Importing to sketchup

[BrianKitts]

I'm going backwards compared to my normal work flow and this time taking things out of max into sketchup, running into some problems.

 

First of all, why is it that when you import a .3ds into sketchup the object doesn't just come in at it's proper place as setup by the file? is there a way to not have to click to place the imported file?

 

edit: importing by DWG solves this problem....

 

Second problem is, how come you can export sketchup cameras out to max with a .3ds file, but when you import to sketchup it deosnt bring in the cameras that are in the .3ds file. Is there a format that allows you to transfer camera views into sketchup?

 

any help is greatly appreciated.

Edited March 25, 2009 by BrianKitts

[cgrant3d]

First of all, why is it that when you import a .3ds into sketchup the object doesn't just come in at it's proper place as setup by the file? is there a way to not have to click to place the imported file?

 

edit: importing by DWG solves this problem....

 

Second problem is, how come you can export sketchup cameras out to max with a .3ds file, but when you import to sketchup it deosnt bring in the cameras that are in the .3ds file. Is there a format that allows you to transfer camera views into sketchup?

 

The trick to importing 3ds files into SketchUp is to set all objects to have their pivot at 0,0,0 then when SketchUp imports you just snap the import placement cursor at 0,0,0 and everything will work fine.

 

I periodically need to give our 3d files back to the designers to work with so this is my workflow (its several steps but they're scriptable or by memory quite quick and work everytime).

 

Geometry

 

• Save a copy of your max scene because what you're about to do is destructive.
  
• Ungroup everything if you use groups
  
• Select all, in mod panel click on hierarchy, then click pivot and using the move transform set the pivot to 0,0,0. Now click the align to world button to reset all pivots to world orientation
  
• Select all geometry and do a reset xform
  
• Collapse everything (probably not required, I just consider it good form after reset xform)
  

Materials

 

• Use VrayMaterialConverter (if you use vray of course) or other to convert your VRay mats to standard mats (3ds export only recognizes standard mats) http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/vraymtlconverter-v2-5
  
• Use DiffuseMapper to change all diffuse colors to be the average color of your diffuse texture maps (great way to keep the general color values in SketchUp w/o necessarily needing the textures) http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/diffusemapper
  
• Use Resource Collector or Asset Manager to copy your bitmaps to a 8 character folder on your C drive. When you export to 3ds max tries to store the path to long filenames and of course SketchUp can't find the textures then. So collect all your textures in C:\SkpExp or something like that. To really make this work you'll need to rename your textures themselves to 8.3 filenames or have a handy dandy script do it for you (I have one I could share but it doesn't have a UI so its more of an in-house tool). Ideally you'd resize any textures bigger than 1500 pixels because SketchUp can't display maps higher than that so it just makes the files bigger...
  

You're ready now. File / Export to C:\SkpExp. Once you've done this a couple times it'll only take a minute or two - especially if you can deal w/o the textures coming across.

 

Now just go to SketchUp and do a file import, set your units to inches and you'll be set - just snap your import cursor at 0,0,0 and everything will be exactly where it was in Max.

 

...

 

So, to answer your last question about cameras. There's not currently a way to import cameras into SketchUp. Its the kind of thing that I wish I had scripted a long time ago because we've wanted to do that many times but I just haven't had the time to build it. You can however import/export pages (cameras) from sketchup file to sketchup file. There's a ruby script for it at smustard.