[Marton Day8]

Hi all,

If you find strange issues please try to uninstall any previous plugin version first. If it doesn't help you can try to refresh the main modo config file. Modo stores a lot of information in its main config file \roaming\Luxology\modo501.CFG (under Windows) and /Library/Preferences/com.luxology.modo501 (under OSX). If you temporarily rename the main config file (or move it to another folder) modo creates a new config file at next start. Please try this, maybe it solves the problem (don't delete the original config file if you have important settings in it).

Hi Jo:

Please let me know how it works on your home machine. What kind of video card do you have on your 32 bit computer? (Please make sure your video driver is up to date.)

Hi Matt:

1-2: Sounds like a conflist with old settings. Please try to rename (or delete) your main modo config file (/Library/Preferences/com.luxology.modo501), so modo can start with fresh settings .
3: Does this crash happen on a specific scene or always?

Hi Magnus:

32 and 64 bit version on the same computer shouldn't be a problem. But maybe plugin re-installation has solved the issue. Please let me know if it still not ok.


Márton

[jo]

Hi Jo:
Please let me know how it works on your home machine. What kind of video card do you have on your 32 bit computer? (Please make sure your video driver is up to date.)

Thank you, Márton!

I tried on my 3 years old Dell T5400 2x quad with Quadro FX1700 and Win7 64bit at home.

First try didn't work out: crash.
Then I exported the model and rendered in Studio and previewed with Fire in Studio: no problem.

While Studio and Maxwell (render) were still open I gave a try again in modo and... it worked!
I thought it was because of Maxwell "stand alone" running, but after I quit it, Fire in modo is still running.
I even restart the PC and had no problem to run Fire in modo again, without the standalone open.

I have though a problem now, that I didn't have before: I can't launch modo double clicking on a .lxo file anymore...
Could it be connected? Any suggestion?

My drivers are 8.15.11.9038 - probably old.

Ciao, Gio

P.S. I need a tip:
How do I control Maxwell DOF in modo?
Changing the "Target Distance" in the "Camera View" or enabling the "Camera Effects" and in the "Depth of Field" section changing the "Focus Distance"?

EDIT 1:

I investigated the depth of field a little more.
I can easily see in the "Maxwell Plugin window" that in the "Camera Properties" the Maxwell "Focus Distance" is directly connected to the "Focus Distance" in the "Depth of Field" section of the "Camera Effects" of the modo camera. (I'm sorry!... I'm just trying to be precise )
The weird thing is that if I fix a "Focus Distance" and then I disable the "Depth of Field" section of the "Camera Effects" of the modo camera, I can see in the "Maxwell Plugin window" that in the "Camera Properties" the Maxwell "Focus Distance" is locked.
If I then work on the target distance of the modo camera, I would not expect any change in the DOF of my renderings.
Testing this proved to be wrong: changing the "Target Distance" effects the DOF.
An even stranger things is if you enable the "Camera Effects" and the modo DOF: it looks like the DOF is multiplied!!!
So: which one should I use?
And which one is correct?
I mean: if I use the "Target Distance" at what value should the "Focus Distance" been set to be... neutral? Or the "Target Distance" in case I have to work on the enabled "Focus Distance"?

EDIT 2:
I exported the mxs directly to Studio and I see that the "Focus Distance" does not effect the "Target Distance" of the camera in Maxwell.
No problem also exporting directly to the render engine.
Only the "Focus Distance" (in modo) matters.

Therefore the problem appears only with Fire.
Can this be only apparent? Given from the "faster" nature on the Fire engine?

EDIT 3:
No, it doesn't!
After spending a lot more time I see that the "Target Distance" does not influence the DOF in Firell!

I see that in the end there's a little confusion in the naming... the modo's "Target Distance" does not affect the Maxwell's "Target Distance", but modo's "Focus Distance" does!

P.S. By the way: double clicking on the .lxo file works again

P.P.S. I had also another random problem (in the beginning, not anymore in the end): typing (so many time ) numbers in the Maxwell Plugin window's Focus Distance field in modo stopped to work properly and I had to restart the program... no more numbers typed and a warning about some "3D rotation unavailable"...

[jo]

I just want to thank Márton again: great job!
A really elegant implementation!

Ciao, Gio

P.S. Too bad this came too late for the "Maxwell render - May madness promotion"... modo users should deserve an extension now!!!
See:
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/t ... ow=maxwell

[Tea_Bag]

Thank you Marton for the hard work looks like you
Have done a brilliant job! I'll try it as soon as I have
5min to play

[Marton Day8]

Hi Jo,

About DOF:
Target distance is the center of the rotation of the camera, the camera orbits around this point. - This parameter is not important for DOF, but it is useful if you want to position a camera around a target point (or object).

