shape materials and importing them in Bricscad or Sketchup?

Horia

I would like to know if the materials that one defines in Shape are importable in Bricscad?
The same question for Sketchup.

I tried importing in Sketchup, but they do not seem to work well... Sketchup showed some materials that are present in the DWG, but not all, no transparencies and textures...

Michael Mayer

1.
Render capabilities in Bricscad are nearly non existing so far,
(As for todays standards)
although the REDway SDK has nearly unlimited offers.

2.
that may be one reason why I assume not very high internal
priority on the Material System and its Environment which has
a lot of issues.
But I think it would deserve some love though.

3.
I never ever had any 100% lossless Material Exchange between
different Apps. Unfortunately.
(Beside Vectorworks to Cinema4D Exchange, but they use the
same C4D Render Engine or to real time Engines - when you
use a special compatible Material System in your App)
So that might not be very easy in general.

The supported Features of different Material Systems also do
hardly overlap.
But as long as Bricscad has equivalent Texture Channels it would
be nice if they came in.
There was a similar problem with exports that Bricscad forgot to
add those Textures used by internal default Materials. While own
custom Textures exported in FBX.
But that was fixed after a Support Request.

4.
If you have a demo file that shows that import is missing some of the
Materials while others come in, it would assume this is a clear Bug
and it be nice if you could file a Support Request.

Similar for any kind Feature Request,
as it will show Bricsys that there is some interest in Rendering and
Materials and my influence priority.

Horia

DEar Michael Mayer,
your reply is extremely kind! (as always) Thank you!

anyway, this is quite dissapointing:
a) Shape proposes a lot of materials.
b) in Shape, you cannot edit them (or if yes, nowhere is written how to do it!)
c) I presumed, from previous discussions here, that "the full Bricscad version will do everything what Shape is presenting only in a stripped way". But I was obviously wrong, and Shape has features that are not present in Bricscad. Which makes things even more complicated.
d) so my hope that I could work in shape, then import in Bricscad and continue detailing, is gone.
e) I was hoping to find, with Shape and Bricscad, an affordable and elegant solution, that would integrate 3d modelling and presenting (not high, but at the level of Sketchup) with usual CAD drafting, in this tandem. All with the usual Autocad command options which I and many other prefer.

But obviously, what is shiny on the outside is sometimes hollow on the inside. I will probably save more money for a serious BIM software that has all these things in one. (Like Archicad, Nemetschek, Autocad that now has some architecture features included, etc.)

Horia

When I have time, I will also put here an exact bug description. But I am generally here not to help Bricsys to improve on my time costs, but to find a solution for my CAD workflow!

Michael Mayer

c)
I am not aware of any Shape functionality not available in Bricscad BIM.
Did I miss something ?

d)
I don't understand why you can't go Shape+Bricscad.
Or did you mean that Bricscad BIM in general doesn't meet your needs

e)
Presentation capabilities of Bricscad BIM exceed that of Shape of course.
Owning a Bricscad License I see no much direct need to also use Shape.
If Bricscad doesn't do what you need another package might be more
suitable.
But beside Autocad AD, the packages you mentioned don't exactly
work in an Autocad way. More in a rest of the world style.
All have their Pros and Cons.

Yes, filing Support Requests is tedious and time consuming.
But it's the official, fastest, most effective and reliable way to get what you want.
If there is something that really limits your workflow,
it may be worth the effort.

plabill

I'm nowhere near a pro in BricsCad yet but I've had no issues so far going between shape and BricsCad. I'm also pretty proficient at SketchUp and now I'm totally addicted to BricsCad. No need for all these extensions

Pilou

Maybe you can take a look to the free crazzy PCON Planner! https://pcon-planner.com
It has some formats that can help you for some go between!
DWG SKP etc...