[Richard]

Well I must say I'm disappointed - I expected a good plugin with all the previous hype, and now it looks like we have an f*#@ing great one! I'm a whinger, what am I going to Whinge at now!

Well done JD mate not just on the plugin which has gone so so far beyong what I have even been expecting with all the hype to include nearly a rewritten and somewhat simplified maxwell render manual. For most new users start up will be a dream, for the experienced an easier path to answers!

I want a group hug! I feel lighter now!

[messire]

envy?
Guys, been testing the Win version for a week+ and man its hot as hell..
As for the mac, i have a full day ahead with no appointments, gave orders so no calls will be forwarded, am in front of the mac, and ready to install mamma mia !!
What a great way to end the season before vacation !

Nils

[fv]

Yeah, Apple gave me the new 12core to test Maxwell's new preview render engine. The new plugin does an adequate job as well .....
Its funny how quickly you forget how things used to be, I am bored already since ............................................ HAVING READ THE MANUAL SEVERAL TIMES AND STILL CAN NOT DOWNLOAD THE NEW ?HKLP*YOIYTJGHVKHGFFGHKHGCF

[JDHill]

Hi guys, sorry, but I'm at Siggraph -- Juan did talk to the web people, and tey say the plugin should be available at any time, but that's all I know about it right now.

[fv]

Hi JD, tx for the update. lets hope your work becomes available as soon as possible.
Francois

[Burkhard]

It's announced by Maggie

[fv]

My first impression is very good, this is far better then you would have been able to do democraticly and a wishlist.
There is too much to explore before any comment can be made by me.

But it does seem to work well on my OSX machine on a first run.
TX JD

[fountainhead]

Just downloaded...didn't work when I tried to 'save' the zip file to hard drive, but did when I just chose 'open'.

At first glance...wow! Can't wait to get into it.

Thank-you JD for your determined commitment to see this through...

[stefan_kaplan]

WOW. Maxwell for SketchUp is back.
… and what a COMEBACK!!!
I guess this was worth waiting 10 months for

Functionally and visually a GREAT new Maxwell-approach – made in the “SketchUp spirit”.


I’ve only used the plugin for one day and my experience is a solid, thorough piece of software.

Only very few things should be looked upon in order to fine-tune this plugin.
Still, I’ve taken the liberty of making a list of wishes and errors.

General comments:
- Wish: Ability to make own defaults (e.g. for Sampling Level in Material Preview). This could be implemented beneath the reset option in the control’s context menu.
- problem: When the Maxwell Scene Manager window is open, my computer constantly uses 50% CPU.
- problem: Sometimes 100% CPU is constantly used even though SketchUp is only visible program running and the Maxwell Scene Manager window is closed. Task Manager reveals that "Maxwell" application is running (invisibly). When terminated, use of CPU is back to a minimum.
- Wish: Toolbar icons without the "disc-look". This is only my personal opinion. My alternative, that you can use as you wish:
Export MXS: ,
Browse For An MXM File: ,


For easier understanding:
- Wish: the expression "application", which appears several places, should be changed to "as in SketchUp"
- Wish: in Output-tab: in Stop Time "m" should be changed to "min".
- Wish: in Output-tab: in Threads: "0" should be shortly explained. Eg. "0 (uses all available)"

Materials-tab:
- Error: Mostly the Materials Tab opens grey even though there is one or more material in the drawing. You have to create at least two materials and use the "Entity/Material Selection Tool" (the new eye-dropper) to switch between them a couple of times in order to suddenly access the settings on the Materials-tab.
- Error: Sometimes the buttons in the Maxwell Scene Manager doesn't work. Restarting the Scene Manager ususaly makes them function again.
- Wish: Material Preview: implement STOP-action! (or double click the material preview to stop the render progress - as in the Maxwell Material Editor).
- Wish: Material Preview: Setting not only for "Sampling Level" but also for "Sampling Time" - as in the Maxwell Material Editor.
- Wish: AGS is an important material since transparent SketchUp-materials are converted to AGS (?). Shouldn't the "Opacity/Mask" for an AGS created in Maxwell Material Editor equal the opacity slider in SketchUp? It doesn't do that now. It would be great to be able to control Opacity (linked to the opacity of the SketchUp-material), Nd and Roughness in the AGS-material settings.
- Wish: Ability to export SketchUp-material as MXM and open it in Material Editor.
- Wish: "Entity/Material Selection Tool" (new eye-dropper): Shift enables "+/-" and Shift+Ctrl enables "-". Ctrl should enable "+" (exactly like the Select Tool in SketchUp).
- Wish: Add ability to control "Material ID color" for chosen materials.

