Those settings seem like overkill. What resolution are you rendering? I have found that the results are better if you render higher resolution than you need with lower Image Sampler settings and then scale down the size of the image. For example, if I need a 3000 pixel wide image, I would render at 5000 with my image sampler set to Adaptive DMC Min 1 Max 12 and Threshold set to .007 - .005. If this takes to long to render on your machine, then you can try using .01 threshold. Also, I would turn on any antialiasing filter - this adds to render time and could be why your results are not crisp.

Thought that would get your attention!

Any rumors on the next release and new features?

Awesome utility to set all the veritcals in your image to 90 degrees. http://www.shiftn.de/

Formfonts rocks. Its the #1 resource for all of my models. I was just scouring around to see if there was any ultra high detail landscape out there. I found the Xfrog free set and converted a bunch to SKP and soon realized that these files are monsters. A 700k 3DS file turns into a 100MB SKP file, which is insane to me, but whatever. I converted a few to use for special projects and closeups. It was rather easy, once I found ThomThoms UV tools.

Any news or rumors on a next release? I know the guys are busy with the transition and working on VR for Rhino, but I have heard there are going to be some really awesome new features (maybe proxies) in the next release and I am starting to get a little antsy.

Whatch Fernando's 4 part video on material creation.
http://youtu.be/4KvYhq-dX_0

You dont need the material studio to create materials. I am not sure what you are asking help with. I would make your materials directly in VR4SU using the M button on the toolbar. I would also say that if you are using 1.49.01, the Material Studio lacks some of the new features (i think).

I agree, save as PNG but also make sure you are saving the Alpha Channels in your options and not just the RGB. This is on by default, so if you havent messed with it, than you should be fine. I recommend spending a few bucks on some HQ HDRI images and use those for your GI and BG coupled with the sun system for some casted shadowing. Fernando has a tutorial on Youtube on the trick to accomplish this. I use Peter Gunthrie's HDRIs which are fantastic. You can buy them for $25 each at 3DOcean. Well worth it. I own a few different ones. They also come with high res backplates so you can insert them in Photoshop. Hope this helps.

I would never go back to 6. 8 has the ability to use more RAM and that will help when rendering with V-Ray. I would contact support right away. If it was me, I would just uninstall and reinstall SU first, then reinstall V-Ray and see if that resolves the issue.

Fernando mentioned in a recent tutorial that even off layers are considered when parsing a file. He said that he deletes everything he is not using in a scene and saves a separate file as part of his workflow. I have noticed much faster parsing times when you do this. Not necessarily faster render times though.

I agree. When I do little rooms like this, I copy the model out and delete everything that you dont see in the rendering. Vray for SU looks at the entire model when it parses, so even if you have stuff on off layers, it doesn't matter. I would copy out to a new file, and purge all as well as using Thom Thom's cleanup plugin. Then I would just look at my textures that are left behind and see if there are any large ones (over 1000 pixel in either dimension) and reduce those. I also found that if you are using TIFF files for textures, it can cause issues.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

I look forward to the development of Vray for SketchUp. For now, the plugin is fantastic and I will keep chugging along. Thank you guys!

The merger has been a bit messy. I have sent emails to support and they take about 4 times as long to get a response as they used to. I do not think it has anything to do with ASG though. They are just part if a bigger entity now and are handling not just VR for SU and Rhino, but now support and promote all of the Vray packages throughout the entire US. I bet they are a little overwhelmed and are experiencing some growing pains at the moment. I have full faith that things will be back, even better than before in no time.

Photo has not been edited. Its straight from a point and shoot camera to SU, no fancy lens or anything. I am placing the model into the photo. Vray users will understand my issue. When you render using Match Photo, Vray does not match the view correctly. This has been discussed a few times, but the workarounds are not working for me.

I have seen a few posts about this topic and it seems that the solution is to just slightly rotate the view and use the round number for FOV, but the issue I am having is when I do either of these things, SU changes all the view settings and angles and I end up with a view thats way off (zoomed out and vanishing points are totally way off). I even tried exporting a JPEG of my matched view, then used it as an overlay on a style to match up by eye, and I cant get the perspective even close. I assume that photomtaching dostorts a perspective and your axis in a way that cant be reproduced manually. So does anyone have any tricks to getting photomatch to work with V-Ray 1.49.01?

How is it that a 800k 3DS model becomes a 14MB SU file?? I even opened each image file, reduced it and saved from TIFF to jpeg and png as well as ran CleanUp.

Can I ask how you reduced the file size for some of these? They are huge after import.

Thom Thom figured this out.
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=18992

Man Thom, you seriously kick butt. Thanks!

Does anyone know of a plug-in similar to PaintBack Faces, but with the ability to match the UVW mapping of the front face? Maybe it's possible to twaek the coding of this ruby script? I am trying to convert some Xfrog plants that came in as 3DS, but it just maps the front face on the leaves. So I am looking for the easiest solution to get the mapped leaf on all the back faces too.