The Maxwell Render for Google SketchUp by Next Limit Technologies is a new easy to use render engine that works with Google SketchUp 8. The application is completely integrated into SketchUp allowing for a seamless experience for users. Maxwell Render for SketchUp is a simplified version of their full application Maxwell Render Suite.

When using Maxwell Render in an outside environment the product works great. The materials in your model work with this plugin and those same materials can even be edited within Maxwell. Though a drawback is that each material needs to be selected separately and changed manually.

The rendering time is decent and allows for fairly quick rendering based on settings. A render countdown clock signifying how long is left on the rendering is missing. If a large render is being tackled it seems as if the rendering time is infinite and there really is no knowing how much longer it will take. Though at any point in the rendering the image can be saved without disrupting the rendering. When saving the image there is a drawback as the file formats do not appear and “.jpg” needs to be added manually.

A major issue that is either missing or not obvious on how to do is how to create interior lighting points with the SketchUp Plugin. This option is available with Maxwell Render Suite, but doesn’t seem to be available on the SketchUp version.

Overall, the Maxwell Render for Google SketchUp by Next Limit Technologies is an extremely easy to use rendering engine but with many limitations. At the time of this review this plugin costs $95 for the licensed version and is available at MaxwellRender.com. I give this plugin 3 out 5 stars.

SketchUp Plugins come in the form of:
- Ruby Scripts (.rb) with folders
- Compressed Files (.zip or .rar)
- Executible files (.exe or .msi) In which it installs itself just like any other program.

Though installing plugins can be a little tricky for a new user. Below are instructions for installing most plugins for Google SketchUp:
Step 1: Is to create a desktop shortcut for your plugins folder.
Step 2: Download your plugin to desktop.
Step 3: Move downloaded rubyscript file into plugins folder shortcut.
Step 4: Use the plugin!

See our video below for instructions on how to install plugins.

Once installed plugins can appear in many places. The most common places are:
1. In the top menu under “Plugins” (next to File, Edit, View, Windows etc..). Sometimes even within sub-menus in this category.
2. By right clicking your mouse plugins may appear.
3. In the toolbars, go to View -> Toolbars and you will be able to see a list of available toolbars. Most plugins come with a toolbar so this is a prime place to find them.
4. Under the “Tools” category. Some plugins find themselves here.
5. Within the Extension Feature. Some plugins may require extensions to be enabled. In this case go to Windows -> Preferences and then within the preferences menu click “Extensions” and check or uncheck the plugins.

The Curve Maker, Taper Maker and Stock Maker plugins created by Terry Ross on DrawMetal.com are great plugins for those in metal working or sculpting. This plugin comes with 3 plugins as mentioned and is compatible with SketchUp 8.

The first is The Curve Maker, this plugin is going to be your main tool in creating your designs. The plugin offers you a variety of standard curves. Including the Archimedes spiral, Bernoulli (logarithmic or equiangular) spiral, Catenary, Cornu spline, Cotes spiral, Euler (clothoide or Cornu) spiral, Fermat spiral, Golden spiral, Helix, Hyperbolic cotangent spiral, Hyperbolic spiral, Hyperbolic tangent spiral, Lituus (volute, shepherd’s crook or bishop’s crook), Parabola, and Sine wave and Cosine wave functions. Once selecting a spiral the plugin allows you to input the measurements such as radius, length, height etc. At this point though your not done.

Once the spiral is created you will need to give it a shape. The Taper Maker thus comes in handy here. You can choose from a variety of standard shapes such as circular, square, diamond, octagon, etc. And these can be tapered or kept the same at both ends. If you have a more complicated shape then the Follow-Me Tool would come in handy. But unfortunately using the Follow-Me Tool will not taper, thus an additional taper plugin may be necessary.

Also as part of the DrawMetal package, The Stock Maker is available. This tool allows you to have an accurate estimate as to the stock of metal to be used. These raw material requirements are important for metal working. Using this tool has a few steps and I suggest referring to the DrawMetal website. But essentially it will give you a print out of what is needed for your project.

Overall, The Curve Maker, Taper Maker and Stock Maker plugins created by Terry Ross on DrawMetal.com is a great plugin for those in the metal working industry. At the time of this review this plugin is FREE and is available at DrawMetal.com. I give this plugin 4 out 5 stars.

Download Notes: Note that ther are 2 versions, one for MAC and other for PC. The file contains all 3 plugins.

The Vertex Tools plugin created by Thomas Thomassen is a great plugin allowing for easy manipulation of a series of vertices at once. The plugin is great for creating landscapes for surveying, free hand manipulations/sculpting, designing organic projects and many other uses. It allows you to create smooth slopes and even the ability to specify the slope distance and change them as you go. The plugin comes with built in features allowing you to select free hand, or by square and circle or by points in a click by click style fashion.

