how compatible with max2009/vray?

[deconstruction_cg]

Can I prep my max files in sketchup/vray and directly import to max? If so I'd reconsider vray 4 sketchup... My early tests made for unhappy times.

Why you may ask? backburner, animation, and material control.

[nomeradona_cg]

Re: how compatible with max2009/vray?

Can I prep my max files in sketchup/vray and directly import to max? If so I'd reconsider vray 4 sketchup... My early tests made for unhappy times.

Why you may ask? backburner, animation, and material control.

your question is too jumbled up and its very difficult to understand.. but i know you can model in sketchup and export it as 3ds, export in max ang render vraymax. but why do that, you can also use vray for sketchup with similar result. i know vray sketchup doesnot support vray fur or ies at the moment, but the engine i guess is still similar and the result is the same.

[deconstruction_cg]

Re: how compatible with max2009/vray?

but why do that, you can also use vray for sketchup with similar result. i know vray sketchup doesnot support vray fur or ies at the moment, but the engine i guess is still similar and the result is the same.

I thought my question was clear: Do you use both max/vray and sketchup/vray? Followup: How compatible do you find the two?

A. exporting sketchup to max is not as 'simple' as it sounds. especially if you have a large/complex model with lots of groups/elements (ie lots going on in the outliner) Having a way to apply v-ray materials and exporting directly to max (materials and render settings intact) would be a godsend to my team.

B. vray 4 sketchup totally blows in the animation department... No such thing as backburner, distributed rendering that only works on one frame, totally unflexable camera controls. Lets face it sketchup is a gret modeling/texturing tool but it can't hold a candle to max when it comes to motion.

C. My experience with vray 4 sketchup materials has been dismal. For exammple, using displacement is a total PITA. Want to blend and multi-layer materials? forget it. Ability to use amazing pre-made materials (vraymaterials.de for example) and my own personal library of well developed max materials - forget it.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: how compatible with max2009/vray?

Use VfMax. There's your answer. We're not in the export business, and Max makes it notoriously hard deal with importing "foreign" formats. You've stated a number of reasons why its better for you to use Max. Number 1 is not an issue that we can really put a significant dent in as we can't get around the issues within 3ds format, and we can't add our data to that format. With number 2, although your points are valid, I'd argue that when it still comes down to it, you can't animate very well in SketchUp anyway. IMHO SU animations look coarse and choppy, and this is because of the way SU does animations. Its not an animation platform, so if that's what you're looking to do, then just do it in Max. Number 3 is a completely true, but we don't have as much control over that as you'd like to think. Displacement is a PITA (although I wouldn't go that far) because SU has an a** backwards way of dealing with geometry. With the exception of a few users, most people using VfSU don't need all of the additional material types that are offered within Max/VfMax. We'll be adding a great majority of them for our next full release, but we've had more important things to deal with than adding a Blend material that would go largely unused. This, along with the lack of a V-Ray specific format, have made translating materials between the two very hard. We've tried to offer a material converter, but because we were severely limited in how we could do it (ie had to run within Max, with vfMax installed) most people just haven't used it.

So there you go. Use VfMax and be much happier. Hopefully, as we do more work and knock more things off our list you'll take a second look, but from your description of what you're looking for and your issues I can't honestly tell you the VfSU will satisfy what you're looking to do. I hope in the future, but not today.

[deconstruction_cg]

Re: how compatible with max2009/vray?

Thanks for the very concise answer! I'm sure you can understand my dilemma.. My team loves the speed/ease of modeling in SU, the robustnesss and familiarity with 3ds max and the beauty/speed of vray light. Transferring properly textured, material organized, ready to v-ray render/x-ref files is a 3 lock box..

For those who are interested: the best way I've found yet is to export via the SU to kerkythea plugin, to '3d converter' then obj -> max. This will properly organize the file but there is one more step... All the materials are a numbered set (mat1, mat2, etc) so a rename / convert to v-ray materials is in order.

the 3ds export is usually flawed in at least one category: scale, mapping, material to face organization or grouping.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: how compatible with max2009/vray?

Honestly (and I'm incredibly biased here), I'd push your team to try and model as much as possible within Max. Yea, SketchUp is "easy", but from my experience it gets more cumbersome as you try and do more and more complicated things with it. There are a lot of times where SU gets in the way as it tries to "think for you". 95% of sketchup is really just the EditPoly tool anyway, so if you can get you're hands around that tool (which isn't that hard, and winds up working much like SU anyway) then you'd be surprised about how much you wouldn't really need SU.

Even if you stick to modeling in SU, mapping and materials are likely to be loads easier in Max than in SU. Being able to modify textures for a whole object as opposed to face by face can make quick work of a task that would be pretty significant in SU. Not to mention mapping more complicated objects in Max would be loads easier. SU is also fairly bad in terms of retaining texture coordinates, so that may not be something that SU writes to a format.

In the end, the more you do in your final destination, the less things could potentially go wrong. I know their may be a little time lost in modeling within Max, but that could turn into gains if translating between environments goes haywire. Getting things into and out of Max is really a challenge and can be very hit or miss. I know I've fought it time and time again.

[nomeradona_cg]

Re: how compatible with max2009/vray?

Thanks for the very concise answer! I'm sure you can understand my dilemma.. My team loves the speed/ease of modeling in SU, the robustnesss and familiarity with 3ds max and the beauty/speed of vray light. Transferring properly textured, material organized, ready to v-ray render/x-ref files is a 3 lock box..

For those who are interested: the best way I've found yet is to export via the SU to kerkythea plugin, to '3d converter' then obj -> max. This will properly organize the file but there is one more step... All the materials are a numbered set (mat1, mat2, etc) so a rename / convert to v-ray materials is in order.

the 3ds export is usually flawed in at least one category: scale, mapping, material to face organization or grouping.

ok i render both in Vray MAx and Vray Su and this is my workaround. i dont know but for me it works.

i model in sketchup the architectural building and basic shells, i analyze which mapping i want to retain... I open group the areas with are connectred together with the same materias. another thing is during exporting into 3ds (this i find the improtant part: export by material: export texture maps and preserving the coordinates).

when i am in max, i open the materials and i could access all those materials using this work around. open material editor in max and i will get those material using the material map browser. coordinates remains the same.. and so far so good to me..

but the thing i really found frustrating is smoothing those faceted surface exported from Sketchup...

My friend do different thing just model in sketchup the shell of the buildings. curves or faceted things he wont do it in Sketchup.. He will be careful in grouping things and then export this to 3ds. import it to max and all materials, curve modelling, adding components (especially those of evermotuon) will be done in max, togehther with lighting and everything.,,

at the moment compatability of max and su, i must say still have a lot of differences.