SketchUp to 3DS Max

[mrstardust]

There are just too many amazing plugins that take things to a new level.

 

Yeah, i just tend to collect tons of things that "might be useful once" and then completely lose track of them...happened to me with max, so i´m trying to reduce the additional stuff i get for any package...

I can see though that there are some i´ll have to get to have more "fun" in SU.

 

By all means use whichever program seems faster too you.

 

Yes i will...especially because my skills in max are still far from "expert", so definitely need more training there before i become a pro in another package.

 

Once more, your input has been very helpful!

 

You might have mentioned it somewhere else, but do you yourself actually use max in your workflow?

If so, what do you say about my export/import considerations?

[Brodie Geers]

Yeah, it's hard not to collect a ton of plugins in the beginning. In fact it can be healthy, I think, as you'll get to test out a lot of things. The more you use SU, the more you can widdle down your plugins if you choose. There are some who keep gobs of rubies they don't use but I'm too minimalistic for that. It took me a number of years to really start trimming out plugins that I didn't use though.

 

I do use 3ds Max although I'm a novice in it still. I'm terrible at modeling in max but I can tweak things when I need to. Mostly I use it for it's other features. In my last project I exported some AutoCad lines to create curvs via the sweep modifier so I could get curbs with proper UV's. I then brought those curbs back to SU. After all my modeling/texturing was set in SU I brought it into Max via the .skp importer. I then linked my materials to Maxwell materials (the UV's and maps were set, I just needed to tell them which Maxwell material to reference at render time). Then I brought in some grass and flowers and turned them into Maxwell proxies which I scattered around via Object Paint. I brought in my high poly trees and cars and placed those as well. Then I rendered in Maxwell.

 

-Brodie

[FreakyDroid]

This seems like the right place to discuss my problem.

 

I've been given a few SketchUp files from my clients to do visualizations for them in the past. Since I can't do it in SketchUp due to poly limitations, I had to import the skp file in 3ds max 2011. But each time I did it, I was getting flipped faces, tons and tons of multi-sub materials, and whats even more annoying, many sub materials were exactly the same except they had different names. I tried a few different importing options but always arrived at the same result.

 

I got the 3rd project from the same client yesterday, and this scene is huge, the other 3 were a walk in the park compared to this monster: a whole city block with shopping malls, buildings, parks and whatnot. I still havent tried to import in Max, I plan to do that tomorrow, but the vastness of the scene really makes me think that I'll have to spend at least 30 hours or more, just applying materials and flipping faces.

 

I will try some some of the proposed workflows for fixing the flipped faces, so hopefully I can get at least that part working. I made sure I read all the posts here, sorry if I accidentally missed it, but I didn't see an answer about fixing the materials issue. So I was wondering if there's anyone who ever faced this problem and what's the most efficient way of solving it. I think that I can cut down my problems in half if someone can tell me how to import the model in 3ds Max without those pesky multi-sub materials. Mind you, I'm a newbie in SketchUp, so if there's some extra preparation that I will have to do before importing in 3Ds Max, I'd prefer a more detailed explanation. I have a week of allnighters ahead of me, so please any help or advice would be so much appreciated. Thanks!

 

 

Dimitar

Edited September 17, 2011 by FreakyDroid

[Brodie Geers]

There's not much you can do to shortcut the normals issue. SU users don't tend to understand back/front faces unless they're familiar with rendering which most are not. In SU you can point your normals wherever you want and it doesn't matter because it's just as easy to apply a material to the backside as the front.

 

As for the multi-sub there are a couple things you can do. You could explode everything and make it one big group. That would give you one multi-sub material with every material used inside it. Maybe better than having 50 with a few materials each. Or, I think there's an option to export to .3ds (if they have the Pro version) where you can separate by material. That might work better for you.

 

-Brodie

[FreakyDroid]

Thanks for the answers Brodie, much appreciated.

 

Yup, the SU models I received had many object grouped(?) together, like parts of the building grouped with trees and other types of foliage, ... many different objects scattered around the scene in one group. That doesn't make any sense to me, as I would never ever group things like that, but then I thought that not everyone thinks like I do, or that perhaps that's how it should be in SU...

 

Anyways, when I tried to select them in SU to delete the foliage, the people and other stuff that I don't need to import in 3Ds Max, I ended up selecting the whole group. Right-clicking on it gave me the option to explode them and select those objects individually. What I'm trying to say is that I can explode everything in the scene down to single objects, delete the ones I don't need and then group things according to my sense of logic.

