Works great, making the leap to 2015 is the right idea. Email Chaos to see what the issue is. You have the right installer for 2015? I assume you are 64 bit now.
The plugin issue did suck, but it forced me to clean install everything, which allowed for some much needed house cleaning.
How is that material setup? It looks like something is screwing with the UV Mapping.
I wouldn't be paying a render farm then. The point is to get it cooked in a hour or less. If I was going to wait 3 days, I would do it myself. I thought Rebus was working with Chaos on getting their farm to work? I'll check in with them.
Isolate Layer doesnt seem to work anymore in 2015. I use this plugin every day and although it is still very useful, this feature being fixed would make me a happy man!
I use this plugin everyday.
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=446865#p446865
Anything you download from the web like this is going to have issues. Look at the car paint materials on the Chaos site.
It's never shown up on the Chaos site though. Maybe its something they need to enable on their end. I was only able to get it because someone at Chaos sent me a download link.
axyz has a few that you can import from OBJ
A few here of lower quality
It's sad really how little diversity there is in this market.
Not sure why a link was never distributed. Contact Chaos and they should be able to send you a link.
Your reseller should be able to provide you a download link. Otherwise contact Chaos.
Version of SketchUp? Version of V-Ray.
Sounds like you crashed due to memory. I can't stress how important is to upgrade to 2015 64 bit and the latest version of V-Ray 2.0
Anything else is a waste of your time in my honest opinion.
This is a great article on the subject.
If you have a license, then you should have access to the Chaos website which has all the vismat files for download or you can also install the Express Tools from your reseller that provided you license. If you are using a not-so-legal copy, then BUY A LICENSE!
The plant is a dead give away. Get a hi poly proxy and swap that out #1.
Things that achieve realism would are MODEL - LIGHT - MATERIALS - CAMERA
Model it as it is in real life. Corners are not sharp, they are rounded in real like, get RoundCorner plugin.
Light the model the way it is in real life, use IES files, dome light, etc.
Most photos in the real world have imperfections like noise, depth of field, and chromatic aberrations. Look into how to add these in Photoshop
Materials - I would look into getting the Grant Warwick series on materials if you really want to push realism. Its Max/Vray based but the overall principals are the same.
If you are using a dome light, up the subdivs on that. Grain can be controlled using suddivs. I would look into watching the Grant Warwick videos, which are V-Ray for Max but the core principles will really be eye opening for you. I learned a lot about controlling noise this way.
1- RT is not really there yet for VR4SU. I think maybe in future releases you would be able to use RT in production rendering but for now I think most folks use it for testing and low res draft setup of scenes.
2 - Learn to create your own materials. Loading vismats, you will not learn how to control materials or how they work. This material uses displacement, which I would use sparingly. Displacement needs to applied to geometry that sits in its own group, with no other geometry.
For a beginner, I would recommend starting on YouTube at the Chaos page and watch all the videos related to V-Ray for SketchUp. Once you learn these core principals, then look into the video series from Evermotion, which has a lot of great info for the intermediate learner.
There is a material on the Chaos site called Ice Clear, might be a good start.
Not quicker if it renders like crap and take 5X the render time... in my honest opinion. It would take 5 min using 1001 bit pro to model the battens for something like this and its going to render cleaner and a lot faster than displacement. Trust me, I am right there with you. I wish I could do materials like this and corrugated metal and clapboards, but it just doesn't seem to work. Again, let us all know your results if you have success.
