By bjorn.syse
#298773
Hi,

I use Rhino to set up my scenes on my mac, through Parallels desktop virtualisation. My mac disks are accessed as network paths when I'm in windows, and when I'm done with a scene I use the "relocate paths" function in the plugin to move my entire scene to a certain folder on my mac disk. However, I am also forced to open the MXS scene in Studio, and use the Pack & go feature. If i do not do this, I get a "Can not find network-resource"-similar error when rendering the scene.

What is is that Pack & go does, that Relocate paths does not do?

regards,

- Björn
By JDHill
#298781
Hi Björn,

It's been a long time since I ever tried using Studio's pack and go, so I couldn't really say what (besides being in different applications, written by different people) would work differently between those two functions. To make any determination about your problem though, I will have to know with a little more specificity why the render fails; what do the failing paths look like when MXCL complains about them?

All that Relocate Paths does is:

1. copy all files to a /textures folder under the destination directory
2. change all paths in the scene to point to the newly-copied files
3. write the MXS

So, this MXS should be like any other, only as if you had went through every path in the scene and changed it to point to a new copy of the file it points to. I can use Relocate Paths here, drag the resulting files over to my mac, double-click on the mxs, and it just starts rendering. So, like I said above, in order to be able to diagnose, I'll need to know more about the failure.

JD
By bjorn.syse
#299097
JDHill wrote:I can use Relocate Paths here, drag the resulting files over to my mac, double-click on the mxs, and it just starts rendering.
Really?? I've never been able to do that. Sometimes it doesn't even work when doing both a Relocate paths + Pack ang go. I have to change some of the paths manually in Studio. Often, there is a .r2 file or something that still has a Windows path.

I need to look into this until solved, If you say it could work I really want it to work. Let's set up a simple example, Let's say I do the following while running Windows through Parallels desktop.

1. Create a new file in Rhino, use a simple cube on a plane with a material using textures, and a HDR-image for lighting. (I choose the material and HDR residing on my Mac Harddrive/filesystem BUT accessed through the Parallels shared folder interface - which is basically a local network). I also save the .3dm file on my Mac drive.

The path for the HDR for example is:\\.PSF\.Home\Documents\Assets\backgrounds HDRI\hyltom studio setup\HDR _BackTopLeft-_.hdr, and when saved in Rhino, I get this path for the Rhino file:
Code: Select all
Command: _Save
File successfully written as \\.psf\Home\Desktop\Test\Test.3dm
2. Now I do a relocated paths, but actually choose the same directory as where the .3dm is saved. This is: /Users/bjorn/Desktop/Test.

3. After doing the relocate, I have to export an .mxs since I haven't done that yet. I use the rightmost button in the Render toolbar.

4. Then I open the .mxs with MXCL in os x, and it actually renders without the "Connection failed"-message! However, there is an errormessage about the mxi not beeing saved.
Code: Select all
WARNING: - MXI "Y:\Desktop\Test\Test.mxi" not saved.
Y: is also a parallels shared folder network mapping.

Ok, this is weird, it's the first time it has worked. I'll try a few complex setups with .r2 files and everything. :roll:
By bjorn.syse
#299100
Ok, here's another scene I opened as is in Rhino. Re-saved on my Mac drive, then did a Relocate Paths to that same director on my Mac drive. And then exported an .mxs from Rhino. This one won't render but gives me the "Connection failed" message.

If I open the .MXS in Studio, it starts by asking for the HDR which still have the \\.PSF\-path according to the dialog in Studio. Image output and .mxi output are also .PSF-paths, and If I traverse all the materials manually, there are some material with two BSFD-layers using two different .r2 files - Where ONE of the layers' .r2 file has a mac-path and the other layer's .r2 file has a \\.PSF\-path. Isn't that strange?

Here is the Rhino output, so you can see the Relocate command seem to have gone fine:
Code: Select all
Command: SaveAs
File successfully written as \\.PSF\.Home\Desktop\Test\Test.3dm
Maxwell: Copied related files and changed Scene target location to '\\.PSF\.Home\Desktop\Test'
Maxwell: Maxwell_RenderToMxs (RenderScene)
Maxwell: -- BEGIN Path Status Report --
Maxwell: Total number of Materials: 13
Maxwell: No invalid paths found
Maxwell: -- END Path Status Report --
Maxwell: generating new MXS meshes, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT to cancel
Maxwell: mesh transfer 11,8%% completed (2 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 23,5%% completed (4 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 35,3%% completed (6 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 47,1%% completed (8 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 58,8%% completed (10 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 70,6%% completed (12 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 82,4%% completed (14 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 94,1%% completed (16 of 17)
Maxwell: mesh transfer 100,0%% completed (17 of 17)
Maxwell: ExportScene returned: True
Scene is here if you wan't to try it: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/114792/test.zip

Regards,

- Björn
By JDHill
#299102
Could you please check the url for the zipped scene, the download site reports that it can't find anything at that address.

[edit: scratch that, I guess it's working now]
By JDHill
#299109
Okay, I think this is just a fight between windows and osx path formats. Try this:

1. on osx, start mxcl, but not by clicking the mxs
2. go to file > open MXS and choose the mxs you exported from rhino after using relocate paths
3. in the image & mxi paths in the options tab, remove all of the path except the filename
4. in the bitmaps slot, browse to the /textures folder the plugin created when you used relocate paths

When you hit render, it should work fine. What's happening is that on osx, the unc '//' format seems not being recognized correctly, so you need to remove it (step 3) and let mxcl just render assuming output directory to be the current directory. I did not try without giving it the bitmaps hint (step 4), but no harm in doing so since it takes about two seconds to do.

