Posts made by jason_maranto

Gotcha, so basically you are saying that all the information about licensing procedure that Trimble puts out (including the Eula) is somehow unintelligible because of cultural differences. I disagree, and I think I am giving more credit to those people in these situations than you are.

I am nobody's cop -- I didn't ban anybody. I am just pointing out the extremely obvious truth that this type of piracy is at the very least unnecessary, and in most cases just the result of laziness and complacency. For the record my stuff has been and is being pirated all around the world constantly. I know personally what this is like (do you?), and have never done anything to try to stop it... or even speak out about it.

I have had users in countries where it is not legal (due to sanctions) to purchase my stuff email me directly and apologize that they were not able to pay because of world politics. I have always been understanding and helpful, telling them their obligation to me is paid if they also freely share what they have learned from me with their countrymen. That is my reality -- to you this may be abstract, but I see this in person. So please don't act like you have some special insight into the high view here.

Best,
Jason.

And you just sidestepped the point... what you are saying has absolutely no relevance to the point that it does not need to happen at all in the first place.

But to humor you, what if for instance Trimble decided to institute a region blocking scheme for countries where the culture was deemed "too different" to be a viable for a business venture (your examples of China and India). That is not discrimination, that is simply an practical evaluation of potential profitability and prudent protection of their assets. However, I would be willing to bet that some users within those regions are willing to pay -- why should they be penalized for the poor behaviour of others?

Again I come back to the reality that theft does not need to happen in this age of open source software -- nearly anything you need can be had for free, and if enough people use it they will become the new industry standards.

Best,
Jason.

Jeff, I am not inclined to get into a lengthy debate over morality or world politics -- however I do feel compelled to point out that clearly there are viable (and even excellent) alternatives to piracy:

1. SketchUp Free
2. Other free modeling softwares (too many to list)
3. Open source softwares (Blender comes to mind first)

Instead of arguing about the inherent unfairness of the software pricing system, I would simply point out that legal alternatives are abundant -- so clearly to use a pirated version is a willful act of theft.

Your framing of theft as justified by socio-political and economic factors seems to completely ignore that fact that it does not need to occur at all, and in fact is nothing more than being too lazy to look for a legal alternative among the huge list of available options. The tragedy there is by supporting open source softwares the pirates could actually help level the economic playing field and thereby make the world a better place.

Best,
Jason.

With or without -- however it should be obvious that without Realflow some of the things that could make a more realistic sea (like foam maps and sea spray) will not be possible. Maxwell sea simply does the waves as you can see clearly in the documentation I linked.

Yes, you can use this feature with RealFlow -- The relevant support information can be found here:

http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mxdocsv3/SketchUp+Extensions

and here:

http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mxdocsv3/Maxwell+Sea

A beta is available for the new SketchUp 2015 plugin here: http://www.maxwellrender.com/betas/plugin/19

However it requires that you also also use the Beta for Maxwell 3.1 which you can get here: http://www.maxwellrender.com/betas/plugin/22

This is an open Beta, so please post any issues you might be having on the Maxwell forums so they can fix any bugs/workflow issues:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/index.php

Best,
Jason.

I had the same issue when I installed using my removable USB wireless adapter -- if I removed the adapter I would get the "SketchUp cannot start due to a licensing error" message.

What I found to be true in my case was I needed some type of network hardware active in order to start SketchUp -- but did not need to be actually connected to the internet. Something to do with the SketchUp license being tied to that particular machine as identified via a MAC address.

In my case I had some Ethernet ports on my computer that I usually keep disabled (because they are not connected to anything) -- by enabling them and re-licensing SketchUp I was able to remove the USB wireless adapter and still start SketchUp (because the Ethernet ports supply the needed MAC address, even though they are not connected to anything).

Best,
Jason.

Yes, that will use whatever is available on your system.

What is actually available will depend on what other software you have running and how many cores they are using at the time.

Best,
Jason.

That will be dependent on what you have in the scene -- as long as you use AGS for all of your windows and don't use any SSS materials (other than thin SSS), you should expect your renders to be clear somewhere between SL 15-20 (depending on how picky you are).

The other main things that can cause issues with noise is:

1. using materials with a reflectance color higher than RGB 225 -- which is roughly the reflectance of white paper, so there is rarely a need to go higher in realistic scenes anyway (and never over RGB 247).

2. unrealistically reflective surfaces, especially near emitters -- the worst cases of this involve users modeling light fixtures using emitters and perfect mirror type materials (roughness 0, which doesn't exist outside of laboratory conditions) as reflectors. That is definitely a bad idea -- it is much faster to use IES lights instead if you need a particular falloff. The only reason to fully model a lighting fixture is if you are going to be looking directly at it (and even then you can fake it pretty well with some workarounds -- check the Maxwell forum for hints).

Leaving an opening into "space" somewhere (off camera) in your scene can help speed things up because that gives a place for the light bounces to escape -- which will reduce noise (this is part of the reason exteriors render so much faster -- light can only bounce a few times there before it shoots off into space).

Best,
Jason.

Two things:

1. Maxwell needs as many cores (threads) as you can give it -- the more cores, the faster it will render.

2. Fire is a decent rendering option for exterior shots, however I have rarely seen great results when doing interiors -- this is especially true if you are rendering with mixed emitters in the scene (rather than lighting your scene only with the Physical Sun/Sky or IBL).

Fire was created solely with the intention of being a preview rendering option for the Maxwell production engine -- therefore it is only designed to handle simple lighting scenarios well. Complex lighting is much better rendered using the Maxwell production engine -- with interiors being one of the more complex things you can render in Maxwell.