 

However, I'm not sure what to use to group them together. In the righ-click options I see Make Components and Make Groups and I have no clue which one to use, what each one does or what it is used for. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is the concept of Components and Groups in SU and how they relate to 3Ds Max. For instance, If I group all the parts of a building in SU, will the SU importer in 3D Max import it as a single object? What will happen to the different materials that were applied to the different parts of the building, will I get a single multi-sub object material for the whole group? I'm a newbie when it comes to SketchUp, so I might have used wrong terminology in my reply, sorry for that. I also hope the questions I asked aren't too silly.

 

In any case, I think I'll try experimenting with groups and components, import in Max and see what I get. Thanks again.

 

Dimitar

[Brodie Geers]

There are a number of ways to get to where you're going.

 

Before we get into that I'll briefly explain the difference between groups and components as it's a bit foreign. Components are basically what 3ds Max would call an instance. It's a chunk of polygons that form, let's say a window. If you change the glass material on one window or alter the geometry, it will make the same changes on all other components of the same name. Groups are exactly the same except each group is unique so it won't affect the other ones.

 

Using the SU importer each component or group will come in as an individual object. Groups will all be independent objects, while components will maintain their instance-ness (change one = changes to all).

 

If you have a window component or group and bring it into 3ds max it will be one object with a multi-sub material applied. A window object may have 3 sub materials - aluminum, glass, and rubber for instance.

 

Another thing to be aware of is that in SU you can have a component or group - say a whole building. And then within that building component you might have some window components and door components - and within that door component you might have some handle components and hinge components, etc. In other words in SU you often have a lot of 'nested' components (or groups). I don't recall how the SU importer handles this so you'll have to test it. I don't remember if it just recognizes the topmost component (Building) or the bottomost (windows, hinges, handles, etc.).

 

What versions are you working with? Version of SU? Is it Pro or free? And version of Max?

 

The components you mention sound very odd (trees with buildings, objects scattered around). It sounds very erratic. That's how they were grouped when you opened the .skp file? SU users are notorious for having very poor modeling skills (I don't deal with a lot of models from other people but they...we...tend to get a lot of grief and I have no doubt that a lot of it is well earned. SU is a very forgiving program in a lot of regards and allows a lot of slop that only becomes obvious when exporting to another program. Most SU users don't even know what a 'normal' is. So perhaps there's some rational within SU as to why they grouped things as such but as a proficient SU users the way you describe it still boggles me).

 

How you get what you want depends on what you want. How would you like things grouped within Max? In general I'll just reiterate that if you're using the SU importer whatever you have grouped within SU will become a single object within Max and if that group has multiple materials you'll get a multi-sub material situation in Max. While the SU importer is very good, though, you should know that it's also the least flexible since there's no export from SU and Max doesn't really have many import options. On the other hand you can export from .skp to Collada (in the free version) or if you have Pro you can also do .3ds both of which have some more export options which might make it easier if what you want to do is, say, export with each material as its own object. Collada requires a special import plugin for Max though.

 

-Brodie

[FreakyDroid]

That clears up a lot Brodie, thanks!

 

I'm using 3Ds Max 2011 full license and SketchUp Pro 8. Yes, when I open the skp file things are grouped like that: pretty much everything in the scene is one group, when I explode I get several other groups, and then I can even go further exploding to get down to the single objects. But based on what you said about how SU handles these kind of things, I can see how that way of grouping things would make sense to a SU user who never had to work with 3Ds Max. I just dont understand why the first floor of a building would be grouped with foliage far away from the building ...

 

I've attached a practical example. I'd like to import it in Max so that I get all the red cladding as one object, the glass from all the windows as one object, all the window frames as one object, all walls as one object. So basically I'd like to get a single object for each material on the building. But I don't want to get a single object that will contain parts of other buildings that have the same material. On second thought, perhaps getting one object for each material wouldn't be so bad after all. I guess I could try and detach the polygons/elements per building, but I'm not sure if that would be a wise thing to do, because in the previous project I did for the same client, when I was attaching/detaching parts, sometimes I was getting flipped faces, so I ended up remodeling parts of the scene.

 

Another thing that I need to think of are the double sided materials. Since I'm not going to show anything from the interior, I don't want to get any double sided materials in my scene, nor I want to get two overlapping faces that have the same size and position (like an exact clone). How would I go about doing this?

