Material's links between sketchup & 3ds max

[maximilienbertrand]

Hi everybody,

I have a little problem. I work in the field of architecture, and in my work-flow, I use first Sketchup 8 for the volumes and textures, and 3ds max 2012/Vray for the complex objects, lighting and rendering.
My problem concerns materials link.
When I export my volumes in .3ds file, the link looks like "wood.jpg". It's juste a relative link. But in 3ds max 2012, materials are not recognized, and I have to create all the links manually. 3ds demands link like "c:\desktop\test\textures\wood.jpg".

I looked in sketchup options, but I didn't find anything about this subject and I really don't know how to do that. Changing manually all the links after the export is very long.

If you have a solution, it would be really great.
Thanks a lot.

Ps: I'm French, and my English is not very good. So excuse me for my faults.

[EarthMover]

You need to point Max to the folder where the bitmaps are. That's fundamental to importing anything into Max and I'm surprised you would spend that kind of money on software and not read the manual. (Anyway, it's Customize > Configure User Paths > External Files > Add > Pick folder > OK) Also you are better off importing the .skp file itself instead of exporting as .3ds. You can also check SciptSpot for a script called Relink Bitmaps. It's a great little tool. In Sketchup you need to be careful too about using unique names as Max works exclusives in Ex Refs for materials and will use the first in the list if there is a duplicate name.

[maximilienbertrand]

Thanks a lot for your answer EarthMover.
I didn't have to resolve this kind of problem befor because, with other soft like UVLayout or Zbrush, I use .obj, and there are automatics configurations for this in 3ds when we import. But with Sketchup, there si no objet export, and I didn't know we can import .skp files into 3ds so simply.

Thanks a lot again for your help, it work perfectly!

[mzoch]

Hi,
I feel confident about Sketchup but I'm already starting my story with 3ds max. I've opened my .skp file in 3ds max and I'm wondering where I can edit materials that are already imported from sketchup? (I watched couple of tutorials on materials, bought a book and even read a manual about materials in 3ds Max but I have enough of looking for it by myself). Please help me..