Posts by jiminy-billy-bob

  • Transmutr vs Skimp?

    Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback! This is very valuable.


    Quote from Tim

    In a scene like this, it is a very difficult guessing game as to what is missing in the preview and where those maps might be in the material list

    It's not very obvious, but when you are in the "Materials" tab and move the cursor to the 3D viewport, the cursor becomes an eyedropper and you can click on an object to highlight its material. It makes it easier to locate it.


    Quote from Tim

    From this preview, I can clearly see that a few large objects are missing, but I won't see those objects are actually there

    Enabling "Show Edges" helps in these cases.


    Quote from Tim

    I also like the initial import preview Skimp uses, as I personally think it's easier to initially visually inspect.

    I agree that in cases like this, it's quite useful to visualize the UV mapping and have unique color per objects.

    In Transmutr v2 we will have a PBR preview alongside the SketchUp-like preview. Maybe we can have a third one similar to this?

    Quote from Tim

    When it comes to simplification- again, just a personal preference to the visual style the Skimp presents in showing the basic/flat color tones vs the material

    ...and a fourth one with just a clay material to better visualize the geometry?

    Quote from Tim

    Notice the wire frame objects that are set as "0" Opacity

    Yes unfortunately this can happen with poorly exported models. I found that it happens mostly with OBJ, which is a really bad format when it comes to materials. If possible, try to stick with FBX as it contains much more information.
    Transmutr can only work with the information it is given.

    Quote from Tim

    one big UNDO SIMPLIFICATION button would be awesome for when we have gone too far

    Do you mean undoing after importing the object in SketchUp?

  • Transmutr vs Skimp?

    Quote from Tim

    Though Skimp seems to do a better job simplifying a model after initial import. And it's easy to undo simplification with Skimp if it's immediately looking poor.

    Could you elaborate on this?
    1. How does Skimp do a better job at simplifying after the initial import?

    2. What do you mean by undoing simplification? Is it before or after clicking the "import"/"replace" button in Skimp?

    How do you think these could be improved in Transmutr?

  • Introducing RoomBox: Render-ready interiors in one click

    Yeah it's tricky because the Luminance value we pick must work in broad daylight and at night.

    In V-Ray it's easy, we enable "Compensate EV" by default and it looks good in all lighting situations. But there is no such thing in Enscape.

    So we settled on 10000 cd/m² by default, hoping that it fits must use-cases. I agree that this is not ideal because in cases like yours you need to edit the materials created by RoomBox, to lower the Luminance values.


    In a future version, have have planned to have a Luminance slider in the RoomBox editor. So you will be able to adjust the Luminance of all selected rooms at once. Maybe we should have a persistent option to set the default luminance value as well.

  • Transmutr vs Skimp?

    When in comes to importing the geometry and simplifying the geometry, Skimp and Transmutr are similar.


    But Transmutr is more focused on rendering. It can preserve material information from the source file and convert it to Enscape (bump/normal, reflections, etc). And as you mentioned, it can create Enscape proxies with various options for the placeholder (besides a basic bounding box).


    We are currently working on Transmutr v2 that will be able to export directly to the Enscape Library.

  • Introducing RoomBox: Render-ready interiors in one click

    Today we are proud to introduce RoomBox, our new SketchUp extension! 🎉


    It supports Enscape out-of-the-box, so I though the community here might be interested. Don't hesitate to remove this thread if it's off-topic.



    Render-ready interiors in one click


    Instill life into your SketchUp models by quickly and easily populating facades with render-ready rooms.




    Render-ready interiors for all your needs


    The largest collection of rooms ready to be inserted into your models. Shops, office spaces, living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens… You name it!


    Every room comes with both night and day versions as well as low and high resolution variants.




    Instantly create and edit rooms


    Adding a room to your models is a breeze: select it in the library, click on a surface in your model, and you’re done.


    Once a room has been created, use our Room editor to modify its contents. There’s no need to manually fiddle with interior maps in an external image editor to get what you want.


    ­It supports Enscape and V-Ray out-of-the-box.




    Keep your model lightweight


    A room is made of just a handful of faces, but from a distance it looks like a fully furnished, textured, and lit interior.

    This keeps your model lightweight even with dozens or hundreds of rooms.




    Import custom rooms with RoomBox Pro


    For unlimited possibilities, you can even create custom rooms by importing your own interior maps.



    Try the free samples


    Get started right now by downloading RoomBox and trying the free rooms.

    Download now, it’s free!

  • Decouple Albedo and SketchUp texture

    Quote from Ted.Vitale

    jiminy-billy-bob Could this be why I have a weird texture bug with transmuted objects used with Enscape? I regularly pull in Transmuted objects and when editing them in Enscape it changes the texture sizing in SketchUp. So if I have a 10"x10" texture in SketchUp, then edit that texture in any way in the Enscape texture editor, the SketchUp texture changes to 3'ish, and I have to go back and assign a new texture size in SketchUp. I'm not sure if it's related, but thought it sounded familiar.

    I thought we fixed this issue by enabling "Explicit Texture Transformation" by default? Can you confirm this happens with the latest version of Transmutr?

  • Decouple Albedo and SketchUp texture

    When we select an image file as the Albedo map in the Enscape Material Editor, it overwrites the texture in the SketchUp material. And vice-versa, when we select an image file as a texture in a SketchUp material, it overwrites the Albedo map in the Enscape material.


    Is it possible to decouple the two? The use case would be to use a low-resolution image in SketchUp, while having its high-resolution counterpart in Enscape. Storing high-resolution images in the SketchUp file can quickly make it several hundreds megabytes.


    I think I remember that it was possible in previous version. That when we chose an image file in Enscape, it was decoupled from the SketchUp material texture.

    It is also possible in V-Ray by disabled "Bind".


    We actually want to do this via attributes by using <Source>TEXTURE_PATH_ABSOLUTE</Source> and specifying the path, but it doesn't seem to have any effect anymore.

  • Skatter V2!

    In v1 you also had to click the icon again to disable the tool.

    We decided to make it more explicit, as many people kept the picking tool active while trying to do something else, which would cause issues.


    What's bothering you is having to click, or the having the popup covering the UI?

  • Skatter V2!

    Quote from jtubb

    Anyone know how to turn off the Skatterv2 help promotes after ever click. Very annoying

    We can add an option to disable them.

    How would you expect the active state of the tools to be displayed, if there is no popup?



    Quote from jtubb

    Also is anyone else experiencing crashing when changing the inserting point from origin to bottom center?
    This crash causing me to restart the file and try again.

    Can you send the file to skatter@lindale.io ?

    EDIT: Nevermind, I just saw your email ;)

  • Skatter V2!

    Quote from jtubb

    Enscape Devs is version two working well with Enscape?

    The protocol to interact with Enscape has not changed, so it should work the same as v1 in that regard.

    Note that Random Materials in Render-only compositions are not supported by Enscape yet. But that is the only limitation as far as I know.


    By the way, you can use Skatter v1 and v2 in parallel, in case you want to try v2 while keep using v1 for your existing projects.