@jdeverett said:

Also, I'm using SU Podium, does anyone know if the software is similar enough to Thea that everything should still be "optimized"?

I also have to use Civil3D and the Adobe Suite ...pretty sure I shouldn't expect any issues there either right?

Thanks!

Jay

I haven't gotten my PC yet but this should work very well for you. It has a CPU with a high clock speed and good graphics card. Both of these will help SU and your Adobe Suite to perform well. The CPU is quite good for rendering and will serve Podium very well. I'm not familiar with Civil3D but I'm sure it would also benefit from the good CPU and graphics card.

The SSD will help programs open faster. Adobe, to me, is notorious for long opening times so if you open it several times a day you'll notice a difference there.

-Brodie

Sounds wonderful. I thought that might be a bit of a pipe dream. Glad to hear it's already being worked on and looked into.

-Brodie

Little feature request I'm running into. I'm really excited about the ability to turn off plugins/extensions. What I'm finding though is that it's easy to turn off stuff that causes errors the next time I open SU. Sometimes it seems to be because other plugins which are still enabled were relying on that, now disabled, plugin. Other times, I'm not sure why I get the error.

Anyway, it'd be nice if a little warning popped up to let me know that issues were going to result. Or somehow there was a hierarchy where the plugins that were relying on another one would be visibly categorized underneath that one.

-Brodie

I don't necessarily agree with the tone, but I agree with all the sentiments. The issues you're having can be exacerbated by a slow or old computer but the issues you're bringing up are inherent to SU no matter what PC you have to a great or lesser degree.

File save times can be slow and to make matters worse file sizes are often larger than they "should" be which compounds the issue. By comparison, 3ds Max can save large amounts of geometry pretty quickly with small file sizes (there's even a "compress on save" option that can reduce file sizes by 75%). There are, of course, ways to quickly bloat your file, but even if you utilize good SU file management, the issue is still far from ideal.

I won't go into detail reiterating all of your other points but suffice it to say I fully agree that at this stage better UV mapping, unbroken material management (The inability to save/delete a material in a moderately sized scene, I think, constitutes as broken), etc.

-Brodie

I use SketchUV for this sort of thing and it works perfectly. Just use Tube Mapping and it maps it really well on the rounded edge as well as along curves.

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44501

I believe is a pay script but well worth it for this sort of work. Even more than tube mapping though is the little Path Selection tool that comes with it. It's basically like a "loop" selection tool in 3ds Max and can save tons of time. I probably use that one every day.

-Brodie

One plugin to rule them all, One plugin to find them,
One plugin to bring them all and in the darkness bind them…

Great job guys,

-Brodie

One thing I don't see talked about much is parametric modeling.

One big advantage a program like 3ds Max has is that you can create a sweep, for example, and then go back and edit the line that created it which will affect the final outcome. Follow Me, in comparison, is sort of unintelligent in the sense that if you want to change it you must totally rebuild the geometry each time.

Similarly, being able to adjust the segments in a cylinder or arced plane would be great.

Parametric bends, FFD's, etc.

-Brodie

I'm on board with the parallel projection. I find that when you initially change to PP you'll get some bad clipping, but if you select your geometry and then zoom extents the clipping goes away and you can zoom in as much as you want.

-Brodie

Pete,

I did my own research (I get a bit obsessed with comparing setups whenever I start looking at buying a new computer). Using these setups as a basis I ended up deciding that it was, indeed, the best deal. None of the companies I looked at really had a comparable price. Dell didn't have a comparable product. I could build a system piece by piece for a bit cheaper but last time I did that I ran into some bios issues that created enough of a hassle that I thought this time it would be worth it to have them build the PC, overclock/test it, and warranty it.

Thanks for putting this together. I'm probably going to buy mine in a month or so. I'm planning on going with the least expensive option because I don't need the upgraded video card. I may upgrade the SSD though. I had a little email conversation and was pleased with the customer service so far.

BTW, upgrading to the bigger SSD is $97. I was also informed that if you want them to overclock the CPU you can just let them know in the comments what you'd like it set at. I'm probably going with 4.2 (they recommended 4.0-4.2 to keep a stable system with some longevity).

-Brodie

Precisely! Why didn't I think of the ol' 'layer ball' analogy?

-Brodie

Just found a new one. You can copy a line over and type 10', then, after hitting enter you can type /10 to get 10 equally spaced lines.

I have been doing that as two separate functions forever (copying the line 10' to get the spacing right then copying it back and snapping it to the other line 10' away and THEN hitting /10).

