I went on and tried the Thea proxy option and have a simple comment:
Usually you’ll have the following files for working correctly with Thea proxies:
1 - Modelname.mod.thea (thea model);
2 - Modelname.mod.skp (sketchup proxy for thea);
3 - Modelname.skp (original sketchup file that you used for creating the thea model and proxy serves only as backup)
I understand that you cannot create mod.thea files without Thea SDK, so I won’t ask for them however, I think saving a file as Thea proxy shouldn’t save it as Modelname.skp, but as Modelname.mod.skp
I would also love that you’d save the transmuted file as Modelname.skp on the same folder in one go as that would allow us to edit the mod.thea file or proxy later.
Let me rephrase your request to make sure I understand it correctly:
When you check “Export as Thea proxy”, you want the proxy .skp file (containing the link to the Thea files) to be saved as Modelname.mod.skp, and at the same time the full geometry .skp file as Modelname.skp. Is that correct?
The modelname.skp file would be a file that stores full geometry so we can edit it later. This could be optional as people might be happy with the export from Transmutr.
There are a lot of situations where this full geometry file would be useful:
If people want to generate a mod.thea file from full geometry to tidy up their folders;
If materials have advanced properties that should be finetuned;
If people want to create material variations from the file (cars, furniture, flowers, clothes);
If people want to improve UV mapping or geometry or modify the file for some other purpose.
There is also a matter of polyreduction and how to better use it that I will post in a new but related topic.
I understand about the UI, but I was only hoping for a couple of tick boxes only.
I could keep saving 2 times but it becomes tedious after some time and I think it would help most of us as I’m imagining the end result for most Thea users would be the following:
1 - High definition thea.mod file
This will be a model with the same polycount as the original or with just a bit of polyreduction to make it more lightweight. I often don’t care about reduction here as I don’t want to loose time with it and I can always have a closeup from the model.
The issues I’m finding here is that it’s only pure luck to have the materials are all rightly setup. Most 3D files I get need new UV’s, new material/object groups so I will have to configure the models at a later stage.
I will have to work with them in Sketchup for 80% of the times.
2 - High definition skp file for
So I always need this. If I wouldn’t need it I would uncheck a tick box. I guess many of us will need it. Transmutr finally allows us to import something that works in Sketchup. Thanks god. If it doesn’t, only then will I use poly reduction on it until it does. Great stuff!