SkIndigo 0.7test7

Announcements, requests and support regarding SkIndigo - the Sketchup / Indigo exporter.
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Whaat
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SkIndigo 0.7test7

Post by Whaat » Sun Apr 08, 2007 5:53 pm

Just some minor changes from 0.7test5. I suggest reading the changelog for the 0.7test5 release as well as this one. Tonemapping settings have been removed from the exporter Render Settings. Let me know if you want them back. You will have to use the Indigo Tonemapper for your tonemapping that can be found here: http://www2.indigorenderer.com/joomla/f ... php?t=1332
To install the exporter, copy SkIndigo_07.rb into your Sketchup/Plugins directory.
I should be posting a tutorial within a few days.
I have posted the "How To" list (found in the About SkIndigo menu item) on the 0.7test5 forum but I will post it again here. There is one small change related to resuming a render from an .igi file.

Version 0.7test7 Changelog:

#Changed: Re-enabled Bidirectional Path Tracing
#Changed: export file extension from XML to IGS
#Added: Option to save igi file in render settings
#Added: Advanced user functions accessible through Ruby Console
#Changed: Materials are now listed in alphabetical order in Material Editor

To use the Advanced User Functions (barely tested), open the Ruby Console Window and type:
Indigo.adv -> opens inifile.txt
Indigo.ren -> opens /renders directory
Indigo.igs -> opens your last exported igs file for hand-editing
Indigo.tm -> opens IndigoToneMapper.exe (must be in same directory as indigo.exe)
Indigo.web -> opens the Indigo website in your browser
Indigo.mdb -> opens the WIP Indigo material database by arneoog
Indigo.res -> select the IGI and IGS files to resume a render

HOW TO:

Render with Sun and Sky Light
1. Turn on shadows
2. Turn on Sun and Sky in SkIndigo Render Settings

Render with Custom Lights
1. Use either an RGB Light or a Blackbody Light material in your scene.
2. RGB lights will emit light according to the material color
3. Blackbody lights will emit light according to the temperature
4. Light is only emitted from the front side of the face

Render with Uniform Background Light
1. Turn on Background in SkIndigo Render Settings
2. Scene will be lit with a uniform background light matching the current Sketchup background color

Render with Environment Map
1. Turn on Environment Map in SkIndigo Render Settings
2. Set your Environment Map using the SkIndigo menu item
3. You can use EXR maps in Lat_Long format or FLOAT maps in Spherical format

Monochrome Render (Clay)
1. Change Sketchup render mode to monochrome
2. Choose Clay to render clay mode or any other material
3. Choose Default to render using the current default material color

Adjust the Rendered Image Tones
1. Make sure you have downloaded the Indigo Tonemapper application.
2. Load the appropriate .igi file using the Indigo Tonemapper application.

Create Transparent Material
1. Enable transparency in Sketchup material settings using the opacity slider
2. Set the material type to SPECULAR
3. The opacity slider will change the amount of RGB absorptivity. Set to 0 for no absorptivity (i.e. clear glass).
4. SPECULAR materials should have thickness to render properly.

Create Material with Specular Highlights
1. Set the material type to Phong
2. Set the index of refraction to >1.0
3. Use the exponent value to control the glossiness.

Create Diffuse (Lambertian) Material
1. Set the material type to Diffuse

Use BLEND materials
1. Set the material type to BLEND
2. If a texture is applied to the material, it will be used as the clipping map
3. If no texture is applied, the blend factor will control the weight of the materials

Use Sub-surface scattering
1. Enable transparency in Sketchup material settings using the opacity slider
2. Set the material type to SPECULAR
3. The opacity slider will change the amount of RGB absorptivity. Set to 0 for no absorptivity
4. Enable SSS with the material editor
5. Input the Uniform scattering coefficient or the 3 RGB scattering coefficients separated by spaces
4. SPECULAR materials should have thickness to render properly.

Use Material Presets
1. Presets are intended to give you approximate starting values that you can further refine to suit your needs
2. These values will be updated in future releases as the Indigo material library continues to be developed

Use Textures
1. Apply textures directly to individual faces, not groups or components
2. Currently, textures distorted with the position texture tool are not supported
3. JPEG and PNG textures are supported but PNG textures may cause Indigo to crash

Use Bump and Exponent Maps
1. You can select any texture that is currently in your model
2. The map will be positioned using the same coordinates as the currently applied color texture. If no color texture is applied, the bump map will not render correctly
3. If you wish to use a bump map different then the color texture,they should be the same size or you will get strange results.
4. Your maps will have to be manually exported to the TX_EXPORTNAME directory if they are not currently applied to a visible face in your model. Right-click on material in Paint Bucket
5. Set bump or exponent gain

Resume a Render from an .igi file
1. The Indigo path must be set. This is done when you export your model with Auto-render enabled.
2. From the Ruby Console Window type "Indigo.res"
3. Locate the Indigo IGI file and then the Indigo IGS input file.