 

Another idea I though of, was the break up the SketchUp scene, either by building or by cluster of buildings, and then import in Max stage by stage. Also not so sure if this would be a wise thing to do.

 

Based on your previous answers, I think I have a general idea of how to do this on my own, but I'd feel more comfortable if you can guide me through it. For lack of better words: thanks a lot, it really means a lot!

 

Dimitar

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44860[/ATTACH]

[Brodie Geers]

Try this. Open the SU model in SU go to Export -> 3d Model.

Choose .3ds from the dropdown.

Before choosing Export you'll notice below the Cancel button a button called Options - select Options.

From the dropdown that comes up select By Material and whichever other options look appealing to you.

 

I believe that will give you something like what you want. You may have to do some detaching in Max still though. The other option would be to cut parts of the SU model from one file, put them in a new file, then export so you get just those pieces seperately.

 

You can fix the normals in Max if you want. If you want to fix them in SU go to View -> Face Style -> Monochrome. That will show everything as either a white face or a blueish face. The white is front, blue is back. Select the blue faces, right click, select Reverse faces until you have everything oriented correctly. You can also set up a shortcut key instead of selecting Reverse Faces each time.

 

-Brodie

[accesskb]

I haven't used sketchup and 3DS Max in combination but there are many people who swear by it

 

here is a blog by an Arch. Viz who talks about his process and has lots of useful tips on his site regarding Max/Rendering

 

http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-10-07T10%3A37%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=5

 

http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-04-20T22%3A45%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=5

[FreakyDroid]

Thanks guys, especially Brodie. I finally imported an easily manageable scene in 3Ds Max via the .skp importer. I exploded everything down to single objects and started grouping things in way that makes sense to me.: one building - one group. 90% of the imported models were spot on, but some had their polygon ID's and UV's all mixed up. Not sure why that happened, but I don't have the time to trace the problem that caused it. I also got rid of the double sided materials by unchecking the option at the bottom of the import dialog box: Import Front/Back Materials as Double Sided materials.

 

This time around I had much less flipped polygons then with the previous import attemts, but I did notice the flipping is most likely to occur around places in the model that has a couple of different polygon ID's around it. For instance, I had a building as one object with 4-5 polygon ID's, half of the polygons making up the window frames were flipped and also some glass panels. There was no identifiable pattern though, so I'm still wondering what could have caused it. There were no flipped polygons on objects that had only 1 polygon ID. Based on this result, I'm starting to think that I should have grouped things like I originally thought: according to their material. I guess I was just lazy because it seemed much easier to select all the objects making up one building ... Now I'm not sure if the polygon ID's have anything to do with flipped polygons or its just a matter of how it was modeled in SU. If someone has any idea, I'd love to hear because I want to get to the bottom of this and understand how to make SU->Max importing as smooth as possible.

 

Thanks again to everyone who shared their knowledge.

 

Dimitar

[Brodie Geers]

I'd guess there is a connection between the flipped faces and ID's being messed up. In SU you can apply a material equally well to the back side of a face as the front side (hence the reason many SU users have so many flipped faces). I'd bet that if the importer sees Aluminum on the backside and no material on the front side, it understands to apply the Aluminum material to that face in Max. But if for some reason it has Aluminum on the backside (which is incorrectly facing out) and the front side of the polygon has, say, stucco then Max will probably apply the stucco material to that polygon since it must choose. Just a guess but maybe that info will help in the future.

 

This may be a good reason to flip the faces in SU before exporting in fact - to avoid these issues.

 

Glad you've got a workable model now

 

-Brodie

[woodmaster]

I use sketchup everyday and i dont see any problem exporting SU7 to 3dsMax 2011 + vray.. Max 2011 will accept only version 7 and you can keep the materials from SU or you can replace the map from SU entirely in Max.. Keep Sketching ....

[mrstardust]

I always avoid applying more than one material to an object because (depending on your export settings) it will import into max with a multi-sub object material applied to it, which whilst it isn't the end of the world; it is annoying.

So how do you do that? Simply by grouping everything by material as i wanna try in my future workflow?

 

I was down with the flu, so i still couldn´t decide if i´m gonna stick with my actual, badly grouped SU model and try to find workarounds for importing and texturing in Max, or if i should just remodel again and train myself in proper grouping...

 

Good thing my only deadline so far is my own impatience.