Camera-tab:
- Error: Output Resolution: When using "Custom"-mode and "Aspect Locked", changing the Y-value will change X and Y to "2" and mess up the scene. Changing the X-value will sometimes change X and Y to "2" but doesn't mess up the scene.
- Wish: Extend image frame: I sometimes use Maxwell Studio for the single purpose of extending the area/frame of the image before rendering. It is a great option to be able to leave the camera in a desired position (keeping field of view etc.) and just "extend" the frame to include more in the render. When changing the aspect of the image area in the plugin, the proportions of the frame only changes in width (even when altering Y-values). In Maxwell Studio changing the Y-resolution alone changes the frame's top and bottom but leaves the sides in a locked position (Opposite happens when changing X-resolution). When aspect is locked and values are changed, the frame stays in a locked position. Could the same behavior be implemented in the SketchUp-plugin?

Scenes:
- Wish: Now, SketchUp Scenes remember settings made in the Camera-tab. They should also remember settings from the Environment-tab. The enviroment settings should not be set globally but should be connected to the different SketchUp-scenes (just like the camera settings).


Thank you, JD Hill.


/Stefan

[Richard]

Stefan

Mate you have some great suggestions and a wealth of finds there!

I'd agree with most and add that the material ID control is a great one! I've always dreamt of linking material ID to a PS action so I can quickly generate a mask for every material I know will likely colour tweak later in PS! I may only elect to do ten colours for eg, but having this as action would be very handy!

I would love to see the option and not sure it would be possible, to select not only an MXM but select the preview and it's settings! I have become a lover of the store preview option in the Mxed, as for one material I can several iterations of the material and less reliant on tons of MXM's. This feature is underutilised generally - imagine one MXM (carpaint) then from the preview store you can select red, blue, gold, yellow, black etc!

I bet you wished we just gave you a break for a bit now the bulk is done!

I also have a suggestion for the toolbar icons for scene - a simple cube, for focal distance - a simple red and white target!

Stefan

Mate in regards to your use of roughened AGS, do you find a use for this that produces anywhere near a correct result? I have used it for frosted glass though used several planes of AGS to get some better blurring of behind objects and place a plane of true AGS at the front to get some reflection maintained.

@ JD

Mate in the manual in general discussions you chat about certain limits created by native SU components! Is this hinting at an inability long term toward substitution of high poly MXS for low poly SU component on export?

Also with the new feature in V2.1 studio to save out camera settings can these seeting be bought back into SU! Maybe similar to SU's create camera feature or even Create camera > context click > set to Maxwell camera > browse > select and the camera location and settings are adopted? I ask this as I will often find I'm doing iterations of previous models that may have had final tweaking in studio and the materials etc can be saved out though I've lost my camera so all iterations of the same scene thereafter are forced through studio.

[JDHill]

Thanks for the detailed feedback guys, I am just done with Siggraph, and will review all of your notes when when I can get back home and into the code...

[brodie_geers]

Thanks so much for your work JD. I haven't had much of a chance to play with the plugin yet but I read through the manual and it looks really promising.

I was going to post this as a sort of funny snide comment, but you've done things that I didn't think would be possible with a SU plugin already. Based on what you know so far, do you think there's any hope of integrating the new interactive preview with SU, presumably in some sort of side window? Or, since SU has to export the model, is that pretty much out of the question at this point?

-Brodie

[JDHill]

WOW. Maxwell for SketchUp is back.
… and what a COMEBACK!!!
I guess this was worth waiting 10 months for

Functionally and visually a GREAT new Maxwell-approach – made in the “SketchUp spirit”.


I’ve only used the plugin for one day and my experience is a solid, thorough piece of software.

