@hvanessen said:

When i import the New vismat materialen my preview is allright, but in the sketchup model everything is Grey. I also can't rotate the texturen.

What is the problem

That vismat may have a "blend" material in the diffuse layer, which means SU can't access the texture to adjust the positioning in the model. Try changing the diffuse layer to Texbitmap and select the image file for your texture.

If that isn't the problem - maybe you can post a screenshot of your vray material settings.

yeah, delete your refraction layer from your glass. Or else give your glass a thickness (two planes instead of one, with proper orientation - so you don't see backfaces either from outside the building or inside.)

If you're using a demo version, then yes there are limits to how many lights you can add.

hideous, but in a good way...

beautiful. I like the way the shadow falls across the watch band.

does the popup go away if you disable skatter from loading at startup?

nice reflection Edson, thanks for sharing!

I resisted Sketchup at first - It was around 2006 when I first heard about it from a structural engineering consultant I was working with. I recall they were saying what a great visualizing tool it is, but I was repelled by the cartoony quality of the output. To this day, I still don't like the native SU output. However, for making 3D models and designing in 3D (since around 2008 when I switched from modeling in ACAD) I've never looked back!

long live Sketchup!

Andy

Yes, I second the suggestion to drop in the proxy component when vray is not loaded. I've also run into crashes with vray when trying to bring in an already created proxy. The plugin is thomthom's "vray tools" - it keeps vray disabled until you need it.

@ntxdave said:

I have also been looking at Blender but it has a much steeper learning curve. I have watched some tutorials and have had mixed results some times. I watch and understand what I am being shown/taught and can do the stuff sometimes. I have had stuff work in one model but could not repeat in another model.

Since you mention Blender, learning SubD is a great place to start and get your head around the modeling conventions. That said, learning Blender is a long process. Start small

Andy

yeah, vray for sketchup seems to be getting left waaay behind. I still like vray better than Thea, but I have the pleasure of also using vray for Blender (that is on 3.0)

@ntxdave said:

Stay tuned on the animation. I think there is a tool coming that you will like.

I'm quite interested in better animation too! That was the lacking feature in SU that initially sent me to Blender (Though I've learned to love Blender, especially with vray 3 ). Can't wait to see what's around the corner

Every time I tried Layout, it was painful to use compared to AutoCAD. Also things like lightweight control, notation, dimensions, hatching, etc, there is no comparison. Yes, I also use SU to ACAD in my workflow.

Let me clarify a bit. Re-typing the field of view and jumping out of photo match will make sure that your view is not distorted and that vray can render at the same viewpoint. The size of the image will not be an exact match, you will either have to adjust it in photoshop (which I did here) or by trying to get the height and with of the render to match your photo. Note that using degrees instead of lens length will get you a more accurate match (this is 71.31 degrees in this view for example. The 25mm is not as accurate.) I can send you the photoshop file if you want to see what I did to get this view.
Hope that explains it a bit better.

Andy

Does it match if you scale it to the proper size relative to the photo - if you overlay it in Photoshop?
(Sorry, still haven't had a chance to look at the file yet.)

@stinkie said:

By the time I'm done with this, everyone else will be churning out interactive holograms that feel and smell just like the real thing.

Hence the Wip a dee doo dah

@stinkie said:

Same thing in Modo. Everything got rotated; the Item List got really messy. Shame really. It'd be nice to have the same scene hierarchy as in SU, and to be able to import components as instances. Have you tried BlendUp, by any chance? Looks promising, but all I got, was an empty .blend file. Granted -I've only tried it once.

No, haven't tried BlendUp. Obj import works just fine for what I need. I have a blank template scene with all the vray settings already in place, so I'm not sure it would add anything additional for my workflow. Might be worth testing when I have some down time tho.

Since I know my SU models will come in organized by material, I keep that method of organization in mind as I prepare my SU model. The biggest thing I find is that I end up with too many materials.

When I have my model in Blender, I'll duplicate the single mesh that I've imported to a few copies with only specific materials. For example, one will be the glass mesh. In the original mesh, I'll select all the glass, make the copy. Then in one, I delete the inverse, and the other delete just the glass.

no, don't adjust the vray settings (please un-check the FOV override.) This is in the SU vcb (in the bottom left of your screenshot.) Just re-type the number "25" and the view will jump out of photomatch, but should retain the same perspective.

If you stretched the texture with the SU "pins" and it's very distorted from the original scale and size, then one solution is to click on the face and select "make unique texture" That gets rid of the distortion and allows vray to render correctly.

Edit - Not clear from your writing if that's what you've done that already. If so, then sorry - the SU texture stretching and vray don't play very well together.

Be careful what vismats you import. Some don't have a texture in the top diffuse layer, and so can't get mapping from SU. If that's the case, then you need a dummy texture in that first diffuse layer so you can properly position the material in SU.

you might try selecting the zoom tool in SU, and then exactly re-type the view angle in the text box at the bottom right of the screen. This can reset any distortion in the photomatch view, allowing vray to render the same angle as the scene view.

Andy

grimy concrete texture looking good

@stinkie said:

Yes, that's Modo.
I export as obj. Prior to exporting, I dice everything up into quads. Everything comes into Modo as one mesh layer. Groups, components -poofff, all gone. To make things a bit easier, I apply colors to everything in SU, as Modo lets you select stuff by its material. Hope that makes sense.

Yes, I use .obj for importing to Blender, the native SU2105 obj exporter has been working great for me. Before I had been using TIG's obj exporter, but the SU one actually brings in the creasing as well. I was just curious what others used. I know some people use Collada, but for some reason it never worked that great for Blender import. Haven't tried it lately though. Now that I think about it, it was probably because it brought in every single group and component as a new instance (also why I don't use 3ds). The Blender outliner got very crowded. There may have also been some scale and mirroring issues, but that may not be a problem currently.

With Blender I have the option to import the obj as a single mesh, or individual meshes (afaik, the meshes are grouped by material in the obj file - yes Groups & Components are collapsed -, at least that's how it comes in to Blender.) Single mesh is just easier to work with in the model, and yes, selecting by material is quite handy.

this is in Modo? What's your export method from SU?