I'm betting you are using an old version of Vray, you need to explode for it to show. Upgrade to current version.

Thanks for the input. At the moment I think I've got an ok workflow going from SU to 3ds Max and using Vray there. I'm at the early stages so we'll see what snags I run into. My biggest concern is materials. If something changes and I have to swap out models, I'll have to reassociate every material on every object again. I'd thought about breaking up my whole SU model and making it all one big group before importing to Max so I'd just have to reassociate the materials on one big object but then I'll lose any benefit from instances and layers. -Brodie

Related posts on this topic: Rendering huge images with VRay 1.4 for Sketchup http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=54220&p=491374#p491374 Make a render look like in the sketchup editor http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=53980

Can you upload the models?

Try this: http://www.vray.com/vray_for_sketchup/manual/transparency_mapping_in_vray_for_sketchup.shtml It's not exactly what you need, but it takes you through the steps.

There's lots of buttons not working within VfSU. They where added by ChaosGroup core - and not the VfSU department.

make sure you don't have photon map selected as a primary rendering engine. it can render unexpectedly dark (black) results in your primary render, when it shows up fine in the secondary. if that is not the thing causing the problem... make a ticket at support at asgvis dot com.

where do you locate the alpha channel to turn on and off with vray 3 on sketchup? I try to save as a tif or png with my sky but get a transparent background - jpeg I have no problems but you don't save in jpeg if you can help it. Im pulling my hair out on this one looking for this needle

@ledisnomad said: Do you have Vray 1.49.01? If so, in the Vray Material Editor, right-click "Scene Materials" in the Materials List and choose "Sort Materials Alphabetically." yes i have vray 1.49..thanks a lot..!

@unknownuser said: Biggest drawback is that I am unable to transfer materials with copy and paste between models like I used to do with 1.48. Am I the only one with this problem? No - it's a regression bug.

Hm. I'm a bit late to reply. Anyway; you might have seen the model used on their website at material downloads > vray 1.48 only as a testscene

The latest build 1.49.01 will not let vray materials come over with a component if you copy or import the file in. So you are hosed even if you found a resource, which I have not yet found one. Flyingarchiecture.com has some good stuff, but it's modeled for Rhino w Vray, but they share the same material files and I believe he has 3DS files of his models, so you could import them into SU and reapply the materials.

Thanks for the responses. I'll take a look at those, although I'll have to wait until I'm home... mrcad.com is blocked at work.

No. You have 2 diffuse textures essentially stacked. The first is low res and this will be in the upper Diffuse layer. Then you have the hi res as the diffuse layer underneath it. SketchUp will use the one on top as the texture in your model. So, the trick here is to have that layer as a low res map and tell VR to render it 100% transparent, without the SketchUp window realizing it. We cannot use the transparency color box because this will also affect the transparency in the SU window. What we do is under transparency apply a AColorTex in the map, then set that color to pure white. This tells VR to ignore that layer and use the high res one underneath when rendering and because SU doesn't see at any of the VR tex parameters, the low res map stays in the SU window. This trick is used quite a bit in many scenarios. Example would be if you needed to see a bump map of a texture in order to set the UVW mapping for something like water. It is very important to understand and have this one in your back pocket at all times.

There is an old trick to do this. Just replace the floor material (make it white), render and save the irradiance map(there is an option/button to save it) then, put back the desired material, load the irradiance map that you just saved, and render the final image. Cheers! PS: For speed up things, check in "Global switches" under "GI" , "Don't render image". In this way, only GI will be calculated.

you could try pre-saving in the options -> output panel

@ledisnomad said: Yup, that sounds about the same as me. I lose reflection layers, too. I seem to get the error rendering most often when I have Photoshop or another instance of SketchUp open. Really hmmmmmmm Thats prob the same with me too. I'll start testing with PS and other SU closed.

please someone come with an alternative man...