Only very few things should be looked upon in order to fine-tune this plugin.
Still, I’ve taken the liberty of making a list of wishes and errors.

General comments:
- Wish: Ability to make own defaults (e.g. for Sampling Level in Material Preview). This could be implemented beneath the reset option in the control’s context menu.

Yes, I've intended to do something similar to this, but time was limited. Materials should also receive a set of user-defined presets, similar to what you have in the Camera, Environment, and Output tabs.

- problem: When the Maxwell Scene Manager window is open, my computer constantly uses 50% CPU.

I am not seeing this here -- what happens if you change the Frame Rate in Options > User Interface?

- problem: Sometimes 100% CPU is constantly used even though SketchUp is only visible program running and the Maxwell Scene Manager window is closed. Task Manager reveals that "Maxwell" application is running (invisibly). When terminated, use of CPU is back to a minimum.

Sounds like a problem with the preview-refresh routine. Let me know if you can identify a set of steps that gets the plugin into this state -- I'll look at it here too.

- Wish: Toolbar icons without the "disc-look". This is only my personal opinion. My alternative, that you can use as you wish:
Export MXS: ,
Browse For An MXM File: ,

Of course, you are free to change these -- I have used icons which maintain some coherence with those I've been using in my other plugins for a long while.

For easier understanding:
- Wish: the expression "application", which appears several places, should be changed to "as in SketchUp"
- Wish: in Output-tab: in Stop Time "m" should be changed to "min".
- Wish: in Output-tab: in Threads: "0" should be shortly explained. Eg. "0 (uses all available)"

I am using the more generic 'application' here because I intend to employ this user-interface in more plugins than just SketchUp, and I would like to maintain consistency. Also, notice that the 'Info' item in all context menus has not yet been hooked up to any help, so possibly this will help with things like the meaning of threads=0.

Materials-tab:
- Error: Mostly the Materials Tab opens grey even though there is one or more material in the drawing. You have to create at least two materials and use the "Entity/Material Selection Tool" (the new eye-dropper) to switch between them a couple of times in order to suddenly access the settings on the Materials-tab.

I've seen this, but don't yet know exactly why it is happening. I rely on SketchUp to send me messages about materials being added/removed, and I do not find them to be entirely reliable.

- Error: Sometimes the buttons in the Maxwell Scene Manager doesn't work. Restarting the Scene Manager ususaly makes them function again.

Could you tell me which buttons you mean? Which operating system are you running on?

- Wish: Material Preview: implement STOP-action! (or double click the material preview to stop the render progress - as in the Maxwell Material Editor).

Yes, but this is not as simple as it sounds, and it will take a little time to build the required structure to support it.

- Wish: Material Preview: Setting not only for "Sampling Level" but also for "Sampling Time" - as in the Maxwell Material Editor.

The minimum I can render, specified in time, is one minute, so this is not really an attractive option.

- Wish: AGS is an important material since transparent SketchUp-materials are converted to AGS (?). Shouldn't the "Opacity/Mask" for an AGS created in Maxwell Material Editor equal the opacity slider in SketchUp? It doesn't do that now. It would be great to be able to control Opacity (linked to the opacity of the SketchUp-material), Nd and Roughness in the AGS-material settings.

Sure, I can review this.

- Wish: Ability to export SketchUp-material as MXM and open it in Material Editor.

This is something planned, but yet to be implemented.

- Wish: "Entity/Material Selection Tool" (new eye-dropper): Shift enables "+/-" and Shift+Ctrl enables "-". Ctrl should enable "+" (exactly like the Select Tool in SketchUp).

I will have to look closer to tell you why, but as I recall, it works how it does for a technical reason.

- Wish: Add ability to control "Material ID color" for chosen materials.

Sure, this can easily be added, though I would prefer the 'material' gains an 'advanced' vs. 'minimal' view, as with the Camera and Output pages, since I don't want to clutter things up with these more obscure, technical features.

Camera-tab:
- Error: Output Resolution: When using "Custom"-mode and "Aspect Locked", changing the Y-value will change X and Y to "2" and mess up the scene. Changing the X-value will sometimes change X and Y to "2" but doesn't mess up the scene.

