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Create a new SketchUp material using your PNG the normal way (create material button in the material palette). Apply it to some geometry... after that you can set Maxwell character type to whatever you want -- in this quick example I used ThinSSS (just to do something different).
Best,
Jason.
I think you are making a very large assumption about my lack of understanding -- I sometimes find your stances on technical issues to be condescending towards the general user base as well... I get the distinct impression that you think we are all incapable of using powerful/complex tools and need your great wisdom and insight to guide all of us idiots into 3D nirvana.
I know exactly what 64-bit will give me and it has everything to do with my render engine.
Direct SketchUp performance is an afterthought to me in this discussion... because my render engine cost me more than twice what SketchUp Pro did, so my first concern is getting the most out of that purchase.
If Sketchup can't or won't deliver to the level of a basic industry standard, it's not that difficult to find a replacement that will, after all virtually every other professional 3D package supports 64-bit without issue.
I enjoy using SketchUp, but I also need a professional tool -- and right now Layout is the best thing SketchUp Pro has going for it.
Alternately, you could simply go with truth in marketing and remove the "Pro" from the name -- and then I would have little to complain about.
Best,
Jason.
@thomthom said:
Layout wasn't getting much love fro Google. Things are changing under Trimble.
I consider that to be most excellent news 
Best,
Jason.
Once upon a time Layout supported multi-core, but due to problems this was dropped and I don't believe it was ever fixed/reinstated... this to me is absurd because Layout is very much a render engine.
I wonder how long the user base will accept the "it's too hard"/"we don't have the resources" excuses... I mean really, after observing the situation for the last several versions, I think that if all the time and energy put into making excuses for why we can't have/shouldn't want these things was instead routed into coding work we would have a vastly superior product... instead we got alot of lip service.
Google is gone, time for talk is done -- it's results we need now... and not more "kinda fixed" solutions like the toolbars joke.
Best,
Jason.
Yep, both of those used displacement -- which is a shame because they really didn't need it, so I made edited versions for you without displacement:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/41250852/j_edited_concretes.zip
For that matter I have already made hundreds of free SketchUp materials with linked MXM's for all of the Arroway textures (including the Concrete set), which you can get here:
While it's true the Arroway textures (http://www.arroway-textures.com/) can be slightly expensive, you will find they are the best in the business... and by using my sets you will have whatever you want already ready to use just like any normal Sketchup material.
Best,
Jason.
I found the thread on the Maxwell forum that identified this r2/AMD issue:
Best,
Jason.
I can say (based on what I see with Benchwell) that you and I are running about the same system specs, and while that is not an easy to resolve scene (noise-wise) for the draft engine, I would get much farther than SL 12 leaving it overnight.
So it does indeed seem that something is amiss with either the scene itself or (more likely) there are other processes on your computer that are taking up system resources while Maxwell is trying to render.
The first thing I would do (if you have not already done so) is to disable SketchUp auto-save (in the preferences).
I also disable all auto-updating software and any screen savers as well -- although I do not keep my rendering machine hooked to the internet (since anti-virus software suck up too much system resources for my liking).
Also, I remember that there is an issue specifically with certain AMD processors rendering scenes with r2 enabled materials much slower than Intel processors -- something to do with how the two company's vary in their optimization of certain calculations. Common materials that use r2 are "satin" and "velvet" materials, but it can be used in "car paint" and many other types of materials... to test your scene for this I would do a clay-render first. A clay-render will override all material in the scene (except emitters) and reveal the fastest that the scene can be rendered... any slowdown from that point is simply due to extra complexity in the calculations due to the materials you are using.
To do a clay-render go into the Maxwell Scene manager to the Output tab, and to the materials subheading. Check the box next to the word "override" and browse to load the material I have attached.
Best,
Jason.
Its hard to say for sure without having the SketchUp file... but 10 minutes is not a long time to reach SL 16 (with any scene).
If you were using the full version of Maxwell I'd tell you to run Benchwell: http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/benchwell -- but you should see something close to your system specs there anyway.