-Brodie

I feel like I've seen something like this before but I've been unable to find it. I always apply my layer attribute to my overall group rather than the actual geometry. However, 3ds Max doesn't recognize layer attributes done this way. Is there a plugin out there that will find the layer name on the group and propagate it down to the actual geometry?

Thanks,

-Brodie

Pete,

I'll let you know for sure but I think I may end up taking advantage of this. I was going to hold out for awhile but this looks like a pretty good deal. Just to verify, basically I just go to your link ( http://www.jncs.com/php2/thea.php ), click the computer setup I want to buy and checkout? No need for promo codes or anything, right?

Thanks,

-Brodie

In another subforum someone mentioned, I believe, that proxies will be a part of the next version of vray for SU. Can anyone flesh this out a bit more for me? Is there any information on when this might be released and/or how this would work? Not having proxies is the main thing that's kept me from trying vfsu rather than going through 3ds max.

-Brodie

@pbacot said:

It seems "Make this component unique, including all nested components. Keep all instances the same" is a possible ruby.

Better one-liner than I was able to come up with. Sounds exactly like what I'm talking about. I'd hoped it was already out there and something I'd missed but it sounds like I'll be doing it manually for awhile longer

-Brodie

The language is a bit complicated here but I think there's a small miscommunication based on your first point. I'll post a little video illustrating my manual solution. I've copied the Option 2 into another location for illustration purposes but normally it would be overlapping with Option 1 and I would toggle between the 2 options.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/384281/nested.swf

-Brodie

That's not a bad workaround Peter. I do, in fact, do this on occasion and it works pretty well. Where it sometimes breaks is when in the cases where there's a component that doesn't change and I bring it back in and it's not disassociated with the other similar components in the main file. It's not an issue at that moment, but sometimes, down the road there is a change to one of those components and I have no good way of knowing/remembering that it's linked with another option's components.

Of course, I guess the workaround to that would be to ALWAYS edit the options in another file but at some point the copy/pasting can be pretty time consuming. Plus you sometimes need references that are in the main file so it's nice to just be able to work in there.

I'm not a big fan of outliner. Not of any fault of outliner, I just work with so many components that I don't bother naming them so my outliner dialogue is nonsensical.

-Brodie

I could perhaps do with a bit less nesting but in general it's a pretty good workflow for what I'm working with. It helps me to group things and make fewer changes. I work with a lot of symmetry so, for example, I can use components to build one side of the building's walls and then mirror it to the other side. Then if I nest some tables in there, those will mirror over as well. And if I have a group of 4 similar tables that's scattered around each option I can make a component of those nested within the mirrored component. It makes future changes much quicker.

The only real downside, other than the current topic, is having to click down to the bottom of the nest. Luckily I've got a programmable gaming mouse so I was able to set up a button that basically performs about 10 left-mouse clicks

-Brodie

I think the issue with each of the solutions is nested components. My example may have been a bit too simplistic. The reality is that I have an overall building (Option 1) that has some nested components within (some walls, tables, windows, etc.), and within those are other components (doors, accessories, etc.).

So if I were to do this manually, I'd copy the overall building component, paste-in-place, make unique. Then I'd go into that component and make the nested components unique so that when I change what's inside it doesn't affect Option #1. Then I have to go into each of those components and select the nested components within for the same reason. And if I accidentally don't make something unique (which happens), then I end up not finding out until I happen to go back and turn on the Option 1 layer (thank goodness for archives and autosaves).

From what I gather, none of the solutions suggested really goes into the nested components at all.

-Brodie

Not a very good title, sorry.

I'm working on a file where I've got a building with lots of components in it which are Option #1. Option #2 will be similar but with some changes to some of the components.

What I'd like to do is to be able to copy Option #1 with all of it's components and have the copy be Option #2. For example, let's say I've got a table component in option 1 which is scattered about. In option 2 I want to change the table component but it's still linked to the tables in Option 1 so I have to manually select all the tables and Make Unique.

I wonder if there's a plugin out there that would do this for me so that when I clone Option 1 it makes all of the components in Option 2 unique so they reference eachother, but not the components from option 1.

Does that make sense?

Honoluludesktop had written something close but not quite what I'm looking for. http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=39178&p=390767&hilit=make+unique+make+components+unique#p390767

This made all of the nested components completely unique. I'd want all of the nested components instances of eachother but not of anything outside of the nest (ie. my selection).

-Brodie