By CodyKallas
#381939
I know area lights and lights in general are hidden when converted. But is there a way to get them to be able to reflect into a surface? I was having the hardest time figuring out my problem last week and I found out it was my lights were not reflecting, but instead just emitting light. Can I get these to reflect?

It is a lot quicker using the lights in modo and having the plugin convert them.
By CodyKallas
#381962
How do you do that within the plugin though? I am trying to main stream my workflow with maxwell and the plugin. ie using modo lights instead of creating polys and assigning a material. Or texturing converting over.
By photomg1
#381971
Hi Cody ,
as far as I'm aware you can't do it via the plugin. That would be a feature request to Marton. It's never bothered me as I'd just set up with a luminous polygon in modo anyway. I can see why you would want to do it though to get a quick biased render of your lighting in modo , rather than set up lighting in maxwell studio. Which is how I work as studio is cumbersome in comparison to modo for setting up lighting . This is less of a problem in 801 btw as using the hybrid will allow you to use luminous polygons as you would area lights. (as in get a decent render with a luminous poly rather than the ic blobbyness prior)
My solution prior to 801 ,was to set up some render presets (luminous polygons). Which you can then just drag and drop from the preset browser , saving the hassle of setting them up everytime. Tbh though area lights are very limited imho in their use for reflections as they just give off a flat poly single luminance reflection .
You would be better off mapping hdri/exr images to polys in my opinion.

look at these from tim cooper as an example (all modo btw) , he always uses mapped hdri's even though he is just in modo

Image

Image


https://www.behance.net/timcooper3D



try these about halfway down on the link they are free and called the lightsmith collection (unless you want to make your own)
http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html
By CodyKallas
#381976
Ahh i have never thought of setting up luminous polygons in modo. So that will automatically translate over to a maxwell material with a map applied? I will definitely use that softbox map you shared from hdrlabs if this is the case.

Thanks photomg1. So are you done using maxwell to render and just use modo hybrid rendering? I have seen it done on the modo forums and it seems pretty solid. Especially the stuff from mytrixx.
By photomg1
#381977
Hi Cody ,
yes they transfer over . You two options

1 ) no image map - just use a polygon in modo attach a material to it with no spec ,diffuse (I usually make it black then set diffuse at 0 ,reflection etc only a value in the luminous intensity amount.

2)with image map - as above then add image (exr/hdr) set to luminous colour ,caveat you will need to uv the polygon, not that hard as its a single poly.Controlling the brightness by the luminous
intensity on the material. I don't just use this for photographs of lights btw , you can map grads you have made in photoshop so a light can have a soft falloff decay similar to what hdrlight studio
produces when you soften an edge of a light.

Both of those will appear the same in modo and in maxwell , once you have adjusted exposure in maxwell. Maxwell will also respect how you have set it up in modo as in if you give the material a
shader drag it above the base shader and change visible to reflections etc maxwell plug in will respect that.

Re 801 and hybrid , its good but I'm not sold on it in the same way I am maxwell . You can solve getting good global illumination in modo using things like that , imho where modo really falls down
is how materials look and how the bounce system works in terms of colour bleed it . If you like the look of what modo ,does then great because it will save you heaps of time , If I'm after any
kind of realism maxwell is vastly superior in my opinion . (
something about interiors and modo never seems to work for me.Studio still life I do think modo can look very good.)

I'm saving at the moment to hopefully jump in on a dual xenon system in the coming months so I can use maxwell for everything.At the moment its modo for work and maxwell for personal because
my machines are not fast enough to use maxwell when I have tight deadlines and I have no interest in going down the render farm route.

My life would be a hell of a lot easier if I didnt feel like this , as in I was satisfied with what modo produces ... hey ho :D

here is a quick play I did on the scene mytrixx posted ,I did change the lighting I was just curious how it would look in maxwell .It really was a quick look hence some maps not coming over
(not neccessarily better I suppose depending on your taste I just find his very harsh and over processed and cg looking)

Image
Last edited by photomg1 on Thu Jun 11, 2015 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By CodyKallas
#381978
Thanks. Yeah I know exactly how you feel. Thanks for all the tips. I will be sure to try them all out. Especially with the lights. I find the just using the poly with an emitter is washing so much of my stuff out. It is hard for 3d in general to have tight deadlines, clients don't understand all the steps you have to actually take to obtain realism. I find myself skipping some steps and taking the easy route, then at the end that will be the part that sticks out as FAKE! It is really frustrating.

Thanks again.
Will there be a Maxwell Render 6 ?

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