[stir]

Hi

Bin testing out the latest maxwell 3ds max plugin with the new hairfarm 2.0
Its great to see such a great hair plugin meeting such a great render engine.

i recently also send a support mail to nextlimit regarding maxwell and hairfarm, they told me it wasn't 100% tested. So if i came across issues or things bugging me, i was welcome to post that at the forum. So that basically what this thread is.


Software:
3ds max 2013 x64 update 6

maxwell render 2.7.20
3ds max maxwell plugin 2.7.17

windows 7 x64



- The maxwell fire works fine with hairfarm except it doesn't update on material changes. It needs to be rexported every time. Not a big issue just fetching it out there.

- this is a big one tho, 3ds max crashes if i'm trying to render a hairfarm object that has a map in the density slot on the generate modifier in hairfarm






Here is 2 test Images enjoy

[Mihnea Balta]

Hi,

We've checked it and it looks like it's a problem in HairFarm itself. We'll contact Cem and see if we can get it sorted.

[stir]

Glad its not just me then

It worked fine with Scanline and MR, so i just thought it might be Maxwell specific.
Thanks for bringing the news forward

[bograt]

Pretty sexy looking hair, if sexy is the word to use...
what SL is this? there always seems to be a fine grain on hair, even on the NL render in the gallery

[stir]

Hehe thanks.

Now these where just tests so i never saved the mxi. So i cant double check, but i believe the green one is default 12 and the brown one is either 15 or 18
Things are actually working pritey smooth between hairfarm and maxwell. It renders relatively quick. Ofcourse the more hair you got the slower it will go, but for the stuff I'm doing now its flying.


The biggest challenge so far is getting the variation i want on the hair. Would be sweet to use the hairfarm shader in Maxwell, but i guess i need to ask Cem <- (creator of hairfarm) for that.

[Mihnea Balta]

The crash is fixed for the next plug-in update.

The shader stuff is not easy to do because Maxwell doesn't currently support plug-in shaders or textures. Our hair primitive can use vertex colors when they're available (they get multiplied by the reflectance 0 color, allowing the hair system to provide some variation), but unfortunately HairFarm doesn't seem to generate vertex colors.

[stir]

That is some great new's looking forward to it.
and sad news that the shader stuff ain't supported yet, we will survive tho

I have stumbeled over another problem.
The hairfarm object seems to make rogue frames that doesn't render. I have simulated a paint brush stroking a surface. So first i thought that i probably have a bad simulation crashing the frames. But then i saw that i don't start the simulation before frame 25, and i already got rogue black frames at frame 3 and 7.

I have applied a maxwell default grey on all the meshes to make sure there isn't a bad shader causing it.
if i remove the hairfarm objects all the frames render fine.

If some one wants to take a look, i have a cleaned up scene here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w17cxoph5gjq9 ... sh_bug.max

PS: the file is made in:
-3ds max 2013 x64 Update 6
-maxwell 2.7.20
-max plugin 2.7.17 beta
-a custom hdri thats not included
-Hairfarm 2.0

[stir]

Worked some more on the problem. bin turning the modifiers off one by one downward hoping to turn off the problem sooner or later.
And when i turned off the last, pritey important one (HairMesh edit) it started rendering and writing mxi files fine.

Ofcource i need the HairMesh modifier to shape my hair. Still strange that it renders some frames and some not.

Tought i just update you guys on how it goes. Need to try dig inn to that modifier specific now.

[stir]

Oh my!! Im about to give up.

it feels so random!
After turning off the hairmesh i turned on all the other modifiers. and it dint work again, then i pinpointed it down to the cluster modifier. kept everything on exept mesh and cluster. And the frame rendered. Then i turned on mesh, and it worked, then i turned on cluster.....and yeah, it worked.....&"#(¤/(

So....maybe its nothing about the max file or the stack, but some restrictions for the mxi file, not allowed to write or something, because in the console in maxwell, that should be the next step everytime it halts. Still strange tho, because if i delete the hairmesh it have no problem writing.


We are always rendering to a server.
I might want to try render it to another location on the server or try saving it localy......well i try that now lets see what happens

cheers.

[stir]

No luck yet.
Seems to be more random then i first thought. It can suddenly also go inn to a freeze at 99% in a middle of render. Lets say the image is on SL 5.0 and is about to hit SL 6 but stops at 99%. and it will never ever continue. You cant click stop either.

Some one experienced this issue before? or similar?
I have never experienced it, not before i started using hairfarm, thats also why I am posting this issue in this thread.

[stir]

Still having hairfarm Problems.

Maxwell ain't exporting it correctly at times, making the render hang.
Its really random so i have no idea what might cause it.

Could someone confirm or discard the problem. So i can know if its something local on this system or a accual problem.

The work around for now is making the hair to mesh. But you will never get the fine fury details as if you rendered directly from hairfarm.