Maxwell Render

JD, have you guys at NL had any interaction with the folks at Google SU? I've had several back and forths with John Bacus (SU's product manager) on various forums regarding things like 64-bit and his typical response isn't very nuanced, although I think he understands more than he lets on sometimes. This is pretty typical, http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/s ... 20df&hl=en

I'm curious as to whether Google has had any input from folks working on some pretty advanced plugins to the Pro version of their software and why it is exactly that 64-bit is of value.

-Brodie

google earth/warehouse models don't need 64bit!

I spoke with John a bit at Siggraph, but I got no more indication then that SketchUp will be moving to 64-bit than you will find in the various conversations which have taken place on the web. Generally it is people interested in writing and using render plugins who make the case for 64-bit (it seems that many people have somehow gotten 64-bit support mixed up with a desire for so-called 'multicore' support in SU -- the two are of course entirely unrelated), and the consensus answer comes to us in the form of: if you want to use more memory, move your work out of SketchUp's process. In plain english, that means that you would see an extra entry in Task Manager/Activity Monitor. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, it's not, but that is basically what will happen, and I am currently working on the extra (extra, with respect to every single other host application that Maxwell plugs into) infrastructure it implies. I can justify investing the time required to build this, provided that I do it in such a way as to be able to reuse it elsewhere in the future.

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Next Limit Team

Very interesting.

The 'extra' application sounds very interesting. I've heard John refer to that idea before but haven't understood, really how that would work. I'm guessing that it would be sort of a go-between? Like, if you were to use it for Fire, you'd move your camera in SU and a ruby plugin would send the info out to this app. which would then update the scene? Is that more or less what you're talking about it layman's terms?

-Brodie

Yes, that's the basic setup.

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Next Limit Team

Hey JD,

While you're improving Sketchup for us can you add on a UV unwrap utility

Did I mention how ridiculous I sometimes felt reading the answers to the "Google is listening" thread on Sketchucation ... I just got done with a video series on Sketchup 8 Pro and I focused on Dynamic Components and Layout because that's where all the best stuff is for Pro users and I don't see that changing .

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

yes, please!

Welp, it would certainly tilt the rendering scale for SU users in Maxwell's direction! I could see some folks forking out the $999 for a SU UV unwrapper utility with a pretty darn good renderer tacked on

-Brodie

JD this is a question and maybe a request.

Is it correct that I'm finding that after export from SU if one does an undo (in SU not in the plugin) that the undo is undoing stuff recorded during export? So meaning say the move of objects etc just prior to the export are now way back in history?

Mate if this is the case would it be possible (naive here) to keep these goings on during export separate or not recorded to SU's history so to speak? Just so that undo's still directly effect the last geometry changes? I understand this may not be a possibility!

Cheers mate!

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Move your arse and your mind will follow!

I don't think there's any way to avoid that, but I'll take a look anyway.

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Next Limit Team

Cheers mate! Yeah I figured that as the actions zipping by on SU's status line at the bottom maybe hundreds of things are going on in the background.

I guess if there was a plugin that could record say the last 5 things prior to export from any plugin would be a worthwhile tool, not suggesting even JD generated. Not a big hassle but often before a test I'll do something for the test but the undo lost.

I guess it would still need to be within the plugin as the plugin would need to retain a fly of steps or read SU's history upon export. More shit I guess!

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Move your arse and your mind will follow!

Is there a way to turn off the "'filename.mxs' already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?" popup that comes up at export?

-Brodie

Yes, but currently, only by editing code. Specifically, in export.rb, you would need to comment out (i.e. put a '#' in front of, in case you don't remember that) lines 23-30 like this:



At some point, I'll make this a user-configurable option.

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Next Limit Team

JD, when you export to studio, many of the materials add a [#] to the end. What does that indicate?

-Brodie

In the API, unique textures are identified using a 'handle', which is an integer identifying a particular one. Depending on which entities use a material, and how they use it, a given material in the SketchUp UI may have any number of corresponding unique textures contained inside the document. The plugin uses the texture handle to name materials in Maxwell uniquely.

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Next Limit Team