[juan]

Hi,

please do and when V1.0 is released post files for that as well. It will be intereseting to compare the two.

Could you enlighten me on how the physical sky relates to a SolidWorks part or assembly, how do we establish which way's North?

I will do it as soon as possible, when I get a free second. North is usually aligned with the z axis. It depends on each platform how the axis are aligned. In SW the north points to -Z of the SW viewport. Anyway we will provide (in a few days )preview tools that will allow you to know where is the sun. Meanwhile you can follow Mick's tips ( btw he renders so much better than me )

Does anyone have any info as to how Maxwell version 1.0 standalone will interface with SW or if there will be updates to the plug-in?

There will be an update to provide full compatibility between the plugin and the standalone. If you want to render a simple scene just work like with the beta. If you need a very accurate material and texturing management, you can open inside the standalone the mxs file generated with the plugin and finish the work there. Anyway Maxwell road does not finish with the next version. This is the biggest update until now but of course we will continue adding features and enhancements to the workflow. We look foward make the render process as easy as possible for you.

Cheers,

Juan

[Eric Lagman]

Yeah I can post it when I get home from work, or sometime this weekend for sure.

[Eric Lagman]

Here is the link (3.31mb) http://www.ericlagman.com/Photo_Studio.zip

Don't forget to first change the mxs and sequence output to your computer. I think if you dont do this it might loose the material settings if you try to hit render.

If for some reason the materials do not come through the back emitter plane is an A 500W and the front Key Emitter is Cool White 3500. The floor and diffuse panels are a white diffuse that is just a few ticks down from complete white. You seldom want to go with pure white as this will make render times longer. White bounces more light. The button is red plastic with a little bit of specular. The metal was alluminum with a .25 roughness in u and v.

I have found that the simplest lighting setups work the best. Depending on what I am rendering I might turn on that third emitter, and overhead diffuse panel, but not for the easy button render. I also will move the emitters depending on the object to render. I usually try to keep the main key light on the oppiste side from the camera. I find that if I put an emitter from the direction of my camera it gives it the unatractive flash effect (Just like in real life!). The back emitter is set to low power to fill in the dark side of the object just a bit, and ads some coldor variation by having it an A bulb (warm color). The diffuse panels are there to give some diffuse lighting. I also position these differently depending on the object to render. I hid the top one for the easy button, because it was giving me an undesirable reflection on top of the button. (edit: I also adjusted the film iso during rendering to get it brighter from such a high fstop) Let me know if you have any other questions about the scene. I will be happy to answer.
Also if anyone has any other good tips they have learned to set up a studio in SW please share. I am always interested to see how others get their results.

Regards,
Eric