Maxwell Render | Official public forum

Rocking it on 13.343!

but... one request.

Could you guys update the documentation to indicate the correct environment variables please? The documentation is one folder short to correctly specify the HOUDINI_PATH variable.
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... stallation

Instead it should be something like:
set MAXWELL_FOR_HOUDINI_PATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\Next Limit\Maxwell for Houdini\3.0.0.1\H13.0.343
set HOUDINI_PATH=^&;$MAXWELL_FOR_HOUDINI_PATH\houdini
set PATH=%PATH%;%MAXWELL_FOR_HOUDINI_PATH%\bin

Also for some reason on Windows 8 it doesn't set the variables correctly (even if I run as admin), so I needed to build a batch script by hand - luckily the installer gives me exactly what I need to do so directly.

cheers,

-T

... also maxwell_ipr seems to crash.

-T

Hi,

Yes, thank you for reporting, the env variable part of the documentation is outdated, I will update it soon.

There's a bug in the latest installer, that's why the environment variables are not set. This is fixed and will be published in the next days. I also have reports about the IPR crash, checked on win7 and everything was working fine, so I'm going to install win8 to check.

Let me know if you have any other issues,
Peter

Peter -

Thanks a lot, great work on it so far BTW.

Also I'm not sure it's on people's radar or not but importing an entire alembic scene using the /obj level alembic archive node (as opposed to the 'alembic' SOP which has more options) was generating some seriously f'd up geometry. I went through all the pieces and set them to load as full Houdini Geometry and disabled PolySoups but still the results were still pretty screwed up. I can send you a sample abc file if you'd like to try yourself.

Using the 'alembic' SOP instead (which has more options) worked just fine however.

This is using 13.0.343 - Also noticed I was only able to use light emitters with the beta Maxwell (3.0.10 or something like that). Is this recommended combination you are testing with?

cheers,

-T

Feel free to send me the abc file, there could be a bug in the Maxwell engine. When using the alembic SOP, the geometry cooked by Houdini is translated, so that's why it works I guess.

The plug-in is built with the latest released Maxwell engine, but the 3.0.10 beta should work the same, because there were no related changes in the API.

Peter -

Will do, thanks!

cheers,

-T

Peter -

What's the best way to get you a file?

-T

I checked the alembic scene and it seems the problem is caused by Poly Soups. The alembic sop node inside the alembicarchive has the 'Use Poly Soups for Polygon Meshes' option and render with artifacts. The other alembic SOP node outside has 'No Poly Soup Priimitives' option and renders fine. If you change this to Use Poly Soup you get the same result as using the alembicarchive.

I try to add support for the PolySoup primitives in the code.

11hp11 wrote:I checked the alembic scene and it seems the problem is caused by Poly Soups. The alembic sop node inside the alembicarchive has the 'Use Poly Soups for Polygon Meshes' option and render with artifacts. The other alembic SOP node outside has 'No Poly Soup Priimitives' option and renders fine. If you change this to Use Poly Soup you get the same result as using the alembicarchive.

I try to add support for the PolySoup primitives in the code.

Ok, thanks! I'm pretty sure I chased down the primitives but I may have missed that...

cheers,

-T

theakita@gmail.com wrote:Could you guys update the documentation to indicate the correct environment variables please? The documentation is one folder short to correctly specify the HOUDINI_PATH variable.
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... stallation

The online documentation is updated!

11hp11 wrote:

theakita@gmail.com wrote:Could you guys update the documentation to indicate the correct environment variables please? The documentation is one folder short to correctly specify the HOUDINI_PATH variable.
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... stallation

The online documentation is updated!

Excellent, thanks!

-T