Easy Model Import and PROXIES with Transmutr

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Hi Everyone! SUPER excited to check out this new extension - I'm especially excited to start trying it out with some high quality models like the ones from Megascans, as well as maybe combining it with Quixel Mixer or a similar program for better renderings!

[@SvenK-CAD]

so you can have your cake and eat it too' :) nice vid'

[@Thesketchupessentials]

LOL

[@lindale-software]

Great video Justin! Thanks a lot ;) Usually, it's recommended to put the texture files in the same folder as the FBX or OBJ. That will help Transmutr find the texture files automatically, so that you don't have to add them manually. Also it would have been way easier and better to send the Megascans asset from Quixel Bridge instead of loading it manually, everything would have been done automatically.

[@artworksenvisioneering2167]

Many thanks for addressing a major need for Sketchup fans isolated from great assets created in poly heavy software formats, and representing the bulk of high end rendering entourage. I did find that landscape items, light in bitmaps heavy in poly count can't reduce as well as, say, Justin's cake example, or even the Mega Scan sample as they're more plans than meshes. Nature of the beast--no short coming in Transmutr. I look forward to leveraging my Transmutr purchase for making entourage proxies for Sketchup. Honestly I just need to Skatter my own proxy shrubs and such to get the kind of lighter poly SKU friendly stuff I was hoping for on Turbo Squid etc in landscaping. Just gutting a shrub and showing a shell of leaves suffices, but that'd be painstaking to do in Blender. Time is money. Better done in Skatter, native in SKU. It worked wonderfully on some fairly detailed ivy recently. A request: many Arch Viz or 3D designers use a beefy (and cheaper) GPU--can you update Transmuter down the road to leverage the GPU? It'd possibly run an order of magnitude faster than CPU's which are costly to upgrade and don't have dedicated RAM to help them.

[@artworksenvisioneering2167]

Justin, thanks for reviewing this. It's been on my radar since they announced the release via email. Promises to be a major time saver. I've switched to using Enscape proxies from their asset library for populating furnishings or plants when doing 2D floor views because it's so fast, light and render ready down the road. So expanding this and the render ready proxy angle with Transmutr is a natural direction to go. Now to review your 3D models resource vid's for grabbing models. Black Friday last yr just killed me because all the quality models on sale were non-sku friendly. Transmutr should rectify about 75% or 90% of that bottleneck. Much appreciated. Please, complete the trifecta with a review or how to on Quixel, Mega Scans etc. to complete the render pipeline Transmutr has opened up to the SKU community.

[@artworksenvisioneering2167]

Well, so far a total strike out on my attempts to translate high poly non SKU files via Transmuter except on FBX imports from turbo squid--obj had missing mtls, and 3ds just blanked out after waiting a very long time for it to load in Transmutr. My issue is often just getting a white screen when the UI should show up upon finally importing it. I'm sure half of it's Turbo squid's models come in packs for many landscape items, meaning now instead of a 1 million poly single model to transmute, I face 5 to 25 million which is absurd in the SKU world. And, I have no good way to break them up short of trying to work through Blender which I have no experience with, but is reputed to handle poly counts ridiculously well and for free. So user beware--Justin's cake is a single model import, and that works. My slower older CPU is not helping, but that isn't a file compatibility issue nor is it a missing materials issue. It's just annoyingly slow. another major mistake I made: don't select your Enscape proxy as "simplified geometry" when all you want is super light proxy place holders. I wound up reducing a 5.8 mil poly group import to 2.8 mil, only to see it created a 1.5 GIG "proxy" which of course is not suitable if you're not running a something by Silicon Graphics or the CIA. So, lesson learned: skip face, or make a wire or box place holder--but that is not the best for precise placement if you don't want Enscape running. Enscape's assets rock because they have super lo poly reps of the high poly real things and you can place them super well. So, research continues. Single models, proper proxies, and I think I can keep trucking. Now to learn Blender, I fear, in order to recoup some of the lost capital spent on render worth models in non SKU forms.

[@artworksenvisioneering2167]

Update: the blender route works, isolating models within sets and FBX export (to keep textures baked in) but only deleting interior leaves can cut file size effectively on plane heavy landscaping items. Don't need 50% of the interior complexity for Arch Viz. So, when picking models, poly count in a mesh is a way different thing to reduce vs poly count based on leaves/plans. You can't reduce the plans without logically reducing to tri's and most leaves are at least quads for covering the texture png defining them in render. Bummer. Skatter may be a better tool for landscape due to the nature of the beast.

