Octane Sketchup Exporter 1_00-03

[smicha]

TIG,
Using Sketchuv plugin for uv mapping there is a need to triangulate faces (right click and choose 'triangulate' option in sketchuv) prior to using your exporter. Otherwise texture will be splitted into as many textures as there are faces. And this is only the case when we are using 'tube map' or 'quad face map'.

This video tells all the story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baQwxL6mgMQ

[TIG]

Ah... now I understand...

[smicha]

I am just wondering why there is a need to do extra triangulation using sketchuv, while - as you wrote, TIG - the exporter triangulates all of the faces?

[TIG]

Perhaps a question addressed Whaat SketchUV's author ?
Perhaps he can only map UVs on tris ?

[pimpuppy]

Hello TIG,

Sorry for bothering you with this .... but i just exported a model from SU, about 26 Mb, and in Octane the poly count is about 660000. The export time was 90 min.
Should i panic ? Should i start looking for a new pc? or is it normal ?

[smicha]

HI Tig

I do understand that more complex models will take longer time to export, I just try to find ways to speed things up if possible at all, maybe like what you described here.
Thanks
Claus S

Claus,

Before TIG will advise you I may recommend exporting your model, its components and groups as separated objs. Then import it in Octane (mesh node) and use "geometry group" to merge them together. I have 100mb models with 10 mln tris. and I never export them at once. When I finish one component (creation, uv-mapping) I select it and use TIG's exporter (export selection only) and so on, until entire model is exported. It prevents from exporting entire model again in case when a single object is corrected and requires new exporting process.

[TIG]

Smicha has really said it all.
Many millions of pieces of geometry require even more millions of calculations, and will make an enormous OBJ file too - any a long time doing the processing...
Keep your model as trim and compact as you can - purge etc, and remember that in recent versions of the Exporter there is an option to export/render just the Selected entities, rather than the whole thing.
Making the thing in parts to assembling them later is an excellent concept.
That way it's much easier/faster to fix/re-export the affected parts and reassemble...

[smicha]

TIG,

I have an unusual question, but this would ease my work a lot. Is it possible to use instead of textures/colors - groups or components names for exported input nodes? For example if I create two boxes, each in a form of a group, sketchup automatically assigns different names to them. To export them as two separate input textures I have to use a bucket tool and paint them with different color. What if there would be an option to export a model with a use of group names, not textures?

smicha

[Phantom107]

It's a good thing the exporter exports only triangles. Keep it that way!

I'm planning to code a standalone application to handle the scattering. So you pre-define some scattering setup, the program would scatter that on the faces of assigned materials to that scatter setup, the program would then export it into some files for Octane to read. All at the press of a button.

I'll be writing an OBJ importing script, so if you keep the exported files in the same formatting I won't get any problems.

[grusgrus]

Broken in Sketchup pro 2014, Causes instant bugsplat on starting sketchup.