At first it was tough to figure out how to use this plugin. NOTE, if you create your mesh using the Sandbox tools, you need to explode the mesh and keep it selected in order for it to work with the Vertex tools plugin. Once you have your mesh selected you can use the tool in the Tools menu. It was frustrating to keep having to go to the tool menu but I discovered that you can create a toolbar shortcut by right clicking (on pc) and selecting the Preferences button and then checking the Toolbar and Context Menu boxes. Once you get a grip on how to use the tool it works great. Below is a video tutorial on how to use the plugin in more detail.

A major drawback is that this tool lacks the ability to create specific/calculated shapes. It would be a great benefit if there was a way to impose or project a 2D object as a selection on your grid without having to manually select the nodes. This could be very time consuming for complicated objects. And even if you are trying to use the circle and a square in conjunction, the tool does not respond well and creates craters where the objects intersect. And even ran into problems that once I have selected a certain area and wanted to adjust the settings the selection would disappear.

Overall, the Vertex Tools plugin created by Thomas Thomassen is a very useful plugin for general use but lacks the specificity to use the tool to its full potential. At the time of this review this plugin is $20 for a single license and is available at www.thomthom.net. I give this plugin 3.5 out 5 stars.

Updated: 6/30/2010

The Shaderlight renderer created by Art VPS is a new beta rendering engine for SketchUp and many other 3D design programs. The renderer is actually its own separate program that integrates with SketchUp. Once installed it is automatically picked up by SketchUp.

This product works really well considering it is completely FREE. You can render high and HD resolution renderings and is simple and easy to use. The program comes built in with all the base SketchUp materials with added functions to create the glossy, plastic, transparent and other affects to the material and automatically detects and chooses the style to help to create the most realistic rendering. Shaderlight also allows you to place dynamic backgrounds and lighting attributes to the entire model. The render comes with a great support community via their website, their forums and tutorials. Another feature of the plugin is the ability for it to automatically update the rendering as you change items, this is a double edge sword as it does not allow you to work while rendering but does give you the flexibility to change things real time. UPDATED* The auto update feature can be turned off in the settings menu to stop this feature.

Since this product is still in the beta version there are some drawbacks that need to be noted. When rendering complicated objects the rendering time takes quite some time and memory as expected. But, there is no progress bar to display the full progress of the rendering from start to finish, only sub progresses of all the actions being taken as the renderer works. Not knowing the time left to render can be frustrating. Another major downfall is that it is not easy to create lighting points or objects and change lighting colors. This missing feature alone is a deal breaker for this particular rendering engine. Another major drawback that we found is that some flat jpg images, such as an image on a tv set, will not come up in the rendering, we assume that there is a way to make them come up. But could not find a solution to this.

Overall, the Shaderlight renderer created by Art VPS is an up and coming rendering engine that will rival the leading rendering programs out there. But is not quite there yet. At the time of this review this rendering engine is free and is available at www.artvps.com. I give this renderer 3 out 5 stars.

The Align Tool plugin created by Didier Bur on SketchUcation.com is an essential tool to help you with aligning objects and components in your model. With just a simple right click and then defining a few points you can align objects precisely and quickly.

The Align Tool works really well, but it does take a few tries to get used to how it works and to utilize it to its full potential. The align tool works almost exactly like the AutoCAD align tool in the 3D view. The plugin is great and a button would make this plugin that much better but for the most part is great!

Overall, The Align Tool plugin created by Didier Bur is a fabulous plugin. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars!

Download Notes: Be sure to be logged into SketchUcation in order to download the file.

The LSS Toolbar created by created by Kirill is a great toolbar that combines many of Kirill’s plugins in one easy to use menu. It has been slightly overdue but now that its here it is a great addition! Kirill’s famous plugin is the SU Blend plugin that will blend or morph two faces into one object with levels (if desired).

Though the new toolbar comes with many other useful blending tools. Included is the original sublend named “Blend” on the toolbar. In addition is the “2 Faces + Path” blending tool that allows you to take the sublend concept and blend along a path. Works really well and has many options to get the blend exactly as you like it. Another set of tools that comes with the LSS Toolbar is the control points to manipulate objects. This can be used to manipulate curved objects such as spheres. Though the drawback on these tools is that they can be a little tricky to use and get used to. First you need to set up control points (be sure to play with all the options first as they all do slightly different things). Then once you have control points set up you need to DOUBLE CLICK on the point and then you can move them in any which direction you choose. The great thing about these is that you can control the power of the controls as you wish. And other tools involving the control points are the rotate, scale, stick in or stick out, and deform face.

The LSS Toolbar also allows you to create curves based off of points to draw smooth lines and the biggest feature is the ability to edit these lines after using the “Edit Geom Interpolated Curve” button. Though this tool is similar to the Bezier Spine Tools which is a set of tools specifically for these types of curves.

