Excellent advice as always TIG. Thanks

I'm trying to free up disk space. Will uninstalling SU 2015, 2106 & 2017 compromise my 2018 Pro installation ? I was worried the uninstall might take with it some crucial files.

I'm a huge fan of Sketchup, always have the latest edition and use it professionally for my garden design works. However, the "updates" in recent years have been seriously underwhelming and not something worthy of much anticipation. If they brought out some cool new features for 2019, that would be great, but I'm not expecting much.

@box said:

There is an update within the new version to fix this issue. Problem is you need to update it to get the update.
So, go to the Extension Warehouse in a browser and download it as a .rbz and install it manually using the Install Extension button in Extension Manager and it should update as needed in future.

Thanks, I followed this advice and it solved the problem - cheers !

Every time I start up Sketchup 2018, Extension Manager advises me I have an extension to update, which is always "Trimble Connect". If I try to update it I get a message saying, "Failed to update Trimble Connect. Unable to complete download".

It's not an extension I use and so sometimes I ignore the popup. A few times I've tried to update it and I get the message previously stated and I have also tried deleting the extension but it appears again next time.

Any ideas on what the issue is ?

Thanks.

I haven't had a single problem with it yet.

Thanks for this reply. I will have to play about with proxies in my next model. It's not something I've done before. I've tended to go the route so far of having complex plants, etc. on a layer I open only when looking at or rendering a particular scene. I am no expert, so I'm unsure if that keeps the SU model as light and maneuverable, (with the layer(s) switched off) as having proxies in place.

@hornoxx said:

Hi Gary and Pixero
I´m using Shaderlight as my main render tool but unfortunately it is not able to handle Skatter files so far. I hope that this will change, sometime

As long, as Pixero´s DIY Hedges are finished SU files which no longer need any connection to Skatter itself in the background, Shaderlight will be able to render these. Shaderlight's "Replace Me Creator" works fine which makes it possible at least to replace complex geometry by lightweight proxy geometry within SketchUp as seen in this linked example

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40%26amp;t=67665#p620146

Anyway you will probably have to adjust the used textures within Shaderlight´s material presets, so that these present the desired render result.

@ Pixero: if possible Gary and I could make a little Shaderlight testing using a small sample file from you?

Best

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

@pixero said:

They are normal SketchUp files with textures included so they should work with all render engines.

Special render material settings like specularity, translucency and bump needs to be applied for all render engines exept Thea as I have that one myself.
Let's not forget they are D.I.Y Hedges...

Please note that you will need the Skatter plugin for it to work. Skatter has the option to create the skattered geometry at rendertime only but you'll have to check which renderers are supported.
It can also create the geometry in the SketchUp scene but for dense things SketchUp might become unresponsive. That is a limitation of SketchUp.
If you have to do it that way, turning off edges will help speed things up.

Does anyone know if the DIY Hedges package, currently offered in the SU Shop will work with Shaderlight ? It says, "Materials are set up for Thea render but textures are included for other render engines", but doesn't say which ones. I'm also wondering if the package is optimised for Thea Render and has less functionality for other render packages ?

Purchased, read through and thoroughly recommend.