Maxwell 2.7 introduces a new grass generator:
Grass can be generated on a per-group basis in SketchUp. To access the feature, click the Maxwell Grass button in the plugin toolbar (or menu):
The parameters which control how grass is generated are shown, for a group, whenever that group is selected:
Here, three groups have been selected: Group A and two other groups. Selection of groups is by standard SketchUp selection methods, with the advantage that the plugin keeps track of the selection in order of which group was most-recently selected. Changes made are The plugin supports several Maxwell extensions, which generate render elements at render time:
| Extension | Description |
|---|---|
| Maxwell Grass | Accessed via the Maxwell Grass window, this extension produces grass blades on geometry. |
| Maxwell Sea | Accessed via the Maxwell Sea window, this extension produces a sea surface, using Next Limit RealFlow technology. |
| Maxwell Volumetric | Accessed via the Maxwell Volumetric window, this extension produces a region containing participating media. |
| Maxwell Scatter | Accessed via the Maxwell Scatter window, this extension scatters instances of an MXS file over a surface. |
All of these extensions are created by assigning data to a SketchUp group. Their respective windows track the active selection, with changes made being applied to all currently-selected groups.
Grass is not currently inherited by instances in Maxwell, so keep that in mind: given multiple instances of a particular component, where that component contains groups with grass applied, grass will only be seen on the export for the definition, unless Use Instances is disabled.
Additionally, note that grass parameters work by inheritance, similar to the way parameters found in the plugin's context menu do. This means, for instance, that if you created a group from five other groups, and then set up grass parameters on the master group, those parameters would be applied to all five contained groups. It would be possible to edit the group, and change the grass parameters on only one of the contained groups; these parameters would override those set in the containing group. Note, however, that it is not possible to enable grass on the parent group, and disable it on a child; all child groups contained in the parent group will be enabled if grass is enabled on the parentAt the top of the windows you will find an item named Selection, which indicates how many groups are selected, as well as the most-recently selected group:
In this example, there are three groups selected, with the most recently-selected one being named "Plane". Oftentimes, groups have not yet been named, in which case, this selection would appear as:
For information on the meaning of the parameters contained in each window, please see the relevant documentation:
All of these use geometry in their group, and/or its bounding box, along with the transformation of the group, to define how they are created and rendered in Maxwell.
| Info |
|---|
In the free version of the plugin, grass each extension is limited to being exported for one group. It may be enabled, and its parameters set, on any number of groups, but it will be written only for the first group found during export of the scene to Maxwell Fire. |
For more information on the operation of the actual grass parameters, please consult the standard Maxwell Grass documentation.
| Note |
|---|
| Warning |
Be aware that it may be very easy to create grass extensions which uses use a great deal of memory, and which may therefore crash the SketchUp process, since its density is specified in blades per square meter.. |