Best,
Jason.
Yeah definitely, the way the plugin interprets SketchUp material Opacity is not good for this type of stuff -- partially because it always makes it shiny (to mimic glass).
Best,
Jason.
That's a valid point -- for while now we've all been re-using this thread:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=41040
So there alot of information in there already, there are a few others, but that is the one I use myself... I actually get an email whenever somebody posts to that thread so I know there's something here I need to look at.
Best,
Jason.
If you just need a colored transparent object the best thing to do is to use the SketchUp material controls to reduce the opacity and leave the Maxwell character type set to automatic.
If you want a true dielectric glass/plastic then there are a couple of things to be aware of : first the object you are applying the material to must be a closed volume (SketchUp Solid). Second, these types of materials can take a very long time to render.
That said if you do want a colored glass/plastic it can be done using the SSS character type... Just reduce the "Density" to 0 to make it transparent(rather than translucent) -- the thickness controls the power of the color (attenuation), lower thickness makes the color stronger.
Best,
Jason.
Glad you got it sorted -- it's not rules perse but there have been issues here in the past in regards to this forum which is for shared use by many different 3rd party software.
I'd rather not go through that again so I just wanted to preemptively reduce the possibility of conflict.
Best,
Jason.
There was similar issue with Painter 12 when it was released and I came up with the same solution (manually set affinity) -- eventually they released a patch that allowed the user to specify the number of cores used in the preferences.
This is something that should be trivial for SketchUp to do.
Best,
Jason.
Can you PM me an example?
Also, in the future try to keep your Maxwell questions to one thread rather than making a new thread every time you have a new question -- that fills up this forum with your questions very rapidly... which can inadvertently irritate other users.
Best,
Jason.
The full render suite installs a thumbnail viewer so that you can view the material previews like you would any other program thumbnail... however I'm pretty sure the stand-alone plugin does not have this due to the lack of MXED.
I really feel like the lack of MXED is crippling to the stand alone version and I hope this is resolved somehow in future updates... as a user of the stand alone plugin my number one request would be to either improve the material editing controls in the plugin itself or include MXED in the package and I would make those requests directly here:
If enough users make the request I'm sure something would happen.
Best,
Jason.
You should never ever use "white" RGB 255 with Maxwell -- Maxwell is based on spectral color calculations and in that colorspace "white" RGB 225 is the value of a white sheet of paper.
See here: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Reflectance
I also cover these basic Maxwell concepts here: http://www.vtc.com/products/Maxwell-Render-2-Tutorials.htm
I do explain why bright colors are not the same in some of the embedded character type materials in my "SketchUp to Maxwell" VTC course, but that requires that you have MXED (part of the full Maxwell Render Suite) and know how to use it (either from watching my Maxwell course or some other means) in order to understand the mechanisms at work. The bottom line is many of those character-based materials auto-mix with a grey material (it's actually a BSDF but that means nothing to you) to control the gloss -- unfortunately the grey material also pollutes the purity of the color in the process.
Perhaps this video may help to understand the issue a little bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sof2gfMQXwc
Best,
Jason.
The free versions draft engine is designed to be used with simple lighting -- so an emitter only scene is OK, as is any type of environmental lighting (HDR, Skydome, Physical Sky)... however combining them is not going to be easy.
I've seen plenty of nice interiors using just Physical Sky or HDR only, and it will be just fine, but add a emitter to the interior and you are asking for noise that may not resolve until very high SL.
This also happens with the production engine to a lesser degree because of unbalanced emitter power. Maxwell is optimized to resolve the noise from powerful emitters first, leaving the noise from weaker emitters until higher SL... and as I said before the sun is much more powerful than any interior light.
If I was intent on rendering a daytime interior with the free plugin I would use Physical Sky only... but be warned that interiors always take longer than exteriors due to the more complex light bounces that must occur within an enclosed space.
IMO the draft engine included in the free plugin is most ideal for exterior shots with environmental lighting, or product renders where you can use emitters without needing to be within an enclosed space. Interiors benefit significantly from the regular Maxwell engine, known as "production" within the paid version of the stand-alone plugin.
