thanks for the assistance guys. ive just decided to go with a 2 render method. 1 without a floor plane (for the building) and one with floor plane that i just do a magic wand selection and delete unused area, within photoshop to create the transparent shadow. as for why i would need to do something that is easy....ill show you when ive dont about my 500th model

@rspierenburg said: I usually just tweak the standard textures to suit my needs. But this site has some really nice free textures: http://luzindirecta.luxisessentia.com/ Nomeradona has some materials on his blog as well: http://www.sketchupvraymaterials.blogspot.ca/ Hope these help Thanks alot, downloading these now.. see how it goes!!

@valerostudio said: Andy, are you still happy with the workflow in Blender? I haven't quite made the jump to production work in Blender. I've been trying out some higher-poly models to see how well the import works. The biggest issue with workflow right now is where I have a lot of component instances (like a restaurant with furniture for example) it all comes in as one huge model. You can make instances in Blender, so I could bring in one component of each thing and make duplicates in Blender - but, you know - doesn't seem like the best workflow. There's also proxy, which is sweet, but I've only brushed the surface yet. Otherwise, I'm still just learning the ins and outs of Blender. I really love the program, but it's also very deep. I'm also trying to figure out vray settings (using the standalone.) I've been trying to get my renders to look the same as out of vfsu, but it's surprisingly difficult to find all the right settings to switch. GI is handled very differently (dome light), so there's not just the simple switch that we have in vfsu. Artificially lit spaces are much more easy to replicate. I also just don't have a whole lot of time to devote, as I've been booked pretty solid lately. It's a good thing, but I just don't have as much time to play Andy

@valmach said: Hi All.. using SK8 Pro.. with VRAY and Indigo.. issue I am having.. when i try to render with Vray.. the SU Animation engages autonomously. I have uninstalled/reinstalled everything.. removed Indigo.. Removed VRAY.. still no joy.. please advise. Running Win7 64.. never had this issue.. Not a big issue,go to best settings of animation in vray,if you have other render engines as plugin in Sketchup,just go to Window > Preferences > Extensions and untick all other render engines accept the one you want to render. And one think, i didn't understand your question 100% but i tried to help you guy,may this will be helpful to you.!!!

No crashes on any of the machines on our office - even with render region.

I finally got around to watching this tutorial. I'm only a quarter of the way through but so far I think it's an excellent overview. My rendering knowledge is spotty and inconsistent so I expect I'll come away with a much better grounding in V-Ray. I notice also that they've added a Twilight tutorial for those who are interested. Some comments on lynda.com for those who haven't used this service before (I'm not in any way affiliated - just a subscriber): lynda.com is a website that offers a very, very wide range of tutorials for many types of software. Subscription is $25/month and you can watch as many videos on as many subjects as you can cram into the month. They make it easy to unsubscribe. I think they expect you to subscribe and unsubcribe often depending on your needs. So a strong thumbs up for this one. Well worth the $25 and after the V-Ray video I think I'll have time to brush up on some of my modo skills, take a look at the Twilight video and maybe even scan through some of the SketchUp videos to see if there's anything new to me.

This setup seems to be working for me. Make sure to save as an EXR to take full advantage of this workflow. I ran a test with an interior scene lit only by a small 4"x 6" hole in the wall using Skylight. Rendered clearly with minimal tweaking. [image: exeo_LWFSetup.JPG]

@andybot said: Here is some further discussion about using HDRI for interior - and explains my answer above. http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?69182-HDRI-interior (registration required) thank you for this link

Well, if you wait a little while (or a long while, still not entirely sure ) The next version of vray for sketchup is supposed to have proxy support. I am very curious to see what sorts of new goodies will be implemented next. Andy

Hi Rich, Yep, I'm running the latest Sketchup v8 and I uninstalled Vray and installed it again. I've removed Maxwell Render in previous attempts when installing Vray and it makes no difference. I have a paid license of Maxwell Render this time and I'm hesitant to uninstall it!! There is obviously something on my laptop that doesn't agree with Vray. And I'm no closer to solving this issue. Vray support team were uselss. Thanks Anita

@valerostudio said: It's buggy but I dont think 1.05.30 is a better product. Just the ambient occlusion, IES files, and transparent PNGs are enough to convince me to deal with the bugs. As for the debug menu, you have to go to Plugins - VRay - Help - Debugging. There are a few options in there. Beware that this will reset all materials in your file to defaults. Yea - 1.05.30 is more stable - but the features of 1.49.01 is so good that I can't ignore it. Fortunately a new beta should start soon.

it works when i put some boxes and lights. I'm guessing it may the 1. the file size; 2. overlaping surfaces in the model. i decided to do it all over again, since none of the mentioned solutions worked for me. shame tho, if it's about the file size, SU developers should deal with that ty for your help, though

@valerostudio said: Dont forget to set your subdivs high on that refraction glossiness (30 or more). Render times will be a beast but the results are worth it. the subdivs setting will control how smooth the frosted glass looks, the higher the number the smoother it looks (but at significant cost in render times)

@stefanq said: John, follow this link http://www.lithonia.com/photometrics.aspx and download all photometric data files. As you can see, there are some categories for different type of applications, indoor, outdoor,commercial, etc. Use that free viewer and browse only the category of ies files that you need. The viewer is quite fast, it renders the cone of light in a sec. Cheers, Stefan thanks and about ies lights , do you ever change the power or the size of IES lights? i'm trying to adjust lights in one scene of a showroom, and they are giving a burnout kind of look. [i'll post a view of it soon]. if i lower the intensity to 100,000, the scene becomes dark, if i increase the intensity to 300,000, the scene looks like lighting of fireballs in the dark. i'm not able to get the lighting as seen in various photos like this apart from IES should a rectangular be also used? a rectangular light interferes with my abstract ceiling pattern .

Eh, you are right about exploding Andy, i got carried away with one of the previous posts, what i meant is that rendering of displacement goes faster with saved IR and LC maps

Welcome! You could try adding a studio setup, like explained here: http://nomeradona.blogspot.com/2011/10/lighting-with-vray-sketchup-definitive.html Or you can make a room with furniture and context, etc. and light the room as you would normally. Andy

i encountered this problem once and if i remember right, it was due to the fact only the billboard tree image on front face casted shadows, not the backface. so try to turn your model monocrome and make sure the front face of the billboard is facing the lightsource..

[image: complain2.jpg]