Grass!
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Jason, quick question my grass is always very dark, where in the sketch up plugin do i apply the mxm material ? Is it applied to the object you are generating grass on ?
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You apply the grass in the modifier menu under Primitive>Material (see image for example).
Best,
Jason. -
Thanks for the answer Jason how do i get it into the material window ?
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Once you select a group to assign the grass modifier to you should be able to select it from a dropdown list -- click where it says "none" and a dropdown list should appear of all the materials you have already loaded into the scene.
Best,
Jason. -
Okay Jason i have it now, without the yellow folder dialog it threw me for a minute. I have to say i am very impressed, this type of power inside sketch up is a show stopper. I am doing a stress test on a 50x50m square, Maxwell is eating 3GB of ram, although the benchmark is crushingly low. For Archviz believable grass has been a hurdle with many workarounds. I have to say this beats, displacement,billboards, post-production and the fur plugin for sketch up for realism. With the right texture i think i will try a frosty winter scene at some point.
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Yes, I agree -- I've been hopeful for tools like these ever since Maxwell started supporting hair/fur.
Make sure to read the docs here: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Grass#
Particularly the "Level of Detail" parameters -- they can really help with keeping resource usage manageable when working inside SketchUp (although my preference is to work with Grass inside Maxwell Studio, so I can use all of my RAM).
Best,
Jason. -
I have a question,
I have Maxwell Render 2.6, fully licensed, but is it possible to upgrade/update to 2.7 without buying
and still licensed?
Btw, I have also download a 2.7 patch, but it tells that "Maxwell 2.0 could not be found in your system, The patch cannot be installed. Please reinstall Maxwell Render 2.0 to solve this problem."Thanks,
NP -
When you say you have Maxwell 2.6 are you talking about the full "Maxwell Render Suite" or the "Stand Alone Plugin"?
Both can be updated to 2.7 for free (assuming you have the previous version) but each has different installers and you would need to download the proper installer to successfully update.
If you want to, you can just download the full 2.7 installer (as opposed to the update installer) to have a clean install -- your license will work since it is valid for all 2.x releases of whichever type of Maxwell you purchased ("Stand Alone Plugin" or full "Render Suite").
If you persists in having issues it is best to ask the devs directly on the Maxwell forum.
Best,
Jason. -
Here is my test, i'm quite pleased with the outcome.
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That looks really nice!
I've done some tests that I've been pleased with as well. Here's one that incorporates a leaf litter MXM for the ground (textures originally free from http://www.photosculpt.net/) -- in this case I used 2 grass modifiers stacked(with different seed values), one for green grass and one for "dried" yellow grass, using a density map for both:
The yellow grass is down low to the ground, with altered geometry settings to help integrate the grass better into the "leaf litter" base. The green grass is just the MXM I linked in the first post.Best,
Jason. -
Okay Jason that's super bad (meaning good) i'm kinda gobsmacked.
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Do I need Maxwell to run this if not how do I install and use it?
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Yes, it is part of the Maxwell plugin, the grass is generated inside Maxwell at render-time based on the parameters you specify.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
Yes, it is part of the Maxwell plugin, the grass is generated inside Maxwell at render-time based on the parameters you specify.
Best,
Jason.So Maxwell is payware?
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You can have a standalone version for free and for a small fee ( better Renderprocess and higher output )
Grass is restricted to 1 object + 1 grass type with the free versionhttp://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/maxwell_for_sketchup
...and the Maxwell Suite.
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@jason_maranto said:
Yep, at $195 that is a really nice solution for the user who wants more power than the $95 "stand-alone" SketchUp plugin, but doesn't need huge renders or network rendering. The really nice thing about that is it includes all of the Maxwell plugins free (including the SketchUp plugin) -- so you could use Maxwell with several different packages (as I do).
I also found the Maxwell integration into Artlantis to be a rather interesting tidbit: http://www.artlantis.com/index.php?page=products/studio/news
Best,
Jason.I wasn't aware that I could have paid $195.00 for a 'never to expire' licence rather I believe the $95.00 option was only available when it was released.... I bit annoying that I have to now paid again.
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Pay again? I'm not sure what you mean -- the license doesn't expire... none of them do.
Best,
Jason. -
I was reffering to this Jason but then realised that is was for education purposes.... my bad.
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Hello Jason,
What's up?
Can the grass in Maxwell 2.7 also be applied on more organic terrain in sketchup? I have tried but these "cracks" appear... Can you help me with this please? Thanks!
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It can be used on such surfaces -- however there was a bug in the 2.7 release that revealed density control problems with subdivided surfaces. This was alleviated in the 2.7.10 release:
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/2.7.10+release+notes
Also, when working in Maxwell Studio it is best to stack several grass modifiers on one piece of geometry (to mix the randomization in several ways) -- which IMO gives a more naturalistic look. However this is a bit difficult to do in the current SketchUp plugin so I don't recommend you try it there.
Best,
Jason.
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