If you want to change DOF in Maxwell, you have to play with F-Stop and Focus Distance parameters. You can use F-Stop - Focus distance on the modo camera panel, and also on the Maxwell camera panel, it doesn't matter. If DOF is turned off in modo, you can't change the DOF parameters on the modo camera panel (because DOF is not visible in the modo render), but you can change these values in the Maxwell camera panel (because DOF is always on in Maxwell - you can change the amount, but you can't turn it completely off, because it is the natural effect of the camera).
So you can turn on/off DOF under modo, but it doesn't have any effect on DOF under Maxwell.
With Focus Distance you set the point where the image is the sharpest, and with F-Stop you can set the strength of DOF. F-Stop also changes the amount of light reaches the camera sensor.

I usually do it like this:
1. First I set the correct exposure value (with ISO or shutter settings)
2. In the Maxwell camera panel - I set exposure to locked (it means you can change f-Stop, ISO or shutter values, the same amount of light will reach the camera sensor).
3. I change the f-stop value (smaller value will means more dominant DOF)


Other things
You mention a lot of problems happened at the beginning, and disappeared after. If these come back (and you can reproduce them) please let me know.


Márton

[fallingbrickwork]

Many thanks Marton, deleting the Modo config file and restarting has fixed all my current errors including the baking window popping up on render.

Thank you once again,
Matt.

[Maximus3D]

Should the baking window not pop-up during rendering ? i assumed it should. If not then i will also have to delete the configfile.
The plugin is beautiful, although we have waited what feels like forever for this one. In the end it was well worth the wait. thank you very much and good work Marton.

/ Magnus

[fv]

Thank you very much Marton for this nice new plugin that seems to work very well.
I still have a question though.
If I render directly from Modo in Mxwl conversion of channel id's seems to work after
confirming the render should proceed
if I save a file to Studio I have to adjust textures (and UV settings) before a render is willing to start.
(that same issue was with the 401 plugin btw)

Dennis

PS are you already working on the next (601) plugin version?

[Marton Day8]

Hi all,

Thanks for the appreciating comments, I am happy to hear your nice words.


Hi Magnus,

Baking window comes up if the plugin has to bake out textures. (If the scene doesn't contain procedural textures, or the procedural textures are already baked out and stored on the hard drive the plugin doesn't do export again until you change a procedural texture parameter.)

Hi Dennis,
There is no problem with the channel id export, actually it works well also in the previous version, the problem is in studio. When you start rendering directly from modo it should work well. When you open the file in Studio it reads it into memory, reconnects the uv channels, etc. The problem happens somewhere at this phase.... so from plugin I can't do much more. (But I am on this issue to have a fix for this in Studio.)

Márton

[fv]

Thanks again Márton.

May there be a clue in the fact that I often find two projectors in Studio where I have only one UV in Modo?

Dennis

[Marton Day8]

Hi Dennis,

Isn't it because you have projected texture(s) in your scene? (plugin automatically convert these into uvs if it is needed)

Márton

[fv]

Hi Márton,

Modo makes a UV for every mesh automatically too. Does the conversion process make an extra one?
Would be happy to send you a file that I'm working on currently for you to examine (in Studio)
if you give me an address I can send it to...
I noticed the colours in Modo are quite different from the ones in Maxwell and
that some textures were wrongly assigned (specular to bump for instance)

Dennis

[Twistedsheep]

Hey Marton, I was curious if MDD support might be on the road map?

Supporting MDD in the Fire preview might be difficult with the potential for some heavy amounts of data needing to be sent through the plugin, but if MDD was at least supported in a full render, and especially in an animation render, that would be really really useful.

Just curious!

Really amazing job on the plugin by the way, I am having an absolute blast working on Modo again

[Marton Day8]

MDD export was working fine in the pre-beta stage of the plugin (not for FIRE, but for normal render), but now this function seems to be broken. I haven't changed that part of the code, so maybe modo SP3 does something different. The plugin passes the deformed vertex coordinates back to modo, but modo doesn't react....
Yesterday I have tested a few code changes to solve this problem, but I was not successful. I will try some more.....

Márton

[Twistedsheep]

That's great to hear that mdds are already supported! Best of luck tracking down that bug Marton, and thank you for the update!