A decent Sketchup Material Manager
-
Hello everyone!
I'm an architect / interior designer. My last model had almost 900 mb in size (which is more or less common to me), due to the amount of materials and objects inside, with dozens of components and groups. And hundreds of materials, that I have to very diligently and patiently "work throught" so everything "cooks" beautifully in the final rendered image that I usually send to a renderfarm I often use. And A LOT of the components I use come from 3D Warehouse.
The subject of matter here; I waste hours (if not days) doing tireful, tedious, time consuming material organization. Renaming SU materials, exporting it's textures to my personal Library, re-importing them back to Sketchup. Far too much time is wasted in tasks that are not creative but are required to keep my Sketchup Material List organized, understandable (every material follows a template name), and keeping all the materials' image files properly renamed and (if not more importantly) saved to my Library, so that nothing is missed during rendering time.
A practical example of my workflow is:
**1.**I download a "chair model" from 3D Warehouse;
**2.**Go through the "Cleanup" plugin (to get rid of undesirable "stuff" from the model);
**3.**Rename every single material following the template:(Highlighted in BLUE for materials that can be used throughout the model)
(Highlighted in RED for materials that are "object specific")%(#0000FF)[Glass_clear
Wood_mahogany
Wood_bright
Wood_dark
Metal_polished steel
Metal_brushed steel]
%(#FF0000)[z_Chair model 123_Wooden chair legs
z_Chair model 123wooden seat
zChair model 123metal bolts
zChair model 123metal support
zChair model 123fabric seating
zChair model 123fabric backrest
zChair model 123random texture1
zChair model 123_random texture2]**4.**Export to COLLADA (.DAE) to get the texture (.JPG, .PNG, etc) image files, that now are automatically conveniently named accordingly to the names I assigned previously.
-
Then I go to the new folder I created (for the chair I downloaded) in "C:\Lybrary\3D Objects\Furniture\Chair\Generic Chair*Chair model 123*\maps" and save all exported pertinent image files there.
-
Open Sketchup / Vray and reimport every single one of them bastards back to their specific material.
After doing this Sketchup (and VRay) now "knows" where every image file is physically stored (rather than on some unknown "temp" folder which can lead to "missing assets"), every material now has matching "internal sketchup material name AND saved file names". Finally, throught this organization, among hundreds of materials, I can spot every single one of them in my Sketchup Material list. Now I know from which object a certain material comes from, and now I can pick those I frequently use whithout needing to sort them out from a "huge mess of weird names that don't relate to anything" which is the case to most of the objects that come from the 3D Warehouse.
Now imagine that, if I have 30 or 40 objects in a SU scene, I go throught this process to every single one of them. That's what I do. And that is a HELL of a thing to go throught.
To finish this. The world would be a very beautiful and candy coated place if I could have a plugin that facilitated all of the previous, so that much of what is done "by hand" could be somehow automated.. Even still, I know some things would still need to be done "by hand", but not all of them.
To all of you who had the patience to read this detailed drama (and plead for help) I leave my sincere thank you. And for those who would kindly give me an advice I wish you all a very happy and satisfying sexual life, and a good amount of beer... or tasty cookies, in case you don't drink.
Waiting for the replies, sorry for anything, and thanks again!
-
-
Would it not be simpler to create a library (sounds like you have created one already) of materials and simply use them on your work rather than remodifying downloaded material all the time.
-
@box said:
Would it not be simpler to create a library (sounds like you have created one already) of materials and simply use them on your work rather than remodifying downloaded material all the time.
I actually have no choice but to have to edit every component I download from 3D Warehouse if I want to keep my "Master Model" clean. Nothing that comes from there fits my organization. Much of what comes from there (if not everything) has useless data, needs to be "adjusted", purged, and have it's materials/textures configured properly for rendering. Regardless of whether or not I have a pre-established library of materials that I can use to substitute what natively comes onto the 3D Warehouse's objects. It all needs adjustments. It's important to understand every step of my process... having a good library is not enough.
Plus, as an example, consider a tree model... plants in general. Most of them come with textures that are object specific, which means I can't just pick "something preconfigured" from my library and simply "exchange" materials... it just doesn't work. It might be a texture simulating a branch full of leaves, for example. The same applies to a lot of other objects there. And this things need to be "worked out", the very way I so carefully explained previously, for all those reasons I stated.
It is not that simple.
-
Your OCD beats mine easily.
Renaming components materials in semi-manual way is refined waste of time.
I use hundreds of proxies (in Max) from over 9000 sources and never had a need in renaming -
@rv1974 said:
Your OCD beats mine easily.
Renaming components materials in semi-manual way is refined waste of time.