I'm not able to observe this, so could you give a more specific set of steps by which I may duplicate it?

- Wish: Extend image frame: I sometimes use Maxwell Studio for the single purpose of extending the area/frame of the image before rendering. It is a great option to be able to leave the camera in a desired position (keeping field of view etc.) and just "extend" the frame to include more in the render. When changing the aspect of the image area in the plugin, the proportions of the frame only changes in width (even when altering Y-values). In Maxwell Studio changing the Y-resolution alone changes the frame's top and bottom but leaves the sides in a locked position (Opposite happens when changing X-resolution). When aspect is locked and values are changed, the frame stays in a locked position. Could the same behavior be implemented in the SketchUp-plugin?

I'm not sure I can accommodate this, due to many competing factors related to how SketchUp uses its view and camera. If you notice, the plugin provides you with no direct control over the Maxwell camera's film size, since this must be inferred from information defined in SketchUp -- if you need to understand the reason why, the easiest way of doing so would just be to turn on the aspect ratio indicator and watch what happens as you change the resolution.

Scenes:
- Wish: Now, SketchUp Scenes remember settings made in the Camera-tab. They should also remember settings from the Environment-tab. The enviroment settings should not be set globally but should be connected to the different SketchUp-scenes (just like the camera settings).

Sure, I will play around with this idea.


Thank you, JD Hill.


/Stefan

[JDHill]

Stefan

Mate you have some great suggestions and a wealth of finds there!

I'd agree with most and add that the material ID control is a great one! I've always dreamt of linking material ID to a PS action so I can quickly generate a mask for every material I know will likely colour tweak later in PS! I may only elect to do ten colours for eg, but having this as action would be very handy!

I would love to see the option and not sure it would be possible, to select not only an MXM but select the preview and it's settings! I have become a lover of the store preview option in the Mxed, as for one material I can several iterations of the material and less reliant on tons of MXM's. This feature is underutilised generally - imagine one MXM (carpaint) then from the preview store you can select red, blue, gold, yellow, black etc!

So, you want each material to actually be holding many complete material definitions, including preview images? I don't know about that -- in MXED, the previews you store are runtime only and are not saved in the file.

I bet you wished we just gave you a break for a bit now the bulk is done!

I also have a suggestion for the toolbar icons for scene - a simple cube, for focal distance - a simple red and white target!

Stefan

Mate in regards to your use of roughened AGS, do you find a use for this that produces anywhere near a correct result? I have used it for frosted glass though used several planes of AGS to get some better blurring of behind objects and place a plane of true AGS at the front to get some reflection maintained.

@ JD

Mate in the manual in general discussions you chat about certain limits created by native SU components! Is this hinting at an inability long term toward substitution of high poly MXS for low poly SU component on export?

I would not take anything I write as 'hinting' -- I have no definite word either way on the possibility, or more specifically, the ultimate efficacy of that idea. It is one which is very easy to say in a short sentence, but which holds a universe of complications underneath. Ultimately, it may simply be something that I will consider outside the scope of a plugin's proper functionality; what you are really asking for is xref-type of support in MXS files.

Also with the new feature in V2.1 studio to save out camera settings can these seeting be bought back into SU! Maybe similar to SU's create camera feature or even Create camera > context click > set to Maxwell camera > browse > select and the camera location and settings are adopted? I ask this as I will often find I'm doing iterations of previous models that may have had final tweaking in studio and the materials etc can be saved out though I've lost my camera so all iterations of the same scene thereafter are forced through studio.

I am not clear on the Studio feature you are referring to -- where can I 'save out' camera settings in Studio? This must have escaped my attention.

[JDHill]

Thanks so much for your work JD. I haven't had much of a chance to play with the plugin yet but I read through the manual and it looks really promising.

I was going to post this as a sort of funny snide comment, but you've done things that I didn't think would be possible with a SU plugin already. Based on what you know so far, do you think there's any hope of integrating the new interactive preview with SU, presumably in some sort of side window? Or, since SU has to export the model, is that pretty much out of the question at this point?

-Brodie

It's too early to say what it may look like in SketchUp. Of all the plugins I have to integrate this into, SketchUp should be the most difficult, mostly due to the reason you point out above.