Create the Ultimate V-Ray Material Library

[ValeroStudio]

You can now download ALL of the materials on the Chaos site pretty easily using the download all feature of each category. After that, unpack it all into your centralized library location and unpack all the zips. Now use the the Load Material Collection (inside material editor) feature in a new clean scene and load in one of the categories. Now, inside SketchUp, use the Save as a Collection to put it into your SketchUp material library location. One tip is to make sure the texture scales are correct before saving. I think it defaults to 10"x10" which you want to edit beforehand or you get stuck doing it all the time.

Repeat for each category and within 30 minutes you will have a nice SU material library already setup with V-Ray settings.

[dkendig]

great tip!

[ValeroStudio]

It didn't take very long and now I have a nice little V-Ray library in my SketchUp Materials Library.

[corey]

Matt-

Do you have all the V-Ray materials loaded in a the SU file? How big is the file? We did make V-Ray materials for all the default SketchUp materials. I have the SKM files and a SKP file- its about 42MB all together.

[ValeroStudio]

What I did was make a SKM for each category of material on the Chaos site. Most of the materials, like glass for example, dont use a texture map so the SKM files are tiny. By extracting each library to your local location and importing the material collection into SU, you are simply setting up the referenced paths to the bump maps, specular maps, etc. and saving them to a SKM file for later use. It's not really making a single SKP file.

[dreamspace]

I finally found the link for the materials (phew). I've been having problems with SU 2013 crashing like crazy. Is it possible that it has been crashing because of the older materials? I'm using Vray 2.0 for Mac.
I also just upgraded my ram from 8gb to 32 bb's on a new iMac i7, top of the line. Still crashing though.

boohoo

thanks for any suggestions!!

[ValeroStudio]

I'm not on a Mac but I downloaded, imported and saved every Chaos material without any issues in SU2013 using VR2.0

[dreamspace]

Just discovered that when I turn off Vray, sketchup is completely stable. When I turn it back on… SU starts quitting.


Thanks so much for the reply. I'm able to download and install vray materials with no issues. My question is whether or not vray materials might be the culprit that's causing the SU to frequently crash.

Another problem has come up. I get the error message when beginning a render that there's a problem with Vray ... etc. check the console (something like that). It feels like a compatibility issue somehow. I wonder if being on Mountain Lion is the issue. I upgraded from Snow Leopard where there were no issues at all. Humm. I think I'm onto something.

[dkendig]

I also just upgraded my ram from 8gb to 32

That doesn't matter unless you're using programs other than SketchUp concurrently. SketchUp can not exceed 4gb of ram usage without crashing. It is this way be design. I have spoken to their developers about going 64bit (which would allow SketchUp to use all of your RAM), and they said that it's not something they are planning any time in at least the next 2 years. We are tied to the SketchUp process, so that additional RAM isn't going to be very useful in this case.

I've been having problems with SU 2013 crashing like crazy. Is it possible that it has been crashing because of the older materials? I'm using Vray 2.0 for Mac.

I am not aware of any legacy support issues, but please do send us a bug report (by sending an email to vfswip@chaosgroup.com) about this issue if you can. Also include an example material or scene file that we can use to reproduce the issue on our end. It is possible that there is something in a particular scene/material that could be causing the crash, but I can't say for certain without testing your files here at our office.

Another problem has come up. I get the error message when beginning a render that there's a problem with Vray ... etc. check the console (something like that). It feels like a compatibility issue somehow. I wonder if being on Mountain Lion is the issue. I upgraded from Snow Leopard where there were no issues at all. Humm. I think I'm onto something.

Again, please submit a bug report about this, along with a copy of your error log if possible. (/Applications/ASGVIS/VfS/vfs_stderr.txt)

We are working on a stability and performance patch, so any feedback we can get about stability issues will greatly aid our efforts for this patch.

[dreamspace]

Thanks so much for your reply. I was able to solve some problems. I now understand (more or less) how to read the report after a crash. The culprit is usually a material. I stopped downloading them from the web and I just make my own. I test as I go by adding couple of materials at a time and start a render. If it works, I stop the render and continue working. If it happens again and is NOT a material, I will certainly send in the report.

However, one other issue has come up. My computer itself has been crashing (restarts itself) when I'm working in Sketchup. I did a hardware test and everything is okay. According the Apple support, it's probably a software conflict. What do you think? Vray and SU? Anyone else report this problem?

Thanks again. Your response is greatly appreciated.

[dkendig]

I responded to the crashing issue in the thread you started about that issue.