One of the most useful features of the LSS Toolbar is the “Create 3D Mesh from Construction Points” it creates that all too sought after tool to create smooth curves based on predefined points. We suggest also downloading the Draw Construction Lines tool to assist you in creating these points. A great benefit to this plugin is that it also has the ability to draw the contours of the lines of the mesh. And finally the “Stick Objects to Mesh” tool allows you to drop objects down onto a surface and perfectly fit onto the surface.

See below for a great video on the use of the tools of the LSS Toolbar.

Overall, The LSS Toolbar created by created by Kirill is a very useful plugin and works great to manipulate surfaces and create curves exactly as you wish. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at Kirill’s live journal page. Though his plugin does require other rubyscript files to fully work. The download button below includes ALL the necessary files. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars!

The Shape Bender plugin created by Chris Fullmer on SketchUcation.com is a fantastic tool to warp objects along curved paths. This tool really allows you to take SketchUp one step further allowing you to create curved objects with specific accuracy, which many tools of this kind lack.

The tool allows you to specify what area to be fit along a path and the shape bender plugin automatically fits the object along the path. And you have control of flipping the object either inside or outside the path area. Sometimes you will need to play with the location of the object by pressing the up and down arrows. The plugin works well but it is very important to note that the object to be fitted should be a group or component and the line describing the objects length should be on the RED axis. And we found that if you create the line on lets say the green axis and then rotate it to the red, it will not work. The line actually has be created on the red axis. Another limitation is that this only works on a open curve, it cannot be curved, thus a complete circle will not work. But if you create a little opening (like we did in the image above) then it will work.

See below for a great tutorial on how to make a curved road along an incline and go to SketchUcation.com there are a couple more videos that have great step by step tutorials.

Overall, the Shape Bender plugin created by Chris Fullmer is a very useful tool to have and really comes in handy. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 4 out 5 stars.

The Fredo Scale plugin created by Fredo6 on SketchUcation.com is a great tool to use for manipulating objects in specific ways. In general the tool works the same way as the normal scale tool in the respect that it provides you end points to manipulate similarly to the scale tool. Though this tool takes the scale tool many steps ahead.

The tool set comes with a palette with a basket full of tools. Actually all the tools are not even listed on the toolbar. This set of tools allows you to scale, taper, shear on a plane, stretch, twist, radial bend and rotate in many different ways. There is so much that this tool can do that we cannot get into everything here. Make sure to read the user manual for a full set of instructions on how to use the plugin. Also below is a great video tutorial for this plugin.

A great tool that comes with this plugin allows you to scale an object without completely scaling aspects of the object, such as trims or general objects within, this tool is called the “Stretching with Orientation to Scaling Box”. We did notice that it can be hard to adjust the center from where to reference the stretching. Another tool that is great is the “Radial Bending by Selection of Plane and Angle”, this tool lets you curve objects in certain angles (like the arch in the above picture), though note that the object needs to be divided in order for this to work correctly to curve the object. So far we have not been able to notice any major drawbacks and are very pleased with this plugin!

Overall, the Fredo Scale plugin created by Fredo6 is an essential tool to have. Though we do strongly recommend that you review the user manual to get the most out of the plugin. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars!

The IDX Renditioner plugin created by IMSI/Design is an excellent renderer for Google SketchUp. This renderer is very simple to use but also provides you with the advanced options without complicating your model too much. This is one of a few renderers that allows you to use their product completely for free, at limited resolution (640×480 pixels), but so far is the largest in total area of the free versions. IDX Renditioner is one of the only renderers that does not get rid of components. It renders your entire model with ease. IDX comes with set lighting fixtures and uses all materials in SketchUp adding extra ease of use!

IDX allows you to use the materials in SketchUp and then by right clicking (on a PC) on these materials you can go to the IDX Materials option to adjust reflection and depth to make the material a little bit more 3D. There is a drawback with this, well not really a drawback, it only is if you don’t know about it. If you change the settings for a material, lets say for a mirror, then all materials in the model will also change. So make sure to copy materials that you would like to have different effects.

Lighting can also be adjusted in a similar fashion as the materials. By right clicking you can choose the IDX Lighting option and adjust brightness and color of light. Though this only has worked with lighting sources supplied by IDX in the component area. Also you can override SketchUp’s preset sun location and lighting with IDX. And create sunny, cloudy, and even twilight light displays very easily and within SketchUp.

See below for a great tutorial from “The SketchUp Show”!

Overall, The IDX Renditioner plugin created by IMSI/Design is a great renderer and is one of the top suggested renderers out there. The rendering time is reasonable, rendering within about 5-20 min and the preview mode renders fairly quickly, within minutes. At the time of this review this plugin is free (at limited resolution) or can be purchased at $199 for the full version. It is available at idx-design.com. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars, simply the best value out there!