[hyltom]

I have installed the new plug in for rhino and launched a rendering and what was not my surprise the day after when i went back to office. I got a amazingly noisy rendering at SL 15. And as my product rendering always used the same scene and material, i found this result very strange. I'm still not sure if it is related to the new plugin but i will see on monday morning as i have a new rendering cooking.
Does anyone of you find something different in the render quality with this new plugin?

[JDHill]

I don't see how that's possible, since the plugin just writes .mxs files. If there were some bug that always caused dispersion to be turned on, or something similar, then it would be possible - but I'm not currently aware of anything like that. If you open the .mxs in Studio to compare what is written there with what you had set in the plugin, and you find differences, please let me know.

JD

[hyltom]

Back to this topic, look what i found here Jeremy : http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=28218

Maximus seems to have also some heavy noise problem when render the scene directly from rhino. And i can tell you that since 1.6.6 i always have the feeling that my render are more noisy than before.

[JDHill]

Those scenes don't look to be the same at all - the focus is completely different, the lights are yellower...I would need to have both the .mxs, and the .3dm which was used to generate it to form any kind of opinion. As you know, the .mxs is just a file - unless Studio is not writing its '_tmp.mxs' file (the one that actually renders when you hit render in Studio) the same way it read the original, I could not be sure where the difference would be coming from.

[hyltom]

I have made few test and actually there is something different.
So i took an old scene and render it with rhino, then export the mxs to studio and render directly from there. The final result is different in two way. First the output from studio is much darker than with rhino so i add to adjust the ISO and the shutter to get the equivalent lighting. Then at equal SL, the render from studio is slightly less noisy. As i'm not a Studio expert, i couldn't find where was the difference with the setting in rhino, so i have no idea from where this is coming.

Animated GIF

[JDHill]

Thanks for the example, Hyltom. I'm sure there's something here, but I just can't find it yet - like you say, the settings seem to be the same when you open the file in Studio. But, there was also another issue where DOF is coming out differently when the .mxs is loaded into Studio and rendered, vs. just starting it in MXCL from the plugin.

So I'll keep looking...everything happens for a reason, it's just a matter of finding out why.

JD

[hyltom]

I don't know if this is helpful Jeremy, but there is no problem with the plugin 1.6.0. But from then, all the others ( 1.6.1, 1.6.6, 1.6.8 ) get this issue. I just finish to test all of them.
So i'm back to the 1.6.0 until you solve the problem.

[JDHill]

Hi hyltom, thanks for the extra info (more input is always a good thing), I'll try to look into what may have changed between 1.6.0 and the subsequent versions.

[hyltom]

With the maxwell 1.7 coming, will the future rhino plug-in correct this bug?

By the way, i think you can add it to the bug list. During this two days, i' m making some new rendering with the 1.6.0 version and the noise looks "much prettier" and clear up faster. My picture at SL 14 is better and more clear than the one at SL 18 done with 1.6.6.

[ivox3]

This is not going to really help JD ....., in fact, .. it'll probably complicate things. ... sorry.

I've seen the problem too, .. but not always. I haven't tested that extensively though ... maybe just a few scenes. To make things even stranger though , .. I've seen the material editor act strangely. I was able to set the SL to 50 and have it complete that in under 10 seconds. It wasn't a fluke, .. the image was amazingly clear. It was kind of amazing. Trying the same thing with another material though, .. didn't not produce the same happy experience.

I have no idea ..... you can shoot me now or just throw me out as an anomaly.

[hyltom]

I 'm sure it's complicated. Between 1.6.0 and 1.6.8, Jeremy has changed many things inside the plugin, so i'm sure that finding the cause should be a nightmare.

Chris, can i ask you how you render the Sony radio? Have you used the latest plugin 1.6.8 or have you used Studio?

About the material editor that act strangely, i never notice anything. But what's happen with your SL 50 that render in seconds make me think that if Jeremy can find the cause, we could get large clear render in no times. And by the way, i will prefer to meet this kind of bug....and i will never report them .

And Jeremy, if you need me to do more testing, i can find some time to help you.

[ivox3]

Complicated. ...hmmm, .. Still hoping for simple.

On the radio ... I mostly used the plug-in because I checked it against Studio and the speed was the same. So, .. I kept using the plug-in as it was easier. [1.6.8]

The strange SL thing, .... I'm telling you it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I am going to try and reproduce it and record the video of it happening --- otherwise I think that people will just write me off as crazy ivox.

[hyltom]

I do think you are crazy anyway...

What was your lighting for this scene? I always only use some mxi to light my scene and i have always notice this noise problem with the lastest plugin.

[ivox3]

Maybe a little .....

It was HDR with standard emitters. But like I said in that thread, .. the noise actually cleared quicker on the dielectric with the HDR. ???

[JDHill]

Don't worry, I finally isolated the reason for this, and it won't be a problem in the next version. It was almost impossible to find because the issue is not visible - what is happening is that the plugin was always writing a camera that was motion-blur-enabled. That means that the camera has two positions - this is invisible in the UI when you compare the camera settings between the plugin and Studio, because they are indeed all the same. As Chris said, this apparently seems to make a big difference sometimes, and not much at others. So that's the reason why it appears to start at version 1.6.1 - this is when motion blur was added. I never noticed it because I almost never use Studio.

So it will be fixed, but it will have to wait for the 1.7 plugin. It will need to wait, because this version will not be a small update - it will also add:

- option to export Rhino blocks as Maxwell instances
- the database manager seen in the SolidWorks plugin
- the ability to replace a Material in the Scene by dragging another Material with the same Name into the browser
- the ability to 'extract' all of the Rhino materials into their auto-generated Maxwell Materials
- access to the new core Maxwell features shown in the announcement newsletter
- per-texture saturation/contrast/brightness controls like the new MXED (changes shown in plugin texture-editor)
- runtime per-Material 'snapshot' history similar to the new MXED
- the ability to export/import all Scene parameters as a standalone file
- new EV (Exposure Value) parameter for Cameras, enabling a perfect auto-exposure function which can lock in at any arbitrary exposure
- glare/scattering settings available in the plugin
- 'Reset to Defaults' function for each Scene Manager page
- the ability to disable real-time feedback of viewport materials
- per-object x/y/z texture-rotation control for objects which use Materials with Real Scale enabled
- associated Rhino texture-mappings are shown in the viewport when textures using them are selected or changed

...probably some other things that I'm forgetting now too - let me know of any questions you may have about this stuff.