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I notice Maxwell 5 for FormZ is now available on the Next Limit portal. Does this mean the plug-in is also finished or is the 'glue' between FormZ 9 and Maxwell 5 missing? // Tom

No one at all who can help me out? Even when I start a completely new project, draw a simple rectangular plane, add a physical sky and apply this grass MXM material, I still get this 'UVW channels on this object are not enough' warning.

I'm getting this error message when trying to render grass. I found this thread (http://www.formz.com/forum/old/messages/35953/61315.html) but still can't figure it out. I'm on FormZ 8.6 and Maxwell v3. I've already put an 8-bit PNG texture on the 'Shaded' material type of the Materials Parameter panel but it doesn't help. Also, I do not understand what to do with the three buttons 'Update shade..', 'Preview' and 'Use MXED'. Which one do I click and where do I see the feedback which one is active? Any help greatly appreciated. // Tom

Hi Chris, Many thanks for your reaction, that’s helpful. In this case it does not really matter to be 100% accurate and I actually have information on the actual dimensions of the chair so I can scale things. But I can imagine situations - for example with an organically shaped object or when ‘packaging’ components within a housing when dimensions really matter - in which it would be nice to understand the scaling that is applied on import. Since it is an existing chair on a site for choosing project furniture, it is hard to believe it was modelled at an arbitrary scale. Thanks again, Tom

Hi vva, Many thanks for your reply. There are many horrible things in the world that I do not have much control over 🙂 In this case I can live just fine with this model: I do not have to alter it, I do not have to 3D print it. I simply put it in a garden and it renders just fine. I was just hoping for some scaling advice. It would surprise me if the model of an existing chair that's in production were modelled at an arbitrary scale. // Tom

Hi, I'm confused about scaling an imported model, can anyone help me wrap my head around this? I'm bringing in a SketchUp model of a garden chair from caddetails.com (https://www.caddetails.com/Main/Company/ViewCompanyContent?companyID=4138&view=Models3D#vm70210-fermobusa-luxembourg-chair-3d). The model imports beautifully but I can't figure out the units it is in. I'm working in metric but the site is in Imperial. According to the specs, the chair should be 20.5" wide. When I bring it into FormZ, it comes out at 594.7cm. So there's a factor of 594.7/20.5 = 29. I don't recognize this factor as inches to mm, feet to cm. 20,5" is 52.07 cm. 594.7/52.07 = 11.42!? I realize I can scale to my heart's content but since I have to do more models it would be nice if they all came out the right size automatically. Any help greatly appreciated, Tom 4138-029 - Luxembourg Chair - SketchUp.skp 4138-029 - Luxembourg Chair - PDF.pdf

Hi, I'm struggling with printing at 100% from the FormZ layout application. The app insists on splitting up my drawing when printing at 100%. This is my flow: I want to laserprint on A4 so I choose 'ISO A4' from the 'Standard Paper Size' drop down menu in the Layout Project Settings. But if in the print dialogue box I set 'Scale' to '100%', my drawing is split into two pages. On the other hand, if in the print dialogue box I set 'Scale' to '99%', my drawing prints on one page As a workaround, if I choose a 'Custom Paper Size' that is slightly smaller than A4 (say, 5mm less at 28.7x20.0) then I can use 100% and print on a single page. Is this expected behaviour? I expected that I needed to choose the paper size of the printer in the 'Standard Paper Size' menu. Regards, Tom

Hi, I'm trying to print a dimensioned drawing. Though the dimension arrows look fine on screen, they are misaligned when I print them or when I create a PDF from the print dialogue box (see attachments). I have vector output switched on. Is there anyway to get round this? Should first export in a different way? Any help greatly appreciated, Tom MacOSX.14.6, FormZ 8.6.5

Thank you, Des. Yes, that's an option. But it would be nice to be able to export an FBX file without lights directly into the Unity assets folder and being able to make changes to the FormZ master file without extra effort.

I'm exporting to FBX and notice that the lights are also exported, even if I switch them off. I'd rather not delete the lights from the FormZ file. Is there a way to keep the lights in the FormZ file but prevent them from being exported? Any help greatly appreciated. // Tom

Many thanks, Tech. I tried and it works fine, also in metric. From my perspective as an end user, the UI is totally counterintuitive: "this process will only work properly if you are drawing in 2D", yet when I choose the 'Export Image > DWG' it doesn't work as expected and when I choose the 'Export > DWG' - which supposedly is for handling 3D output - it does. Why can't the same scaling behaviour be applied to 'Export Image > DWG'?

In my 25 years with FormZ, if there's one consistent frustration, it must be export to Illustrator. It has changed many times but it never seems to get better. It requires so much manual tidying up, it drives me completely up the wall. Could you please, please, please at least do something about the scaling? I'm not asking for magical auto-join, circle/bezier output, superfluous hidden line removal or anything fancy: just 1:1 output. Yes, I know I can scale proportionally in Illustrator but by the time I prepare my 27th file for the lasercutter I don't want to. This is what I do: - I draw a 100x100mm square in FormZ in Modeller - I switch off grid and axes - I'm happy with this: I don't want to go to Layout. That's an unnecessary extra step. This square is perfect as it is. - I use Export Image -> DWG - I import in Illustrator, 1 unit = 1 mm - I end up with 353.503x353.503mm square. - Why? I don't see any metric to imperial conversion in there. // Tom

On a related note: I've tried exporting from both Modelling and Layout and on exporting to both AI and DWG my circles get converted to facets. Is there any way to keep them circles?

Thank you, Tech.

Alan, Andrew, many thanks for your suggestions. Seems like something that could/should be solved in code rather than manually.