Is there a way to link SketchUp materials and IRender nXt materials

Is it possible to link SketchUp materials with IRender nXt materials and vice versa? When you render SketchUp models and scenes, you're investing a lot of time making your materials perfectly rendering. Ideally this would be needed just once, so the next time you choose the linked SketchUp material, it's automatically "mapped" to the belonging IRender nXt one.

I've evaluated a couple of rendering software and so far I'm wondering why this quite obvious feature seems to be unavailable. Or am i wrong?

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on November 18, 2011 at 5:51pm

This is ready for you to try out. This is still a Beta feature, so there may be some problems we will have to fix.

Default Materials

IRender nXt give you the ability to define Default Materials which are saved in a Library Folder and automatically applied to SketchUp Materials placed in your model before rendering.

Define your rendering settings - reflection, bump maps, etc. - on the SketchUp Material
Save as a Default Material
These setting will then be used whenever you use the same SketchUp material in other drawings.

Usage

Default materials are saved and loaded from the More Setup Tab

Default Materials Settings

Save All from Model

will save all materials in the current model, which been added with IRender nXt onto your disk. These are saved into the roaming App data folder, e.g. C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\IRender\Default_Materials

Load All into Model

- will load the latest version of any default materials into the current model.

Only materials with the same SketchUp Material name will be loaded.

Auto Synch before Render

If this is checked, then Default Material Settings will be loaded for any SketchUp materials which you have not modified with the IRender nXt Material Wizard already.

Materials Which have already been loaded, or have been modified with the right click editor will not be loaded from defaults.

Example

The wall behind Susan has a SketchUp Material placed on it.

When it is rendered, it renders normally, with no special materiel settings.

Rendering with normal material settings - (no reflection)

When Auto-Synch is checked, and it is re-rendered, the Default Material settings for Stone_Marble are loaded, and it is rendered with the default reflection properties.