So to sum it up, I would say adding cores (threads) to the job (minimum of 8 for reasonable speed) and switching to the production engine would be very likely to give you much better and faster results when rendering interiors.

Best,
Jason.

@krisidious said:

You know what it is... Sketchup wants to look for second seats. If you have an SU Pro seat running in your office and try to start up another SU Pro at another computer on the same network it will not load. I bet it just wants the Ethernet card to do it's check.

Yes, that sounds very plausible given the outcome.

Hopefully if anybody else runs afoul of this issue they will find this thread helpful -- I searched the knowledgebase repeatedly trying to find a solution before finally coming here.

Best,
Jason.

Ok, I found a workable solution as a result of the responses here.

I normally keep the onboard ethernet adapters disabled (to save on power consumption). But I found this licensing system requires some type of networking hardware to be in place when licensing (and thereafter) to be able to work offline.

So here is what I did:

1. Remove the existing license
2. Enable the ethernet ports (even though I won't be using them)
3. Plugin the USB wireless adapter and connect to the internet
4. License SketchUp
5. Remove the USB adapter

Now SketchUp starts as it should offline -- but if I disable the ethernet ports it will show a screen saying SketchUp was licensed on a different computer. I guess it is not a big deal to leave the ethernet ports active, I was never sure how much power I was saving there anyway.

Thanks for the responses.

Best,
Jason.

Interesting -- I just tried something and I see what the issue is.

I use a USB wireless adapter to connect to the internet -- if I remove the USB adapter the program will not start.

If I instead simply disconnect from the internet, but leave the adapter plugged in, the program will start.

So somehow the licensing system requires the hardware I used to connect to be in place -- in this case the USB adapter is behaving like a dongle. I really dislike this... if they want to force me to use a dongle then why not use ilok so I can take the license with me wherever I go?

Best,
Jason.

I have a single user commercial license for SketchUp 2015 Pro, however I am unable to start the program when offline.

This is an issue since I do not keep my workstation connected to the internet, nor do I even have a internet connection at work.

I did not see anything in the software/hardware requirements stating the need for an active internet connection (outside of some web-based features), so I can only assume the software licensing system is defective in some way.

Does anybody know what is going on with this?

Best,
Jason.

@tt_su said:

@jason_maranto said:

However I will be expecting a noticeable performance gain with 3rd party engines rendering within SketchUp's process.

The effect should mainly be that SketchUp doesn't crash as the render engine consumes more memory. Performance improvements would be the result of other changes and optimizations.

My render engine renders faster in 64-bit than 32-bit -- I couldn't say about other render engines, but I personally am expecting roughly a 10% speed increase when rendering inside SketchUp.

Best,
Jason.

Bear in mind that to take any program from 32-bit to 64-bit means refactoring all of the old code (this is mostly due to Apples rather stringent 64-bit coding requirements) -- reworking all of that code can have the effect of improving the performance of the software in many subtle ways (just by virtue of getting a fresh perspective on old code).

Those newly reworked bits will often also benefit the 32-bit versions performance.

My only expectation of 64-bit in SketchUp was to enable SketchUp to be a better platform for extensions that wanted to run in 64-bit inside SketchUp. This is a big deal because it enables 3rd parties to code extensions for SketchUp more easily, and in ways that will work better for their software. Since SketchUp is primarily a platform for extensions, anything that makes it easier for the extension developers is an extremely good thing for the end user.

I would not expend alot of energy trying to tie 64-bit capability to SketchUp performance in and of itself. Most performance gains would be a "side effect" of the conversion process. However I will be expecting a noticeable performance gain with 3rd party engines rendering within SketchUp's process.

I also was one of the (apparently rare) users who ran out of memory in modeling operations -- so I expect those issues to be resolved as well.

For most users I think the biggest working performance bottleneck has always been the openGL "styles" rendering -- and these have also been reworked in 2015 with the "fast styles" approach... I think this is a bigger deal for people who only work in SketchUp (however I know of very few people who use SketchUp without a 3rd party render engine).

Also the face finder rework is something that should benefit previously slower processes as well -- so it is not as simple as saying that the only performance difference is because of 64-bit.

Best,
Jason.

Triple-click to select the entire thing and use the Window>Soften Edges panel to re-smooth or soften.

Best,
Jason.

@krisidious said:

Been dying to see your post on the whole 64 now thing...

I got what I wanted (even if there is still grumbling in this thread from Trimble people regarding doing it). Fair is fair, they did what I required, so it is time for me to uphold my end.

Where it goes from here is anyone's guess... but at least I can justify this upgrade fee. I still don't like the attitude -- but as long as they do what is needed to keep the software competive they can be grumpy all they like.

Best,
Jason.

I did say that if SketchUp Pro got 64-bit that I would definitely buy it -- so it is time for me to put my money back into SketchUp Pro.

Best,
Jason.

@mike lucey said:

Maranto, its becoming tiring!

Jason, I imagine the above statement may not sit all that well with you. Possibly because of the 'Maranto' address. I imagine you would have no problem with the suggestion of you being 'tiring' as you are more than capable of arguing your point

Fair enough -- I know full well what I've been up to is abrasive, which was fully intentional.

There's plenty more that could be said on many levels, but at the end of the day it all comes down to each individuals tolerance. I reached mine already a while ago... and I have seen nothing to change my mind in the interim. So I will go back to occasionally lurking to see if anything has changed... but I certainly am not holding my breath.