For what it's worth, here's what I did. I opened your scene in Rhino and used relocate paths to point to a folder on my mac, working directly over my wireless network. Once it was done copying all the files over and reported that the scene had been relocated, I hit the render button. I meant to hit the write mxs button, but I didn't - anyway, what happened is that mxcl started up on the windows box I was working on, opened the mxs on my apple, over the network, and started rendering the image.

So, try the steps above and let me know what happens; I'm still looking into some of your other points, but at least it seems to me that there is no need to open the mxs in Studio and do a pack and go from there. The only reason that's helping is that it's running in osx (I assume) and therefore writing paths in osx style, with the result being that there is no issue once you open it in mxcl.

Let me know what you find.
By bjorn.syse
#299129
Allright,

I tried your steps and it works. However, It does not work without the bitmaps-flag set though. Then I get the same "Connection failed" error (as if OS x is trying to access that network path somehow). Using the bitmaps flag is sort of fine for me, however - I know I tried this a while ago, with a scene using lots of real-scale custom texture projections from Rhino, and as soon as I used the bitmaps flag - those were lost. Perhaps this is not an issue anymore, would you know?

I do understand that OS X can't handle the UNC-network path thing. It needs to mount volumes, just like unix/linux, am I right? However, even if it DID understand UNC-paths, there is no guarantee that netowork path is still available. (\\.PSF\ or whatever). Wouldn't it be better if the Relocate paths-command used relative paths?

cheers,

- Björn
By JDHill
#299133
I remember you reporting on the real scale thing, but I really don't see any logic to it, since (a) UVs are written directly on the objects, and (b) texture tile/offset are written directly into the materials. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but there's just no shred of logic to it as far as I can see. Regarding writing relative paths with relocate scene, that's really not an option because by definition, these paths would not be relative to the Rhino document, so it would break the materials in document you're working on. I'll see about adding a new mxs-export function which writes an mxs and also does what relocate scene does, but modifies the paths during the export itself without changing the materials in the Rhino scene; so in Rhino, you'd still have to work with the textures in their original locations, but they would get copied during the export and the mxs would point to the new copies.
By ricardo
#299143
JDHill wrote:I'll see about adding a new mxs-export function which writes an mxs and also does what relocate scene does, but modifies the paths during the export itself without changing the materials in the Rhino scene; so in Rhino, you'd still have to work with the textures in their original locations, but they would get copied during the export and the mxs would point to the new copies.
This is as sweet as it can get...
By bjorn.syse
#299151
Ok, I'll start using the Relocate + bitmaps flag right away, and if that real-scale thing ever shows it's face again, I'll be sure to let you know :D

... but yeah, I agree with Ricardo, that Export Mxs thing sounds brilliant! Perhaps it could be named Pack & Go to avoid yet another confusion about what function does what? (given that it does what Pack & go i studio does, that is)

That sort of function would make my workflow a lot easier, and I'd avoid keeping duplicates of all assets spread around, until I really export the scene for a final render. Could relative paths be used in that case? If so, that entire folder could be moved around without worries.. that would help.
By JDHill
#299166
Yes, relative paths would be written in this function. Pack & Go will work fine for a name here. I would have done this before, because honestly, it's a much easier function than Relocate Paths; there were, however, other technical reasons why I couldn't...1.8.2/1.8.3 saw some fundamental internal changes that will make this much easier to accomplish.
By bjorn.syse
#304437
Sorry to bother you about this again, I might be the only one experiencing these problems,,.. but have you put any more thought into this "Pack and Go"/"Export MXS package" feature?

I'm trying to help a friend of mine that just go a new iMac to set up a practical workflow. She does Rhino + Maxwell 75% of her time, and we're trying to avoid her to be forced to run Windows through bootcamp all day long since that would make her iMac the most expensive PC ever... :) so, in order for her to use mail, iTunes, whatever she wants on the Mac OS, but still run Rhino through Parallels or similar, we are thinking like this:

If she focus her Windows need on only Rhino + the Plugin, since maxwell is available to OS X, that would be the most effective way of utitizing computer resources on her machine... So, in practical terms, she would confine her Windows sessions to modeling in Rhino + 1 or 2 occasional test renderings. When she's all set up for a few night renders, it would be great if she (and me for that reason) in some extremely practical way could launch those renders in Mac OS instead.. She'd still have to deal with a few duplicates when it comes to textures and such, but HD space is not a problem... only clutter is.

In heaven, this would obviously be a "Launch render in Mac OS"-button, but... :) an "Export MXS package" + manual Maxwell render launch in Mac OS would work ;)

Best regards,

- Björn
By JDHill
#304442
have you put any more thought into this "Pack and Go"/"Export MXS package" feature?
Yes, in Scene Manager > Output > Export, there will be a new checkbox, 'Pack and Go'. If that's checked when you export:

- all referenced files are copied to a 'textures' folder next to the target mxs
- all paths in the exported mxs are made relative, i.e. 'textures/map.jpg'

The path modifications are only made in the exported mxs; nothing is changed in the Rhino file.
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