[Rafal SLEK]

Excuse me if my problem is so simple that it is shame not to know it but I use c4d (very) occasionally and could not solve this problem (but I've tried ):
1. I've open C4D file prepared by xfrog, it is one of the free files,
2. In C4D perspective all materials looks good - properly mapped with right textures.
3. In Maxwell Fire some parts of model is shown without defined material.
4. Same problem is when trying to render this little scene.
5. I've tried to use Convert CInema Materials command but converted material is black.

All necessary bitmaps are in the same folder as C4d file, I've tried to attach them once more to be sure that paths are correct.
In different xfrog model everything works. But as I see difference is in the way meshes are prepared and in C4D hierarchy.
Excuse me if I am using bad terminology.

My case (materials not working for MR, converting failed):



Object where everything works:

[JDHill]

It is not really possible for me to diagnose this without seeing a copy of your Cinema file, so please upload one to dropbox or similar.

[Rafal SLEK]

It is not really possible for me to diagnose this without seeing a copy of your Cinema file, so please upload one to dropbox or similar.

Yes, of course.
These files are from this page:
http://xfrog.com/category/samples.html
I have problems for example with these files - http://xfrog.com/product/AG08.html
Compressed folder is uploaded by me to dropbox - link in PM.

[JDHill]

Thanks, the files help narrow things down very quickly -- it should work fine if you disable the Luminance channel in the Cinema materials. With Luminance enabled, the plugin is translating the materials as emitters. The quickest way of fixing this will be to select all the materials in Cinema's Materials window, and then disable the Luminance channel for all of them at once in the Cinema Attribute Manager. It's pretty easy to run into something like this, because while it doesn't make much sense to make a leaf material using an emitter in Maxwell, it can be find to do it in a renderer like Cinema. The result is that you generally need to be on the lookout for these types of things.

Just for future reference, there are a couple ways of identifying a problem like this: a) in the Console window, you will find messages during export indicating "error @ multi-mat object 'name' (illegal emitter selection on non-emitter object)" showing that some material is perhaps unexpectedly being translated as an emitter, and b) if you convert all Cinema materials to Maxwell, then look at the converted materials in the plugin material editor, you will find that some of them have been created as emitters.

[Rafal SLEK]

Wow! Works! Thanks for your detailed explanation.
One more thing , I want to prepare some mxs reference files for project (made in ArchiCAD - BTW) and question is:
- is it important to convert such materials to Maxwell Render or it doesn't matter?

[JDHill]

Not really -- the thing to understand here will be that when you use the Convert Materials command, it just does the same thing that happens automatically during export. So, unless the conversion during export is not producing nice enough materials, it is generally not necessary to use the Convert Materials command at all. In other words, Convert Materials is just provided to allow you to prevent the plugin doing any auto conversion at export time, by doing it during modeling time instead.

[Rafal SLEK]

Thanks a lot once more. Helps me much.