Matrials not translating

[Seekerfinder]

Hi,
I find that some SU materials don't translate to Octane standalone. They're all just black in Octane even though they are distinct in SU. Even if I change these materials in SU (RGB or texture based), the problem remains. Ungrouping does not help either. I get the same results whether exporting to .OBJ from SU or using Tig's exporter.

Any help would be appreciated.

Seeker

[Seekerfinder]

Looks like a reverse face issue...
There's probably a lot posted about this so I'll do some searching how to best avoid in future but I'd appreciate any workflow advice anyone might have.

Seeker

[TIG]

This is almost certainly a 'reversed faces' issue.
Octane [like most rendering apps] will render the backs of all faces as 'black', irrespective of their SketchUp applied materials/colors: of course these should always be internal and therefore never visible anyway.

So... it is important to model with all of the faces' fronts outermost...

There are separate threads about this...
Find my ReversedFaceMaterials plugins [on this forum or perhaps more recently at SketchUcation.com... PluginStore] - this tool flips selected reversed faces and moves their back materials to the fronts, maintaining any UV-mapping etc...

BUT the best solution is to model FROM THE START with a distinctive back-face color in your current Style, and then to ensure that ALL outward looking faces are the faces' 'fronts'.
Toggling to View > Monochrome mode will show what is reversed so you can fix it before you get too embroiled in the detailing...

[Seekerfinder]

Thanks Tig, you are such a legend, man...

I have since found some of your other threads regarding this issue. It's a pity there's no way to somehow 'mirror' materials so that they appear on both front & back, agnostic to the orientation of faces. It's one thing to learn the discipline of keeping orientation of faces correct when creating one's own models but there are some great models on Trimble's 3D warehouse which are just not correctly mapped in this regard.

We came across an issue with the Revit plugin recently. Revit can natively import SKP files but the Octane plugin only seemed to translate some of the materials, the rest were black. I guess it's the same root issue. This gives me some hope for possibly resolving Sketchup imports in the Revit plugin. It helps being able to do quick modelling of detail items in Sketchup and import these into Revit.

Keep up the good work.

Seeker

PS: Are you working on the SU plugin?