sometimes I run into problems with materials if I am using components from the warehouse. I have to go through and check materials carefully.

If you are copying and pasting between SU windows or loading components, that will often mess up materials (delete all the layers except diffuse) when working in vray. That is a bug currently.

try loading your default vray options and do the rendering again. If that doesn't work, check if you have displacement map on any of your materials - that can sometimes cause the Light Cache pass to hang. In that case try turning off your displacement and use bump instead, see if it works.

funny thomas!

I had wondered about DMC recently, and I too realized it's way too slow. I wonder if it ran differently in the older versions of vfsu because I don't recall it being such a drag.

Hmm, I like the girl with no pants...

Awesome renderings, especially as you say you were on a tight deadline. I agree about the light levels, seems like it could be darker, though with all the light sources in the model that would be hard to do. I really like your use of materials wall and floor patterns, I think it's done really well.

another thing you can do is to separate the boxes by a fraction of an inch/mm so you get a physical space. Another idea is to use bevel edges plugin to get an eased corner. If you physically model how it would be in reality (no objects are ever completely seamlessly aligned) you may get the effect you want without the cartoon edges.

can you post a screenshot of your options settings?

Hey Devin,

Thanks, I remember you posted that tip a long time back on the old asgvis forum. It's been a useful plugin for me too.
It's good to keep in mind that any uv mapping done in sketchup is generally what you will see in vray. Also look at the artisan plugin, it has some nice material brush tools too. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=34868

Andy

Joel, thanks so much for this plugin!! I have 2d elevations that I needed to glue to a massing, and this works absolutely perfect for my needs. Good work!
Andy

indeed! when they disabled this in the "upgrade" from SU7 free to SU8 free, I was a mite disappointed
Was very relieved to find this ruby.

Or for the free version, there is this ruby, courtesy Jim Foltz:

Plugin: Model Location

* This plug-in was made for SketchUp version 6 Free because it lacked the dialog (which Pro had) to change these settings. This has become ...

(sketchuptips.blogspot.com)

try importing/ copying with the vray plugin turned off. Sometimes works for me.

right. and learn Max...
There's also Modo, Cinema4D, Maya, etc.
Definitely depends on how much animation you're doing whether it's worth putting up with vfsu.
Also, note that vfsu is limited with animating objects between scenes (as in you can't)
In terms of setting up an animation, you can pre-calculate the light cache and the irradiance map. Here's the link to the tutorial I used. http://vray.us/vray_tutorials/vray_tutorial_irradiance_map2.shtml

Andy

are you using the "load defaults" button as shown below or are you loading a visopt? I'll make a wild guess that you are loading a visopt from an older version of vfsu? That would cause unexpected rendering results since the way vray calculates lighting has changed from when those older visopts were made.

Start with the basics - have you set up your sketchup sun position? The vray sun plugin is based on where you have your SU sun. The next thing is to try loading the default options, and try adjusting your settings from that starting point. Hope that helps.

Andy

I've been able to get reasonable animations out of it using the flightpath plugin. Render times are not too swell, so that's been my biggest limitation. I haven't done one recently, but you can see on I did here:
http://orbandesign.andyorban.com/movies/movie-2.htm

Andy

Is your glass a closed volume? it matters to vray to calculate refraction for the volume to be enclosed. If your glass is just two planes, it my not work properly. Try grouping one plane and push-pull to make a volume.

Andy

you can try increasing your reflection subdivisions for your material...

stronger shadows (use the sun, but set the radius to something like 4.0, and increase the subdivision.)
Nice modeling btw.

Andy

Majid,
Wow, I sympathize. Very difficult thing to decide. Biggest question to me would be how valued are your family connections, would you be okay leaving that behind? Do you have family outside of Iran?
Best of luck. Wonderful paintings by the way.
Andy