[adzling]

I am trying to render an image of a part that is powder-coated white (semi-gloss).

while i am using a material that seems appropriate (glossy white plastic mxm) the output looks like crap.
in fact i have been able to get anything but steaming piles out of maxwell.

obviously i have no idea wtf i am doing.

i am using the formz plug-in (which just seems to be an in-program menu option that launches maxwell studio).
using the default lights from maxwell.

+ an change to the resolution settings inside maxwell seem to have no effect on the resolution of the final output.

can anyone point me in the right direction to get started?
all the "tutorials" i have seen on the maxwell site are totally useless, it's like someone looked at the interface and then tried to describe it in words.

a nice video tute showing how you setup a simple object for render would be helpful, it's gotta out there somewhere right?

[Steven Houtzager]

Hey,

Powder coat white semigloss should not be too difficult. You can just use the built in carpaint gray and lighted it a bit. It comes with the program.

I do sell specific video tutorials on FormZ and the Maxwell pluggin.
http://intuitionusa.com/maxwell_training.html

Steven Houtzager

[adzling]

thanks for replying stephen.

I have a nice gloss plastic MXM assigned to the material in FormZ so that's working....

I think my initial problem was that I was using a demo of maxwell 2.5 so the resolution output was locked, and all the images just looked shite because of that.

I upgrade my 1.5 license to 2.x and am now running a test render at a higher resolution.

I'll know in an hour or so how things are turning out.

I did notice you sell tute's but the options within the FormZ plugin seem very limited....not exactly self-explanatory but with some more digging on the think web-site I have a reasonable grasp of the situation...I think.

[adzling]

here's a link to my post in the main maxwell forum that shows the kind of crappy output im getting from maxwell:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 97&t=36422

formz's built in renderer is producing better results...

[pylon]

Adam,

The problem is your lighting, as users in the other forum pointed out. For product photography, the subject should be in a completely black room, lit only by a few softbox-type lights, which could be either mxm-emitter mapped geometry, or a studio HDRI. This is how the sewing machine in the other thread was done.

Maxwell isn't RenderZone (thankfully); all real-world photographic principles and conventions apply here.

Ben

[adzling]

thanks Ben, the input from the main forum has been very helpful.

I currently have the product being lit solely by a custom HDRI that simulates a studio to some degree.

By "completely black room" do you mean place the product inside a literal black box maybe 20' on a side and use an HDRI to light it...?

or do you mean "an environment devoid of any other objects"?

thanks....all the input is really helping me to get to grips with Maxwell...much appreciated.

[pylon]

I meant the latter. Glad it's working better for you.

[adzling]

cheers.

man i can't wait for formz 7 to enter beta, the integration with maxwell fire will be very welcome.

btw can i ask what machine/s you are running maxwell on?

I have a couple 2006 mac pros, one upgraded to octo-core and one still at it's stock quad-core.
i am currently contemplating whether to upgrade the quad to an octo-core xeon running around 2.33-2.66ghz or invest in a headless cheap render node with a six-core amd processor.

[pylon]

Fire won't be in the initial plugin for formZ 7... But sometime after.
I'm developing on an 8 core 2009 Mac pro.

[adzling]

i have been trying to locate a copy of the benchwell file to a test on machines' relative speed but unfortunately the benchwell site is long gone.

any idea where I can pick up a copy of that sculpture file?

[numerobis]

http://www.maxwellrender.fr/public/benchwell_scene.rar

[adzling]

cheers matey!