I use hundreds of proxies (in Max) from over 9000 sources and never had a need in renamingWell, we agree it's complete waste of time, and I detest doing that the way it's done, precisely why I'm here. And we are talking about SketchUp models (not Max), which ALL come with embedded Textures, which eventually "are missing" when I upload Jobs for cloud rendering If I just download components and use them as they come. About the "naming thing", the problem frequently is that SketchUp's materials names don't match it's texture file name, and when a certain texture map gets "missing" (If I didn't do what I usually do) it's virtually impossible to spot from which material It is missing due to the complete mess of weird material names and it's unmatching texture files... which all get automatically saved in a random temp folder. And then I get a faulty render. See the problem?
It's no OCD buddy, my method is a response to direct experience. I just need a better, decent Material Manager! Plus I like things real tidy
-
I have sometimes the same problem as yours with 3DWE components. So I think I can do a plugin that will help you through steps 1 to 5 in a matter of a few clicks.
I don't promise anything, but I'll try
Regards, -
@didier bur said:
I have sometimes the same problem as yours with 3DWE components. So I think I can do a plugin that will help you through steps 1 to 5 in a matter of a few clicks.
I don't promise anything, but I'll try
Regards,Oh my. Were I surprised (and happy) when I read this! I honestly wasn't expecting replies to this topic anymore... It's been quite a while since I posted it. Simply for the intention, I thank you very much Mr. Bur!
And just to emphasize my points... I just finished a job in which I had to deal with 19 to 25 "missing assets" when I sent my scenes for cloud rendering. And I was in such a hurry to get things done (due to "deadlines", of course) that I ended up pressing the "fuck it" button... which sometimes work... other times it just backfires when something comes up screwed up in the final render. It pisses me off, because I am so careful and thorough with all that I do to get final result perfect, and still I have to deal with this. It causes problems and wastes time. 3D Warehouse is (no doubt) a blessing for us who use Sketchup, and I am really glad we have it, but the "organization part" of working with it is just too messy! I'm not really complaining about 3D Warehouse stuff... I'd rather have something somewhat "messy" than having nothing, that's for sure. But that's the nature of the models that come from there... they ARE messy.
Man, do I talk! Anyway, thanks again Didier! I'm glad for your intention!
-
Hi Sketchvolution,
Here is the first step to a component organizer that will (I hope) speed up your work.
Install it the usual way. After installation, select Toolbars in the Display menu, and tick the "Components Cleaner" checkbox.
You'll get a toolbar like this:
Click on the Settings icon and then on the Help button to view a quick-start pdf.
Let me know what you think, please report bugs and what can be enhanced.!["Rename materials" dialog](/uploads/imported_attachments/jdAU_cc_materials.jpg ""Rename materials" dialog")
-
@didier bur said:
Hi Sketchvolution,
Here is the first step to a component organizer that will (I hope) speed up your work.
Install it the usual way. After installation, select Toolbars in the Display menu, and tick the "Components Cleaner" checkbox.
You'll get a toolbar like this:
[attachment=2:3soo1752]<!-- ia2 -->cc_toolbar.jpg<!-- ia2 -->[/attachment:3soo1752]
Click on the Settings icon and then on the Help button to view a quick-start pdf.
Let me know what you think, please report bugs and what can be enhanced.[attachment=1:3soo1752]<!-- ia1 -->cc_materials.jpg<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment:3soo1752]
Oh my god
. I can't believe it. You actually really, REALLY did put time to make this happen . I can't tell how surprised I am. It might sound a little "over the top", but I am actually very excited after seeing this. I will most definely try the plugin now to feel how it works, and just by the panel's layout look I can tell it must be great!At this very moment I am going through all that process I explained earlier at a job I recently picked, so it is a perfect time to test the plugin. Let's see how this baby works. I'll make a list os "improvement points" if a I find any, also I'll make notes about the functions that work the way they should.
I'll bring feedbacks! Thanks man! This is a great thing that you did
! -
@ sketchvolution:
I just found a bug this morning: don't worry if some of the thumbnails are not found in the panel, this is fixed.
-
@didier bur said:
@ sketchvolution:
I just found a bug this morning: don't worry if some of the thumbnails are not found in the panel, this is fixed.
[attachment=0:1lqu2blp]<!-- ia0 -->thumbnailsnotfound.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1lqu2blp]Good afternoon sir!
I have tested your plugin and already have some feedbacks to give, though I confess I still need some extra experimenting with it the way it is in its initial stage. And now that you "kicked the ball" I guess I feel like I need to spend some time myself thinking about how I could give you more ideas to make it a great tool.
Now I must know how to proceed from here. As I created a document with extensive comments (as topics) about the script, I don't think it would be a good idea to just "throw it all" here, specially because I never did something like this before. What I have is a .RTF document... but I can make it a .DOC file or whatever you feel is best. I could e-mail you it. Or you give me a better idea about how to go on from here so that we do it...
-
Hi,
You can PM me a doc, or ods, or rtf, or pdf. All these will be just fine
Regards
Advertisement