Yeah best method is to double-click into component, select all, make group, exit component, select component instances, explode. All component instances are now unique groups.

Hi there seems to be a problem when adding reflection layer to a material.
Once I add the layer, the preview just goes black, and the render comes out empty.

This is the same whether I add it manually or import a material with existing reflection layer. It doesn't happen for refraction.

I managed to get it to work once without much thought but have since found it impossible.
Any suggestions on what might be the problem?

Thanks heaps.

@unknownuser said:

...vray_SettingsRenderChannels.dll copy and replace C:\ProgramData\ASGVIS\VfS\vrayplugins

Worked for me.

After importing vray proxy, I had to go into Vray materials and remap materials. If I 'right-click->save as' the proxy I can then bring the proxy into future sketchup models without having to reapply materials.
The UV mapping seems correct too, but I'm pretty new to this.

Hi I am exporting a vrmesh from 3DS Max 2014 and rendering the proxy in Sketchup but having all sorts of problems with materials. I have tried placing vrmesh and textures in same folder. Some times one material applies correctly but the others default to a colour.

Can someone please pass on a workflow to get this working?
Thanks

I think the issue was cached images from Vray. Once I had moved the original images everything worked as expected. Occasionally I had to resize the image texture to match the original, but all sorted.

Hi, I am putting together a library of faceme plants and have used low-res images in the components.
I am now trying to create a second library with high-res images but am having trouble simply replacing the old texture with the new one.

The reason I'm trying it this way is because I have already traced the plants and don't want to have to do it again.

The issue is that the cached image always substitutes my newly chosen image when I update, or the image goes all skewed if I rename it and swap them.

Any help on a simple replacement technique would be awesome.

Thanks!

I love this plugin. I think a nice addition would be an option to import onto a grid so components are easier to manage.
Thanks TIG

It was a compromise between VRay and Sketchup.
I ended up exporting the transparency selection path from photoshop to illustrator to dwg then overlaying the outline onto the image in sketchup. It meant I could use the antialiasing in the images for vray renders (where they do catch shadows) and produce quite smooth shadows in sketchup.
The hope is that in future versions of sketchup, png with alpha will catch shadows.
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=uff66f099-c698-496c-b131-c13c1e197243

Thanks for your work TIG. I will keep trying this one as new releases come out.

@dave r said:

@bitslapped said:

-When it does complete I am left with a hidden outline of the image with no actual image in it.

What face style do you have selected? The image becomes a texture during the process so if you have Monochrome selected as the current face style, you'll get the result you describe.

Face style is shaded with textures.
-I loaded a 500x600px plant png with transparent background into photoshop
-I flattened the image, selected colour 'white' and deleted out pure white pixels, leaving the white frame around my plant, i.e. no semi-transparency.
-import the image into sketchup 2014 pro with only imagetrimmer plugin installed.
-scanning pixels frozen at 91%.

I should point out that I have got this to work for some files, just not these plants.
Are there any other specific png settings?

I get 'not responding' from sketchup plugins all the time on big jobs, but this doesn't seem to complete no matter how long i leave it, and on such a small image it seems there is something else wrong.

Cheers

edit: for anyone wanting to try it out with these images, they are at ozbreed.com.au.

having tried a few images now it seems the edge complexity of these plants is killing it

I have tried this numerous different ways and couldn't get it to work.
-Saved PNG as GIF to remove semitransparent pixels, then back to PNG
-Most of the time doesn't get past 'scanning pixels'even on a 600x600px image
-When it does complete I am left with a hidden outline of the image with no actual image in it.

I am trying to put a plant library together and this would make life soo much easier.

Hi thomthom I noticed you have a new 'merge identical materials' which seems like you had a crack at my request?! Thanks for that.

I have been getting the same errors particularly when I run the cleanup with only 'merge identical materials' checked.
The script still works for older functions.

I'm running sketchup 8 and your latest libraries.

Cheers

Sorry, yes I was talking about Cleanup3.

Thanks for considering ThomThom, and yeah the 'ignore materials' was just using your existing terminology to add the feature.
Ideally it would be something like a "maintain material edges" checkbox.

Cheers mate, look forward to it

I do love this plugin and use it a lot in complex models.

What I would love is for the 'smooth angle' feature to have an 'ignore materials' checkbox, so that coplanar faces of different materials do not merge.
E.g I have an organic surface with paths, lawn and garden beds on it. It would be great if the plugin smoothed the surface but left the edges between surface finishes.

Thanks ThomThom, love your work.

OK it seems thomthom's plugin 'Cleanup' does the job in a round about sort of way, not to mention a few other extremely useful things.

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=22920

Hi Everyone,

I am wondering whether there exists a plugin (or whether someone could make one up) that allows me to select a bunch of connected faces with different materials and different normals and soften all edges within a given angle and with the same material?

An example of how I would use it is in a landscape design, softening all edges along an arbitrarily sloped path and all edges on an adjacent mound, but not the edges between these two material types.

Thanks heaps!

I initially could not get this to work in selection mode, but it worked fine after removing all my other plugins. Must be some incompatibility, I have quite a few.

One thing I did notice is a tendency for scattered objects to be more dense toward the centre of the regions in all cases. I don't know ruby but it seems whatever random function you are using is a bit biased towards the mean.

That being said, what a fantastic script! Keep up the good work Didier!

Hi Ella,

I'm currently using sketchup at our landscape design company. I'm shifting the workflow entirely from AutoCAD to Sketchup, with exception to residential planning (AutoCAD) and planting schedules (Vectorworks).

I've found it to be increasingly useful, especially with rubyscripts like 'drop' and 'quick selection'.

I find it becomes unusable when using a wide selection of high-polygon plant components, which I prefer for residential stuff. This can be fixed with layers, and don't get me started on sketchup 7 not having 64-bit or multi-processor support.

Have you been using it long?