SketchUP Importer in 3d Studio Max 2010

September 15, 2009 | News

While writing posts 9 SketchUP tips for better 3d modeling workflow & Making of ‘MS House’ at dusk, part 1 i refereed to the process of exporting SketchUP models as 3DS files to be imported into 3d Studio Max for more work and rendering. Today I’ve learned that Autodesk has released a new SketchUP importer for 3d Studio Max 2010 available for all their subscription holders. Boy, if ever i wanted to be a subscription holder it is now.

The thing is a never really found any incentive to upgrade from version 9. but since Autodesk did notify all the users about the termination of upgrades for 3d Studio Max 9 starting from March 16th 2010 – it is a good time to upgrade regardless.

They posted a video presentation about it which shows it all, but to sum up the highlights :

Support for the double-faced materials workflow available in SketchUp, so arbitrary surface orientations don’t cause models to appear to be missing faces when displayed in 3ds Max.
Preservation of original pivot and scaling values of objects and instances.
Consolidation of material references. Multiple uses of the same SketchUp material are collected and referenced back to a single material, saving revision time.
Automatic creation of MR materials and MR Daylight system correlated to the SketchUP model.

This is a smart move by Autodesk supporting the very popular SketchUP and actually allow for the use of the free version of SketchUP since the importing is done on the 3d Studio Max side this time by reading the SKP file directly.

check out the video presentation for this new importer

My only problem about this new Importer is that V-Ray is not supported automatically too, I’ll have to find some easy solution to convert from MR – if you know some, please comment about this below.

6 Comments

Yves
September 16, 2009 at 7:49 am

Prompt update! Nice work! Looking forwards to seeing more post! Cheers.

Reply
- Pixel
  September 23, 2009 at 1:00 am
  
  That’s something that will come handy ! Not sure about the “Support for the double-faced materials” is a good thing… better to model correctly in SU first !
  
  Reply
  - Ronen Bekerman
    September 23, 2009 at 1:05 am
    
    I sure agree about modeling correctly! but many will appreciate this feature i think.
    
    Reply
Dwayne
November 22, 2009 at 7:44 pm

I wished Autodesk would give us 3 options for buying Max, without additional render engine, with MR or with V-Ray. That would be great!
Try Blender import KMZ and then export 3DS or OBJ – http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/py_import_kml-kmz_en.htm (both free)

Reply
Rubén
August 21, 2010 at 7:12 am

Someone experienced the VRay engine in imported .skp files?

Reply
Rubén
August 21, 2010 at 7:14 am

is it better, same or worse than the traditional .3ds conection between skethup and max?

Thanks in advance

Reply