Best,
Jason.
PM me the SketchUp file (with the MXMs) and I will take a look.
Best,
Jason.
Well that's the sticky wicket isn't it -- I don't really do Architectural stuff, or at least not traditional stuff (more sci-fi/fantasy)... so I could not say what an architectural person would say for sure.
However I'm of the mindset that good modeling is good modeling, and usually when I get past the "anti-SketchUp snobbery" I encounter elsewhere I often find underneath is a solid reason for disliking SketchUp. Namely the geometry that SketchUp creates is not terribly good in many cases (sometimes the fault of the program, but often the fault of the modeler using it)... and when those users are forced to deal with SketchUp made geometry in other apps it is frustrating (to say the least). The same complaints are often made about Revit, but since I don't know anything about that software I cannot confirm.
Now to be fair it IS called "SketchUp", and one would think the choice of name is purposely telling you that this is meant more for "Sketches", rather than high-end models (and results often bear that out).
I'm not into undermining this forum with talking too much about specific competing products, but I will say that after spending considerable time with the latest version of form.Z I found it to be much more powerful than SketchUp Pro, even with a slew of free and paid plugins... it is often used for architectural work, and the price is not far off from Pro.
My reservations about that software really came down to some odd UI things I wanted sorted out before I tried to teach it -- If I was using it only for personal work I would have purchased for sure, but I didn't want to spend the first 2 hours of my course explaining how to customize the UI... I prefer to cover those topics after the student has a understanding of how to use the tools, so they can customize with their own workflow in mind, rather than blindly follow my lead. So my intention was to include some UI presets to get through the bulk of the course quickly, but they were having issues with monitors of differing resolutions on some operating systems exploding the UI (think SketchUp toolbars problem but worse).
Personally, for the work I am more likely to do, I think I would prefer Modo, but that software has some issues of it's own -- I decided to hold off there due to a relatively underdeveloped/immature API for 3rd party plugins (namely my render engine). And I didn't choose MoI (my other top choice) for the same reason (non-existent API).
My other main 3D related softwares are geared more towards organics and high-end textures . As it stands I'm am taking the "wait and see" approach with how things pan out with Trimble -- if things don't move in a direction I like I will make a switch at that time... I can say for sure that I already really hate the decision to do an Autodesk-like annual release (SketchUp 2013... lame).
Best,
Jason.
I'm not sure about all of this. I am deeply conflicted about SketchUp because I do know it so well, but I'm also equally aware of the competitions strengths. I cannot tolerate elitists snobs, but at the same time I find it difficult to entirely dismiss their dislike of Sketchup as unfounded (or based on jealousy, etc.).
It's true there are no perfect modeling packages, and it is also true that most pro packages cost more than SketchUp Pro -- however there are free alternatives that beat SketchUp free in terms of sheer power (I can name several), and also a few that beat SketchUp free in terms of intuitive interface (although they lack some power).
So I think the thing to bear in mind is while SketchUp is good (not great) for what it is, it is very limited (even with free ruby plugins to flesh it out)... to make it suit a power modelers needs needs you really need to purchase pay plugins (several come to mind). And by the time you do that along with purchase pro you will find that it becomes much closer in price to more powerful applications.
I feel the only real strength that SketchUp has over the competition at this point is the large and active user base -- which really compensates for most of the glaring weaknesses of the software by delivering work-arounds, tips, and plugins (often free of charge)... and also the 3rd party vendors who also prop up the weaknesses of the software (often for profit).
This lack of real power may (and hopefully will) change in the future due to the intervention of Trimble -- but it could just as easily not. Part of that is due to the fact that the dev team has made it very clear that they do not see SketchUp as a solution for power modelers... so it's inevitable that the best will eventually outgrow the package, or at the very least supplement it with other packages. Bender seems to be the popular choice for this here, I personally made different choices, but the end result is the same: SketchUps limitations force users to embrace other software to grow.
Best,
Jason.