A cheat if you just need color is to put the color directly on the refraction. you won't get the SSS effect but on box this may not matter much.

thank you very much for these background informations jason! people can always count on your maxwell knowledge here...much appreciated!

As a side note, I would suggest getting Onyx Tree for making trees. Especially if you want a hi-poly version for MXS and then export a very low poly version for SKP or even better, it will export shaded TGA which you can turn into a PNG file to save even more memory in SU. Using the new MXS reference feature it kicks serious butt. The Onyx program, although it looks dated is very powerful, will let you create tons of custom trees and shrubs and they export in 3DS, OBJ, FBX and other formats. Well worth the money. I think it was like $150 for the Broadleaf program and I feel like I have already created well over $150 in tree models. Highly recommended for sure for all SketchUpers.

my problem solved! by uncheking "use for glossy rays" in "light cache" in V-ray option

ah.. ok.. i quick googled it and found the "official reseller" edit: removed the pirate torrent link (sure.. i didn't want to promote it, just kidding.. anyway..)

Blender what else ? Cycles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyMZ8JG9Yqs Internal renderer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wVYwKxT0Cs

If you are loading a vispot from the internet, I would say thats the culprit. You should stay away from these things because some are from the older 1.05.30 version and there are lots of changes between the 2 versions and will cause errors.

Do bear in mind you have created a scene where there are many more bounces to resolve than normal (by virtue of having mirrors reflecting into each other -- AGS is just a metal mirror with reduced opacity) -- this will take time to resolve and as I said SL 18 would be the minimum I would personally accept as "final". Best, Jason.

@vizfellas said: Try this Make modeling in mm scale. When you add light in VRAY option increase power to 1000 of the IES file. OMG! Thanks so much for this info, it was such a simple fix, my IES lights are showing now. Thanks!

FIXED! I guess I deleted the plant while batch render was in progress. I just had to stop the rendering process, delete it again, purge unused materials, save and close. When I re-opened the model and did a test render, the plant was gone... hopefully forever. Thanks anyway... hope this can still be helpful for someone Thanks, Ed

Most likely this is an emitter/instancing issue -- disable "use instances" to check. Also, you should probably update to the newest version of Maxwell and see if that clears the issue up. Best, Jason.

@jonedvard said: oh and regarding the spheres. my approach would be to increase the number of segments when creating your sphere - providing a smoother surface. an arc with about 48 segments is what i generally use for a fairly adequate smooth surface. hope that helps! It's called the "terminator" problem @ATLAStudio - good info, thanks! For me, I just keep re-loading a working water vismat, so I didn't remember off-hand which setting it was...

That most likely can be fixed by changing your irradiance map settings. There's an option to "Check sample visibility" that you can enable. You can also increase your "Max rate" to -1 or 0. Lastly, you can increase your HSph. Subdivs to 70 or 90 - which helps with splotchy shadow areas. Worst comes to worst, you can enable Detail Enhancement, but that means longer render times.

Have you tried the Advanced Camera Plugin. See here It might be of use to you. Rob

thanks guys. i'll look into it. now i know what the subdivide tool functions as. all this new terminology by way of v-ray! i did acquire sketchuv recently - and really need to sort & figure out it's features. all the best!

Yep- thats the trick. Right now, its the only way other than figuring out what numbers to use for tiling the bitmap in the parameters. You can do it that way, but the method above will allow you to see the map in SketchUp.

the vismat format is very limiting in that it doesn't allow you to use the thousands of materials for VRay Max. The other downside is that with each new release of V4SU they make significant changes to the material setups so importing an older material might cause issues.

so interesting - with regards to the faces. i've developed a bad habit of painting both sides, which i think was the case with this particular model. that should stop - as in this example, which i'm uncertain and now riddled with a problem.. and it didn't occur to me that the increased intensity was the issue. i just assumed there would be some basic illuminations from the get-go. i'll toggle the model later today will post the results. thanks!