Maxwell Render

hello JD
my problem is if I want to use hi-res (arroway) textures ...to copy them to Skp to position and change scale etc...it simply doesn't work. They are about 30Mb...is there some way(similar to proxy components) to use smaller texture in Skp to relate it to larger in maxwell.
I believe textures can not be manipulated (scale and position) in maxwell
thanks
tony

Not sure what you mean by "doesn't work" -- I assume you mean it slows SketchUp down. Regardless, the basic function you are asking for has been requested before, but the plugin does not currently provide any specific workaround. There are various ways you can work around it yourself, though, for instance:

• say you have an Arroway MXM named brick.mxm, which uses several huge textures
• pick which of its textures you'd like to see in SketchUp, and make a reduced copy of it
• make a SketchUp material named brick, put your reduced texture in it, and apply it
• turn on Auto MXM in the plugin

When you render, the plugin will find brick.mxm and use it, instead of generating a material from the brick SketchUp material. As far as not being able to manipulate textures in Maxwell, if you mean Studio, then yes, you can do that; see the UV Sets topic on p. 106 of the Maxwell Render manual. You can use any number of different mapping types (cubic, planar, spherical, etc.) for generating UVs in Studio -- it is much more powerful than SketchUp in this area.

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Next Limit Team

I believe this may be more of an issue of how to do this for the stand-alone plugin -- where there is no way to create an external MXM.

There are a couple of ways to do this in the stand-alone plugin (when it comes to size) and I could help you but ultimately it will not be satisfactory without using MXED because there is currently no way to use the arroway specular maps in the stand-alone plugin.

I do have a set of MXM's and linked SketchUp files made already for the Arroway Edition One set http://www.arroway-textures.com/en/products/edition-1 -- if you would like those I can PM links to you (with instruction as to where to put the high-rez textures and MXM's).

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

BTW I am completely open to creating and sharing the whole library for Arroway in both MXM and linked SketchUp materials (and even some pre-made SketchUp components like columns to proper scale)... but I do not own the textures beyond the first set and I would have to purchase them, which is currently not in my budget.

If users want to chip in to make this happen I will be happy to do the whole library for the cost of the textures.

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

On the original topic, there is actually a much simpler way; given an MXM mxm.mxm, which uses a texture, texture.jpg:

1. downsize texture.jpg as texture_thumb.jpg.
2. import mxm.mxm into the model and assign it.
3. in its SketchUp material, assign texture_thumb.jpg.

However you map the texture in SketchUp, it will render the same in Maxwell, except that the full-resolution map will be used, since that's what is referenced by the MXM.

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Next Limit Team

Hello Jason,
I would like to try those,if you can send me the link please. I am quite new to maxwell,and discovering Studio too,which is exciting, but texturing in Skp is easy so any "link up " between Skp and Maxwell sound good--- I will try JD's suggestion too.
**I have bought your 3cd training set,but not yet time to check it all...will over holidays.Also, would be ready to participate in buying textures.thank you
tony

Hello Jason, JD
I would like to try those,if you can send me the link please. I am quite new to maxwell,and discovering Studio too,which is exciting, but texturing in Skp is easy so any "link up " between Skp and Maxwell sound good--- I will try JD's suggestion too.
**I have bought your 3cd training set,but not yet time to check it all...will over holidays.Also, would be ready to participate in buying textures.thank you
tony

I decided to share these for everybody who may want them here... this will be particularly useful for users of the new stand-alone plugin.

These are the MXM's and Sketdchup materials (with ready-to-use components) for the Arroway Textures Edition 1 set.

To use these MXM's you will need to purchase and install the full-rez Arroway Textures (edition 1 set) into the appropriate folders. If you have any installation issues please refer to the first couple of videos here:

http://www.vtc.com/products/Google-SketchUp-to-Maxwell-Render-Workflow-Tutorials.htm

If you already have my Google SketchUp to Maxwell Render Workflow video tutorial series then you will have these in the workfiles.

Here are the download links:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41250852/Arroway/MXMs.zip

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41250852/Arroway/Sketchup%20Materials.zip

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41250852/Arroway/ArrowayComponents.zip

You'll need to drop the full-rez Arroway textures into the appropriate Arroway MXM Library folders so they will be seen by the Maxwell materials automatically.

The SketchUp materials should just reside in the normal SketchUp materials folder -- and the SketchUp components should be dropped into the components folder.

Whatever you do with the low-rez textures in SketchUp will generate the UV's that will control the full-rez textures in Maxwell. The thing to note is you do not want to change the scale of these in SketchUp because the Arroway materials were shot from real-world objects -- which means they have an actual real-world scale, which is exactly what I defined in SketchUp when creating these materials.

The components I included an are extension of that same idea as some of the textures are not meant to be tiled at all (and others are meant to be tiled in only one direction) -- so the component is actually the Arroway texture as it is meant to be used.

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

Big textures.....
Thanks JD...that worked,making small jpg corresponds with mxm. with large textures. Somehow Fire did not show it even after restart, but it showed in Studio,correctly scaled from Sketchup.
If I can ask you about another small issue.I am using your RAL Tiles library,but Skp shows only proxy tile graphic,with no colour (same with RAL painted walls)....Maybe it is supposed to be like that,but it would be good to see colour of tiles.
I have put them in appropriate folders,and tried few other options....but it does not work...( maybe Mac OS issue?)
thank you
tony

Make sure you use the SketchUp material libraries I made for the RAL MXM lines here:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=37757

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1