An open letter to Chaos: Vray and Sketchup and Mac. Oh my!

[dreamspace]

Dear Chaos Group,

I have been dealing with so many Vray/Sketchup issues that I'm almost ready to call it quits and move to a beach somewhere. I have a brand-spanking new, fully loaded iMac that came with Mountain Lion and I've had nothing but problems since Day One. I might have known I could be in trouble when I had to endure the most tedious installation process I've ever experienced. (Dongle? Really?) I contact support so often that the technician is fast approaching BFF status. If he lived closer I'd have him over for dinner. When I have a question about how to do something, I scour the forums. I scour the internet. Surprisingly, so much of what's out there is old information. What's that about? The video tutorials might be good if I could actually see them. Sub-titles should be mandatory on all YouTube videos.

Don't get me wrong. I completely understand the consequences of corrupt materials. Old components. Two documents open at the same time. Disabling Vray when modeling. I get it. But, how come I have yet to render a decent scene since moving to Mountain Lion? Technical difficulties? Sketchup is crashing. My computer is crashing likely due to incompatible software. Let me guess… Vray? Sketchup? It's been a week and I have a fast approaching deadline. Should I be worried?

Kinda feels like Obamacare: Part Deux. If it's not ready to launch… don't.

Signed,
Hairless in L.A.

[dkendig]

I have a few questions:
1. You said that you upgraded to Mountain Lion, did you also upgrade to a new version of V-Ray for SketchUp?
2. Are you making scenes from scratch, or using scenes that were created with an older version of our product? (specify the older version if possible)
3. Do you have any other plugins loaded in SketchUp, aside from V-Ray?
4. Are crashes happening while working with the model, or at render time?

a stability and performance patch is in development already, so any feedback you can offer us would be very useful.

[dreamspace]

1. You said that you upgraded to Mountain Lion, did you also upgrade to a new version of V-Ray for SketchUp Upgraded to SU 2013. I had been using Vray 2.0 since it's release. No problems before Mountain Lion.
2. Are you making scenes from scratch, or using scenes that were created with an older version of our product? (specify the older version if possible) Nope. Started from scratch.
3. Do you have any other plugins loaded in SketchUp, aside from V-Ray? I have Podium loaded. That's all.
4. Are crashes happening while working with the model, or at render time? Working on the model before rendering.


Here's something I JUST noticed while repairing disc permissions:

[dkendig]

We developed this version of VfS as SU 2013 was being developed, and we should have full support. In an upcoming patch we will also be supporting SU 2014. I'm not sure what Podium's product support for 2013 is like. Have you tried removing all other scripts/plugins and only having V-Ray loaded? The permissions issue is an unlikely suspect, but possible none the less. If there were permission issues with one of our directories, or any of our files that would make more sense.

[dkendig]

on another note, we support Mavericks afaik.

[ValeroStudio]

Dreamspace, I don't have any experience on a Mac but I have been using SU since the 1.05.30 days and feel VR has come a long way and still has ways to go. It is not a perfect program. Partly, because SketchUp is a clusterF of a program to be working inside of. I have the say though that 2.0 is the most stable and best release yet. May I ask how long have you been using SketchUp and V-Ray?

The thing about V-Ray (and not just V-Ray in SketchUp) is that it is not a one click purdy picture kind of program. I have been using it for over 6 years and am now just comfortable with about 75% of it at this point. There are parameters that I still don't understand, probably never will. I have learned many lessons along the way just from the forums and tutorials both on youtube and pay sites (Evermotion has a couple of good ones).

I was once where you are, at a crossroads, frustrated. Hell, I even tried another engine. But I am right back here.

[dreamspace]

Matthew. Thank you for taking the time to comment on my rant. I'm sorry about that.

I've been using SU for years. Vray for about 5 months. I do understand that it's not a perfect program and I can appreciate the fact that it is what it is. In the past few days, I've reinstalled my operating system which has helped a little. I now add materials and components one at a time and start a render to see if all is well. Quite a pain, but at least it's working and I can get some work done.

The two main issues are still Sketchup crashing way too often and my computer continues to restart itself. (I'll be happy to attach the report if needed). I have yet to find an answer. I ran the Disc Utility to repair permissions and the only thing I see that may be problematic is attached. Maybe you have a clue as to what this is and why it comes back on every permission verification run.

I've found this possible answer online:
When upgrading to a newer operating system: "The actual ruby folder was not over-written by the ruby symbolic link."

Could this be a Vray or sketchup issue? Or both?

Anyway, you've been very kind and your response is greatly appreciated.

[ValeroStudio]

Sounds to me that it's a SketchUp issue and more specifically a SketchUp for Mac issue. I can only speak from my PC perspective but I have not had any of the issues you speak of on SU2013 in Windows. I hope you can figure out the problem as to share with other Mac users on these forums.

[arcgraphics]

on another note, we support Mavericks afaik.

Yes VRAY works great in mavericks.

[dreamspace]

How about Mavericks and Sketchup? Any issues?

[arcgraphics]

How about Mavericks and Sketchup? Any issues?

Mavericks has a few bugs at the moment the most annoying is that the scroll function on the mouse/track pad stops working, which can be a pain as it is used for zooming and navigating within sketchup, there doesn't seen to be any direct issues with Sketchup and Mavericks.
Mavericks also seems a bit slower than Mountain Lion, also some older versions of software packages are not compatible Mavericks i.e. Vectorworks 12.
To be honest you would be better to wait until the bugs within Mavericks are ironed out before upgrading.

[peerman]

No issues here so far. Only problem I have is with my Logitech mouse that causes an error where my mouse pointer hang for about 20sec.