My knowledge is limited to AutoCADLT, SketchUp and modo so I'm not at all surprised that some of the features I find unique to modo are not unique at all. I'm a furniture maker and a stair builder. I recently purchased, from a junkyard, a pile of old wood painted signs that were destined to be burned. I'm going to cut them up and make cabinets out of them. I was faced with the question of how to render wildly irregular surfaces - some shiny, some dull, many different colors, different degrees of surface distress, etc. I think modo, especially considering it's Painting feature, might be able to do that for me. Of course I've spent so much time working my way through modo tutorials I haven't been in the shop in three weeks!

It all depends on your needs. If you're okay with SU's toolset and poly limitations, go with Vray. No need of going through the hassle of exporting to modo, cleaning up your model etc then.Then again, if you think you'll be needing a bit more in the future, get Modo. If you buy 301 now, you get a free upgrade to 401. personal observation Me, I got both. Yet, if I were in your shoes, I'd choose Modo, as it doesn't look SU is going anywhere, for the moment.

dont think there is any output of the .visopt possible maybe just do some print screen ? usually I save the entire .visopt with reference names...

@unknownuser said: I have both Modo and 3Dpaint. 3Dpaint is a nice program for the money but a bit quirky and prone to crashes if the resolution of the images is to high (typical in many of the programs I have tried). Modo crashes a bit too often to my liking as well. Still, I pre-ordered 401. I'm totally looking forward to using it. I have a sneaking suspicion that it'll almost completely replace SU for me. (I am still hoping our friends over at Google HQ will get of their asses, though. Hope is a peculiar thing.) Modo 401's preview renderer and presets will be enormous time savers for me. @arail1 said: I made the mistake of spending most of my trial time trying to import a SketchUp model to work on. Sounds familiar. It's probably better to just bite the bullet and start modelling in Modo. It's tools can run circles around SU's - for the most part, that is.

If you use the GlobalMaterialChanger.rb script you can use it with NO selection so the whole model gets done, enter the 'mystery material' and replace it with <<Default>> (none). You can choose to 'mine' down into all groups and definition/instances etc. It might take awhile on a big model...

No, just remove the material from the outside of the group/component. Apply material to faces instead.

I don't have PS CS3 so I haven't. But never mind, I can spare those few bucks for this app I believe

Photoshop!