User avatar
By Lorenz25
#313658
First, thanks for the plug-in! But the helpful tutorials from the NL-site are gone.
I set it all up as far as I know. I built a cube, assigned a material via mxm_read and have a camera. Know I hit go go Maxwell and get this in the console, but no image:
Exporting version 2 Style to Maxwell ..... Thank you for your patience ....
Using Camera : /obj/cam1 ...
Scene scale set to 1 Houdini unit = 1 meters
Fstop is 5.6
Image Scale is 1
Using Apprentice : max resolution is: 640x480
Warning setPath:Invalid bit depth will be adjusted automatically
Writing .mxi file to : ./continueFrom.0001.mxi
setting Physical Sky
Rendering : /obj/box_object1/box1
No UVs found ...
Maxwell triangle count is : 12
Use a facet sop to pre-compute.
Rendering : /obj/Maxwell_Exporter_1/focusPoint/RENDER
Nice Error handling, but I don't get it. So, pls help.
User avatar
By sidenimjay
#313691
Hey Lorenz,


I will check the link to the videos.

In the meantime, can you verify if you can run maxwell from the shell. It seems the export succeeds but since maxwell doesnt start i assume you will not be able to run maxwell from the shell.

Start a houdini command line tools window and type maxwell

if maxwell does not start you will need to edit the %PATH% variable to include the %MAXWELL2_ROOT% directory

if you have already set the path to include the new maxwell 2 directory using the variable name, try using the direct path to the install folder.

you will need a fresh command line tools window with each change.

once this works , you should see the render start.

i hope this gets you up and running! let me know how it goes

cheers

erich
User avatar
By Lorenz25
#313719
OK, finally I get that there is really a variable called %Path%, where I wrote the maxwell variable in. Now Maxwell starts, but with environment lighting I only get a white picture, and with emitter material on a sphere it claims that there is no light. Oh, I almost forget to tell, that there occurs a error when I load the read material node, saying: "Could not open file scripts/shop/None".
User avatar
By sidenimjay
#313756
ok, it seems things are working now.


A couple of notes:

at the moment, only the mxmread shop works. I am currently devising a workflow for creating materials within houdini that will support creating lights at the sop level.

Previous versions of maxwell prevented the sop level emitter materials, this limitation has been removed for v2. however, there is currently code left in the plugin that will prevent export with an emitter at sop level. try rendering an emitter mxm using an mxmRead shop at the /obj level, this should be supported.

When you render dont forget to set the camera shutter value to a real world value as well as setting the fstop.
before you export , click the Set Camera button beneath the camera parameter, this will set the shutter on the camera to a more appropriate value if it has not been set already.

by default houdini sets the shutter to .5, which is not an actual shutter value but a normalized one. if you are using a skydome for lighting , try a value around 100

the mxmRead material is created successfully in spite of the error message. however, i will investigate the reason
behind it

hope this helps!

erich
User avatar
By sidenimjay
#313868
WooHooo!

Glad to hear its working

let me know if you have any other questions

enjoy
User avatar
By Lorenz25
#314057
Indeed, here is another question. How do I handle UV-channels in Houdini? I need a different UV for the opacity map. So in the mxm I set it to channel 1. Must I go into VEX for this? I'm not that much into shading in Houdini, at all.
User avatar
By sidenimjay
#314058
Hey Lorenz,

you can add the additional uv channels at the sop level using a layer sop

the layer sop bumps up the uv layer number for each occurrence

after the layer sop, apply a new uvXXX sop and you will see uv[2], this will be used for uv1 in the mxm

note that the uv layers in houdini start at 1 while the uv layers in mxm start at 0

also you can use a UVQuickshade sop to visualize the current uv layer and map by connecting it below the newest uvXXX sop.

hope this helps!

erich

ps by uvXXX sop i am referring to all the uv type sops available
User avatar
By Lorenz25
#314138
Sry, but I can't seem to get any UVs to the mxs. As soon, as I want to use another UV-layer than 0, maxwell claims "there are not enough UVs for this material". In fact, I don't get any UVs out, not even one. There is stg. I'm missing. I load a texture into the mxm, saved that, and imported it via the mxmread-shop. Which I then fetch with the material-sop. The best output so far was the color of my red test image all over the grid, instead of the UV area. But this effect went away after I turn off tiling in the texture options in mxm. Besides, if I use a layer-SOP I get uv and uv2, no uv1. Big :?: ...
User avatar
By sidenimjay
#314151
Hey Lorenz,

do you only have a texture in channel uv1 or is there another in uv0 also?

houdini starts at uv, then goes to uv2 , this was my point in the earlier post about houdini starting at 1 but maxwell starts at 0. i should have mentioned the 1 is left off and is simply uv, uv2, uv#

so it goes like this : maxwell uv0 layer == houdini uv layer
maxwell uv1 layer == houdini uv2 layer
maxwell uv2 layer == houdini uv3 layer ..... and so on

this worked under 1.7.xx plugin but it is possible that the multiple uvs are not getting set properly since the upgrade to v2

i am work at the moment but i will test when i get home in a few hours.
User avatar
By Lorenz25
#314200
Nice, a bug fix. But this time I don't get the .otl to work. I replaced all with the new files, and in Houdini I deleted the old shelf, but the new one won't appear anywhere after installation. The link to the tutorials on NextLimit that you send with the e-mail still doesn't leads anywhere. Is there another place?
User avatar
By sidenimjay
#314217
Hmm, the otl itself did not change.


try to re-download the otl from inside houdini, then replace only the otl inside the downloaded folder with the one you just received. this should refresh the toolshelf

The tutorials were only available thru that link....I will have to check with NL to see if they will still host them or if i need to find a new place to put them.

this cut should fix the multiple uv problems you were having yesterday.


let me know how it goes,

erich
User avatar
By Lorenz25
#314218
OK, ready. But except of no repeating messages in the Houdini console nothing changed. This is what I got. Image
With similar UVs in Studio I get this. Image
I figured out, that I must shift the UVs to the left, if I want to see red and blue on the grid. But how do I get rid of the distortion?
I will send you the .hip file I'm using, for further investigations.
Last edited by Lorenz25 on Fri Nov 06, 2009 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Will there be a Maxwell Render 6 ?

Let's be realistic. What's left of NL is only milk[…]