

hmmm? not quite sure I understand that exactly! I know from my experiences with Indigo they seem to work very much the same excepting that I must have all materials used in the indigo material in the SU browser! As opposed to the Maxwell method of only one map needing to be imported. This can weight models fairly heavily.

I'm not sure at all how you are getting a material to apply to your model without painting it on to the required surfaces and then setting the UV's manually?

[plot-paris]

I am afraid, I didn't explain it well enough.

what I meant is, if you paint a cube with a red colour for example. now you assign a material to this colour, lets say a brick texture.

if I load a material in indigo, the coloured faces will automatically change from mere red to the brick texture of the assigned material.

however, if I link a material with maxwell, the painted faces keep the simple red colour. in order to manipulate the uv-set, I manually have to import the diffuse map into SketchUp.
I would like to see maxwell overwrite the original material (red colour) with the assigned one (brick material).

but I perfectly understand what you mean with

@richard said:

I must have all materials used in the indigo material in the SU browser!

the necessity of having every bump- and clip-map in the material browser, can be really annoying, especially when you absentmindedly purge unused materials (which deletes them, because they are not actually assigned to any material).

[lewiswadsworth]

692. Linux!

[Richard]

@plot-paris said:

especially when you absentmindedly purge unused materials (which deletes them, because they are not actually assigned to any material)

I bet you only did that once!!!!!

Ok I understand what you mean there!!! I must say I'm personally glad of the current workflow of the material not being replaced as I rarely use the diffuse map from the maxwell material. I have a low res image of most maxwell materials that I place in SU to ensure better performance and stop SU bogging with heavy textures!

I must say the all maps in scene issue of indigo was what I've found to be my biggest bug bear with it. For most brickworks for example I use 3 diffuse maps and one bump map and for many other materials I use more than one diffuse so my material browser in SU goes WOE!!!!

BTW Luxrender lux good!!!!

693!!!!

[kwistenbiebel]

Oh yeah....The 'purge unused' function is off limit when using Indigo

[plot-paris]

@richard said:

I have a low res image of most maxwell materials that I place in SU to ensure better performance and stop SU bogging with heavy textures!

oh, I thought SketchUp reduces the image automatically to 1024 px. does it in fact keep the whole texture and only displays it with 1024? that is truely nasty!

the great thing about Indigo is "Whaat" - I mean, he is an active member of this forum and so all our wishes and ideas definitely find their way to the right person.

[jenujacob]

@kwistenbiebel said:

Oh yeah....The 'purge unused' function is off limit when using Indigo

i usually paint the bump/clip map etc on to the reverse side of the face.. thereby i can easily purge unused items off my model!

[Richard]

@jenujacob said:

@kwistenbiebel said:

Oh yeah....The 'purge unused' function is off limit when using Indigo

i usually paint the bump/clip map etc on to the reverse side of the face.. thereby i can easily purge unused items off my model!

Now that is clever!!!!!!

It could actually be an idea for Indigo users to set up a grid tiled plane using the sandbox from grid option, then all used materials could be painted to it and then placed on a hidden layer for export.

I know when I first started using Maxwell in the beta days materials needed to be created internal to SU then I used a similar method to what I'm suggesting to make a tile of material an saved it as a component or group. I could then drag this into scene and model up off it to maintain the material properties to all new geometry. It worked well.

Plot:

Mate I'm not quite sure about how SU reduces materials though I know if I bring in a 2Mb texture the SU file seems to grow about the same size! I actually push the low res images used for painting in my model way way down in size and it really helps to reduce the hang caused by the material browser when painting.

BTW I totally agree with you in regards to Whaat's development of the Indigo plugin! At the same I have much similar admiration for Pavol's development of the Maxwell plugin. Both have achieved amazing work, although Pavol isn't around these forums he is ever present on the Maxwell>SU forum and listens well to user feedback. That said and in great respect of Whaat - he manages to generally answer users needs well before users can even think of them!!!

[boofredlay]

697

[plot-paris]

so the perfect solution for a SU plugin of a render engine (no matter which) would be to:

• store the material information externally
• automatically import a lo-res image (perhaps even baked) of the material to SketchUp, when loaded
• direct control of material attributes within SketchUp - changes affect the externally saved material-file.
  [Edit]or information of changes are saved in the SU file (attatched to the SU-material, but can be applied to the external material-file, if needed. thus you can have a library of mats that will never be changed, but you can still do indivitual changes within every model...

I think that is pretty much the positive aspects of the different approaches combined. and it would mean the easiest workflow ever for rendering!

[Stinkie]

@richard said:

@unknownuser said:

Too bad, really, that neither Fry of Maxwell has SkIndigo's intuitive approach to material editing. That's where both apps, imho, really fall short in accomodating SU users.

Hmmmm? I would strongly suggest the opposite - the blended material setup with Indigo for me follows nothing toward a intuitive approach. When Maxwell was in beta it relied upon all material setup being done directly in SU and the best decision they made IMHO was to introduce a standalone material editor!

I've never used a blended mat. I was referring to -technical term!- "normal mats". Don't get me wrong here, I like Maxwell, but really, when it comes to setting up, say, a nice parquet mat, (Sk)Indigo wins hands down with regards to speed and user-friendliness.

I say all of them software boys start working together.

[Whaat]

@richard said:

I must say the all maps in scene issue of indigo was what I've found to be my biggest bug bear with it. For most brickworks for example I use 3 diffuse maps and one bump map and for many other materials I use more than one diffuse so my material browser in SU goes WOE!!!!

So...if I were to 'fix' this than I could convert you to Indigo once and for all???

If I understand you correctly, you have to manually create a low-rez version of your texture in order to do the UV mapping in SketchUp. Then, you just 'link' to the MXM material using the plugin, right? Or is there another step?