[@blairpettigrew]

Thanks Justin! This is far cheaper than Skimp. Is there any reason to choose skimp over transmutr?

[@siteck905]

Can we save the enscape proxy to asset library enscape?

[@airigid]

seems cool, does it work on older versions of Sketch Up?

[@Thesketchupessentials]

The actual extension within SketchUp...not sure. The desktop version works independent of SketchUp and exports SketchUp version 8 files, so realistically it should

[@ummarfarooquepk683]

How can I export proxy model to d5 render?

[@vanyasimon]

Is there any free plugin available that does the same function as Transmutr does ??!

[@Thesketchupessentials]

No

[@Genaaa916]

There wouldn't be a Transmutr if there were.

[@samuel.tallet]

Free plugin Universal Importer does importing and polygon reduction. You can download it from SketchUcation PluginStore.

[@Genaaa916]

Does the V-Ray Proxy work for you? Whenever I try to export as a proxy, it won't show up in V-Ray at all. I checked the proxy file path and it is correct.

[@Thesketchupessentials]

I haven't tested it yet - I've mostly used the Enscape proxies so far

[@hamdshahid3011]

why transmutr website shows error 520 when i visit this site??

[@Thesketchupessentials]

It doesn't for me - did you follow this link? www.thesketchupessentials.com/transmutr

[@jafarsadhiq4772]

hei i have transmutr but i cant use, system informing its file not found in my computer. but the file found in my computer

[@Thesketchupessentials]

I don't understand the issue you're having

[@daveedwardsconsulting6916]

Does this work with Textures which use Alpha Channel Transparency?

[@Thesketchupessentials]

That I don't know the answer to...

[@daveedwardsconsulting6916]

@@Thesketchupessentials That's always been a big problem with conversions to SKP format. I'll have to see what I can find out.

[@artworksenvisioneering2167]

@@daveedwardsconsulting6916 Great question. Just slogged thru this issue on some hi res landscaping items whose png texture's alpha cut out copies behind each other in Enscape. I had to go in and just paint in those areas to fix it and that worked but man, it'd be so nice to drag and drop and no photoshopp fixits required. To slow for production.

[@artworksenvisioneering2167]

Discovered It brings in (or offers) a transparency layer (if your clipart model didn't have one included), at least for FBX. FBX seems to embed file references best. I had no success on OBJ or 3DS so far even loading smaller 36 meg items much less finding and applying textures to them. It pulled over a gig files fine in FBX. Not sure the glitch there--might be my files, not Transmutr. I had to manually assign a couple of opacity masks included in my Turbosquid purchases but rendered great running Enscape.

[@husseinkal7666]

Does the proxy work with Vray... When I do export proxy the materials do not appear

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Should - there's a Vray proxy option...

[@husseinkal7666]

@@Thesketchupessentials There is a really vray proxy option .... but when importing the proxy the form appears without material ..... Please help me

[@Thesketchupessentials]

@@husseinkal7666 No clue - I assume it's storing the materials somewhere and your Vray proxy isn't linking to them properly, but I don't use Vray enough to troubleshoot this further

[@husseinkal7666]

@@Thesketchupessentials Thank you anyway ..... Your KZbin channel is the most I have followed in a while .... Good job, man

[@Cristhoper_l]

I hace the same problem, what can i do?🥺

[@w.binder-freecadchannel]

Very good! ;-)

[@Thesketchupessentials]

😎

[@chendiz]

good for 1-2 models for reducing mb, what if we have over 10-15 model in our scene, 10x15mb(just objects) knock knock. who is this? here's the errors : )

[@Thesketchupessentials]

I'm not really sure I understand this comment - you use proxy models specifically for this purpose - you shouldn't be getting errors with 1-2 models or 10-15...

[@muhamdhasan4428]

have serial number or crack please help me??

[@Thesketchupessentials]

You're asking for help to steal this extension? Really?

[@Genaaa916]

Sure. You can have a serial number for 60€. transmutr.com/

[@Dickdeath]

@@Thesketchupessentials some people ..!! you have to wonder..!!