Material editor ineffective?

[sauronblue]

I've gone thru all the powerpoint tutorials, and have successfully changed some materials, but often times, I open the editor, use the dropper to select a material, but have problems changing this material to a new one. What happens is; I open the editor in SU, dropper up the mat I wanna change, then go to templates and select what I want. In this case, I'm going for metal/aluminum. After clicking on aluminum, it should change that mat to my new look, but there's often no change at all. I've tried watching the ruby console, but that obviously has nothing to do with TL, as nothing populates that window while I'm using TL. As stated, I have successfully made some mats, so I'm not sure why the hit-and-miss results, but it's getting quite frustrating. I'm using SU2013 and the most recent trial of TL. If it matters, I also still have VfSU and Shaderlight installed, as I'm testing diff rendering software for preference. Thanks for any insight!!
Also, is there any way to undo a change made to a mat thru TL, as undo seems ineffective for me?

[Chris]

Most likely your problem is you have a render running at the same time. Twilight won't update the material preview while a render is running (this will be completely different in V2 though).

Unfortunately the undo/redo integration with SketchUp is not perfect. There is only so much that can be done. Yes, undo and redo will work but you won't see the material editor automatically revert to the previous values.

[sauronblue]

Thanks for the reply! I don't think that's my issue, I haven't opened the render window since launching this instance of SU, but there's still no change in the look of the material in SU. I was wrong about the ruby console, theres errors every time it messes up, as I show in the pic. The material in the center that seems clear shows up as brick in the editor, but the error comes just from sucking it into the dropper. For some reason this brick texture (which was never what I painted onto this face, this was corrugated metal, the brick was on the wall touching the window frame. When I try to make it metal using the template, it turns to metallic brick in the preview, but still shows as clear, and pulls up more errors of materials not found. I recently used tt's cleanup to purge unused materials, not sure if that did something bad, but this issue was presenting itself before I used that plugin. Thanks for ur time

[Fletch]

I don't see a pic posted.

Please post the .skp file so we can test. SketchUp can often have weird things in models, and if this is something Twilight can control, we will fix it, if it's something corrupted in the file, we can help you figure out what's wrong.

Thank you.

[sauronblue]

Yes, I see that I forgot to post the image. I guess I can upload the skp, but it feels a bit weird, like dropping your kid at daycare for the first time lol. I don't understand how the issue with twilight can be resolved remotely, bc I'd assume it would be an issue with my system or my specific installation of TL or SU, but you guys know much more about these programs than me.

It says my file is too big, max of 750kib, my file is 70mb. Is my file that much bigger than others, or am I supposed to find hosting on a fileshare? I have attached the ruby pics. First is the pic right after selecting the mat, the 2nd is after using the metal template to make this "invisible brick" into metal framing for the window and erasing the texture in favor of a solid color. Both actions show the same error in the window. The preview window seems to work fine after the first couple uses, but there is consistently no effect when trying to change some mats, while I can affect others no problem. The last pic shows the error I kept getting last time, when I forgot to attach the pic.


EDIT: As I continue to look for solutions, I'm noticing things that may be relevant; as stated, I have shaderlight, Twilight and Vray all installed at once, but I only use tools from one render at a time, meaning if I'm rendering with twilight, I don't mess with materials thru vray at the same time. I believe that some of the materials that I'm unable to edit are materials that I have changed the name with vray's editor, could that be causing SU to lose track of them, therefore causing the "cannot find mat d0191" and all that? Can I change the names thru SU, bc I feel like I had issues with vray when attempting to change names in SU, but it's a pain to have mat names that mean nothing, when they could quickly give me relevant info. Thx, hope this helps you geniuses to figure out my shortcomings

[Chris]

Those errors have absolutely nothing to do with Twilight Render. It is coming from one of your other installed plugins. Whether that is what is causing your errors in the Twilight Material editor or not, I don't know.

I'm still not clear after reading your posts what exactly is the problem. Here is what I think you are saying:
1. You select a material with the eyedropper
2. You select a template
3. The rendered preview is not showing the correct template that you just selected.

Is that correct?
If so, my guess is that whatever plugin is actively screwing with your materials, and whose messages are showing up in the Ruby console, (not Twilight Render) is replacing all the Twilight Render data with some other copy of the material. Since the Twilight Render data is being replaced, the preview is not showing the newly selected template.
You should be able to disable plugins from the Preferences window, Extension. I suggest disabling all your other plugins, restart SketchUp, and then see if the problem persists. You could then turn the plugins on one at a time and see which one is causing the problem. I'd be curious to know which plugin because that is, in my mind, bad plugin behavior.

[Chris]

BTW, a quick google search shows that that error message is from VRAY. If you don't have the latest version of VRAY, you might try installing it. Otherwise, this is an error that as of July 2013 was causing problems among several other plugins. The workaround is just to disable VRAY (unless they've fixed it since then).

[sauronblue]

I'm sorry, I haven't had time to test your solution of removing vray yet. I mentioned at least twice that I have vray and shaderlight installed, but I haven't touched either of them in a week, as I've been working with twilight. They are installed, but I'm not switching back and forth in the same session, I just haven't deleted the old plugins, as I might make use of them.
My issue is not primarily with the preview box, tho that was an issue. My prob is that when I try to change a material using twilight, with no other plugins active, there is no change that takes place on screen. If I change aluminum to copper, I expect the representation of that to change on the SU model from silver to gold color, but there is no change made when using TL at times. I know I am doing the right steps, bc I have changed some materials, and am happy with those results, but many other attempts to change mats leave me frustrated. Also, the preview changes- proving that I did make a change, but the model stays the same. I don't see how the ruby console msgs are not about twilight, as I clearly show you what appears on screen, and I'm telling you that all I've done since opening the ruby console is; 1)hit the dropper icon in the already open twilight mat editor, then used the pointer to dropper up a material- which caused the first error, and 2)went to templates/metals/aluminum to change the material selected- which caused the second error. After that, I was left with a preview showing the material tl interpreted as being there(which was somehow a brick texture that's showing up as invisible on the model, and should never even have been painted onto that surface- there was a corrugated metal texture on there before it went invisible), which was the previous texture done over in aluminum. I erased the texture and left a solid color under the aluminum in the preview before I took the screenshot, but all of that had no effect on my question/issue. I touched no other plugins nor did anything else that would put a message in the ruby box. Isn't it true that some renderers leave extra info on the materials other than what SU uses? Is it possible that TL does not know how to deal with that extra info left by another program, and that's causing the error? Removing the original prog wouldn't help, as the info is already stored with the material in SU. I will try your suggestion, but just wanna put the most correct info out there in the meantime.
BTW, I tried reversing the faces, but there was no change, and I'm not even sure if that would cause this type of issue. I also tried repainting the face with the SU materials, which successfully changes the material to what I selected, no longer invisible. However, I still cannot successfully change the new material on that surface with TL, but now I see no errors in ruby related to dropping up the material or using the template to change it. The preview still shows the change, but nothing happens on the model
Thx for ur time and effort

[Chris]

It doesn't matter if you are using VRAY or not. The fact that it is installed is the problem. Certain parts of it are running regardless of using it. It is VRAY causing the Ruby Console error messages for certain, and it's probably VRAY causing the materials to act strangely. As I said before, either disable VRAY or remove it.

[Chris]

If I change aluminum to copper, I expect the representation of that to change on the SU model from silver to gold color, but there is no change made when using TL at times.

Do you mean you expect the color of the material in the SU view to change? It does not. Twilight Render does not make assumptions like that. You can explicitly change the color from the TW Material Editor, but changing the template will not change the SU material automatically. This is intentional.