TIPS:

1. Use Sketchup shortcut keys! Especially for assigning properties to materials
2. Be sure that no faces are reversed. Use monochrome mode to check for reversed faces
3. Use layers to separate geometry and lights. For example, put different lighting set-ups on different layers. If you are doing material tests, put unnecessary objects on a hidden layer
4. Always export your model to the Indigo directory. This allows use of Auto-render
5. If you are getting strange shadows in your render, try disabling smoothing. Also, check orientation of faces
6. Modify the aperture size to control depth of field
7. If your image is blurry, use the Set Camera Focus Tool

Indigo 0.7 features currently not supported:
1. Peak spectra
2. Henyey Greenstein phase function
3. Dermis and epidermis media
4. a and c texture coefficients
5. Comprehensive nkdata list
6. Instancing
7. Primitives and rectanglelight

KNOWN ISSUES/BUGS:
1. Distorted textures not yet supported
2. Textures applied to groups and components not yet supported
3. Quick Export and Low Priority modes are experimental and may be prone to bugs.

Happy Easter! :D

Whaat
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Last edited by Whaat on Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:58 am, edited 2 times in total.

Big Fan
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Post by Big Fan » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:03 pm

edited to remove all
Last edited by Big Fan on Mon May 07, 2007 1:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Big Fan
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Post by Big Fan » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:18 pm

edited to remove all
Last edited by Big Fan on Mon May 07, 2007 1:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

silv.andrea
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Post by silv.andrea » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:22 am

tks a lot!!!

i am just using sketchup

the exporter works fine for me!!!
bye :lol:

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Whaat
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Post by Whaat » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:39 am

Big Fan wrote: auto run opens a windows command window in addition to the indigo GUI is that actually 'required'?
Yes, it is required because I have to use a batch file to autorun Indigo now that inifile.txt does not include the scenefilepath tag. I won't explain why I have to do this but it's the only way I can get it to work right now. On my system (Windows XP) the command window disappears immediately after executing the batch file so this is not an issue for me. I will try to figure out why yours does not. Maybe someone out there knows the answer?
Big Fan wrote: is it possible to auto set the priority of the indigo.exe to below normal at start up as the blender exporter does?
Set the number of threads to Low Priority to run in Low Priority mode. I always use this mode and it seems to work perfectly.

Whaat

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kwistenbiebel
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Post by kwistenbiebel » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:32 am

Wow...
This is going fast...
Moving from beta 7 test 5 to test 7 in one day.
Someone is doing speed scripting here. :shock:


I am experimenting but I do have problems with the current skidigo version.
Indigo gives an error that textures are missing.
It seems that sketchup materials that are assigned to groups and components cause this. Deleting those materials solves the problem.


I have the impression that there is a lot of hard drive activity going on (rendering to IGI). Is that normal?
Should I change the sve time (now 20 sec.)?
It seems Indigo is more busy with saving than with rendering.
After 10 minutes it is still saving the .igi file and the preview screen seems stuck...

How do i get the tonemapper open while rendering?
Opening the tonemapper seperately while the rendering is in progress just eats all my resources (sketchup remains open).
Can we only use the tonemapper when rendering is done?

I am wondering if other users have trouble with the sketchup/indigo/tonemapper combo regarding system resources ...



Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Kwistenbiebel

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Whaat
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Post by Whaat » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:41 pm

kwistenbiebel wrote: Indigo gives an error that textures are missing.
It seems that sketchup materials that are assigned to groups and components cause this. Deleting those materials solves the problem.
I mentioned this in the "How To" list but I will repeat this because it is VERY important:
Only textures that are assigned to VISIBLE geometry will be automatically exported to the TX_EXPORTNAME directory. That means, if you have unused materials in your scene and they have a texture image, the material WILL get exported (so that it can be used in BLEND material, BUMP maps, or EXPONENT maps) BUT, the texture image will NOT be exported. This was not a major issue with previous versions of Indigo because Indigo did not shut down if it did not find a texture. However, with current versions of Indigo, you cannot render if Indigo cannot load a texture.
I will work on a better solution for this, but for now I recommend the following:
- Purge any unused materials and components in your scene. (unused meaning not applied to geometry with the Paint Bucket)
- Only retain unused materials that you want to use in BLEND materials, or as BUMP or EXPONENT maps
- Manually export or copy the textures that Indigo cannot find to the TX_EXPORTNAME directory. You can do this by right-clicking on the material in the Paint Bucket
- You may want to do your first export with all layers and geometry visible. That way, all your USED texture images will be exported automatically to the TX_EXPORTNAME directory

