Ive recently done a job for a car show that required a large number of cars in the model with some pretty upclose shots. They were then rendered in Maxwell for Sketchup. Athough, in the end, everything worked out fine, I wanted to throw myself out of the window about every 10 minutes as I watched the little ball spin and spin and spin.

The rendering was not the issue, it was the high poly count car models in the sketchup model. I have finally found a fantastic selection of models with decent detail through HUMSTER 3D, but they get really hard to work with.

Anyone else have this issue or have any idea how to work past it. I want to keep using the cars, but cant seem to get the polycount down enough to have more than a few of them in the model..

Has anyone tried using 3d models from Humster3d? The quality of the models is great as is their response time to converting files to your requested format. The problem that I have, is the quality is so good that it bogs my machine down big time. I want to use their vehicle models, but its pretty challenging.

Any idea how to lower the poly count of the models to better make them work in Sketchup?

So Next Limit Replied to let me know that they would only charge me the difference between the cost of the plug-in and the cost of the suite should I decide to upgrade.

Nice

LB

am I missing something or is the toolbar on the MAC version missing a little? On my PC in SUP7 I could have a ton of tools visible on my tool bar. On my MAC version, it keeps them all in a straight line and cuts them off when it hits the edge of my screen. There are two annoying little arrows that tell me there are more tools off the screen. Is there a way to set it up that creates a second line of tools, either along the top or on the side.

Any help is greatly appreciated

Cheers
LB

One of the companies I work with uses Twilight. It would be my first pick if it were written for MAC. Maxwell seemed like the next best thing to Twilight since I have the platform issue..I could always run Sketchup on my PC, but I do everything on my mac...was trying to avoid that...

Thanks again ....looked at MODO..not completely convinced and the price point is kind of high. I also understand that there are alot of add-ons to pay for in that program..

Anyway, Im interested in the script, but not sure what to do with it when I download it..appears as a .ms file..any idea?

Thanks again for your reply. Generally, it seems that I need a little better understanding of the settings and what each of them do. I also took time this afternoon to mess with the IES lights in the new version of Maxwell Plug In (2.6.10) I was pretty impressed with what I could do so quickly..and keeping the SL level down allowed me to keep adjusting to get closer to what I was after.

As I was posting those photos for you earlier, i quickly realized what you said, the realism in the MR images is so much nicer than in Shader light. The only real advantage that I see of shader light, is its ability to render animation frames. I saw in other posts that you were looking for a good solution to this awhile back. Did you ever find one. Im not interested in taking on 3ds Max, so Ive been looking all over the net at the different options. Maxwell appears to be what Im after for the realism, but it doesnt appear that they offer and animation solution for Sketchup.

Any thoughts there?

Thanks again, your reply was very helpful

Cheers
LB

Brodie

Thanks for your reply. Ive been doing a lot of test runs in my downtime, its all very interesting, but frustrating. Here is what I have so far, realize that I dont really know what Im doing. Im trying to get the best results possible, as quickly as possible...I do understand photography to some level, so I appreciate your analogy..they should put that on the side of the box..

Here is my last render. THis is an interior with a ceiling..no lights, as Im using the free version and havent figured out emitters yet. My settings are SL15, Fstop 49, Sun inensity at 10. Took about 60 minutes to render

Im also including the same, with a little more detail added, model rendered in Shaderlight trial with a couple of lights I added incredibly easily..

Jason

If I purchased the paid plugin would there be a upgrade to the suite, or is it still a full purchase?

@jason_maranto said:

Yeah at $800 for VRay you could get the full Maxwell Render Suite for less at $700 which offers much more room to grow beyond just working inside SketchUp.

The others I don't know very well, so hopefully somebody else can comment.

Best,
Jason.

Ive seen this mention of the Maxwell render suite for $700 a few times. Is this still the case somewhere? It appears that it is currently going for $995.

I think that this is a topic that has been beaten to death on this forum. Ive read many pages of comments regarding the ability/inability to render lit interiors in the Maxwell free plug-in.

I do television set design work, which is mostly interiors. Ive done a lot of experimenting with settings for getting things evenly lit and eliminating roughness from the textures, but things still come out grainy and dark. Based on some other things ive read on here, Ive increased fstop to get brighter images as well as kicked up the sun intensity or switched to Physical sky settings..the results continue to frustrate me...and then there is render time..which on TV schedule can be a little unforgiving.

Is there a tutorial or settings forum that I havent seen that might more clearly explain the basics of how to approach this? Will purchasing the licensed plug-in help this, or am I just using the wrong software for my application?

Any help is appreciated.

LB