I hope this isn't too confusing. Hopefully I will work out a better solution for the official release of version 0.7
kwistenbiebel wrote: I have the impression that there is a lot of hard drive activity going on (rendering to IGI). Is that normal?
Should I change the sve time (now 20 sec.)?
I would change the save time. You can make it as long as you want.
IGI files are very large. Also, I think the default preview update time has changed in Indigo 0.7. You can change this in the inifile.txt
kwistenbiebel wrote: How do i get the tonemapper open while rendering?
Opening the tonemapper seperately while the rendering is in progress just eats all my resources (sketchup remains open).
Can we only use the tonemapper when rendering is done?
I only have an Athlon XP 2700 (no multi-thread) so I always have to render using Low Priority mode. The Tonemapper and Sketchup should not be eating your resources. You must have Indigo running at normal priority. Just set the Threads to "Low Priority" in the SkIndigo Render Settings. You should be able to use the tonemapper during a render no problem.

Cheers,
Whaat

crc
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Fatal error

Post by crc » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:47 am

First, this looks really really great. two things that will ease/speed modeling and rendering are the context menu addition and the pre-sets
big big thanks!!
but, when I try to render a scene i am getting this pop-up

"Fatal Error:
SceneLoaderExcep:TinyXmlWrapper:could not find element 'gain' in element 'albedo_texture' (around line 45)

something I am doing wrong?
I can't wait to get into all the new features!!!

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Kram1032
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Post by Kram1032 » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:50 am

looks nice, but shouldn't the precedence be >1?
1 = air (= world), so this may not be too good...
just guessing, though

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Whaat
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Re: Fatal error

Post by Whaat » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:01 am

crc wrote:i am getting this pop-up

"Fatal Error:
SceneLoaderExcep:TinyXmlWrapper:could not find element 'gain' in element 'albedo_texture' (around line 45)
I think you are still using Indigo 0.6. You need Indigo 0.7test7 to use SkIndigo 0.7test7. Also, you might have to reset your Indigo path to point to the right version of Indigo. One way to do this is to copy and paste this line into your Ruby Console Window:
Sketchup.active_model.set_attribute 'indigo07_settings','indigo_t7_path',""

Whaat

crc
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Ahh, well-

Post by crc » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:54 am

it is a Monday morning-
:D

just got the first render going, it wouldn't auto-start until I put that into the ruby console, but I could still open it with the app.

I was also getting the failed to load texture message and just went in and deleted those textures from the Materials menu.

A tip that might help some people -- I found a ruby script "Remove all materials" that works nicely. I have been doing a number of renders of interiors where I had to get components from FormFonts and other places, and that really fills up your material list fast. So, I do the remove all materials on the component, and then purge unused materials and it really helps.

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Whaat
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Post by Whaat » Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:05 am

Thanks for the nice tip! Just be careful you don't remove a material that you are using as a bump, exponent map, or in a blend material.

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Post by Whaat » Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:38 pm

Big Fan wrote: auto run opens a windows command window in addition to the indigo GUI is that actually 'required'?

EDIT weds 11
I found the command window is not present if the priority is set to low so I guess it just got frozen at GUI start up :roll:
I think I figured out the problem and I will fix it in the next update of the exporter. If you can't wait that long, open up SkIndigo_07.rb with Notepad and go to line 2379.

Change the line to:
batch.puts "start indigo.exe "#{$g_su2in_export_file}"" if $threads!="Low Priority"

For reasons I am not sure of, this should stop the command window from opening up when using Auto-render.

Congratulations! You now know more about Ruby scripting than I did when I started working on the exporter!

Whaat

Big Fan
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Post by Big Fan » Wed Apr 11, 2007 10:44 pm

edited to remove all
Last edited by Big Fan on Mon May 07, 2007 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Richard
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Post by Richard » Wed May 02, 2007 1:27 pm

I could be dumb as dog shit but can't for the life of me find the download for this updated exporter! Help!

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