Maxwell Render | Official public forum

I've read that NL released new plugins for some applications and would like to know what the status of the SW plugin is.

Hello Mike,

We are working in a plugin update and we will release information soon.

Kind regards,

Juan

Thanks for the prompt reply Juan. Looking forward to it.

Thanks for the update.

I've been so busy lately I haven't had the chance to load SolidWorks 2007 even for testing purposes, probably won't use for work until SP3 or 4.

But since we are close to having a new Maxwell plug-in released, I'll have to load SolidWorks 2007 just to use this new plug-in.

looking forward to it!

It would be nice to get a flashy new plugin like all the other plugins.

Forgot to add--- Please release plug-in for Friday so I can work with it over the weekend

At the end of the day though the new plugin will never have texture mapping so the update can't be greatly improved.

w i l l wrote:At the end of the day though the new plugin will never have texture mapping so the update can't be greatly improved.

If it stops crashing SW 2007, it will be a good point already
I think the texture mapping in SW is more a SW limitation than a MR issue and we'll have to hope for Studio improvements.

Something I found out recently is that Maya imports Solidworks parts and assemblies without needing to convert. I didn't expect that. The Maya plugin is good too.

Seriously? How does it handle changes to the original SW model? Can you reimport and keep all the materials?

Don't know about materials that have been applied in the Solidworks plugin but it opens all my models fine. If you look in the 'open' or 'import' options it has Solidworks Part and Assembly listed. I'm just opening them and applying materials there, plus you get UV unwrapping which you don't have in Studio and obviously animation.

As I said, we are working in a new plugin for SolidWorks 2007, but regarding random crashes, we have detected weird issues when changing the active document (opening a document when other is opened, opening a part within an assembly...) that cause crashes. SolidWorks support team has been looking into that issue too and it seems that there could be conflicts between different addins. In my case I have reduced the random crashes dramatically just disabling other addins like edrawings, but it might be that this is different in other systems; I will keep you updated.

Kind regards,

Juan

w i l l wrote:Don't know about materials that have been applied in the Solidworks plugin but it opens all my models fine. If you look in the 'open' or 'import' options it has Solidworks Part and Assembly listed. I'm just opening them and applying materials there, plus you get UV unwrapping which you don't have in Studio and obviously animation.

I meant if you apply materials in Maya, then go back to Solidworks and change the model, can it reimport the changed model while keeping the materials you've already applied intact? Studio is supposed to do this, but it has been broken since at least RC5 and no one seems to care. I change my models a lot between renders, and it costs me a huge amount of time to redo the materials every time.

Will - all is revealed - that is how you got your spam tin looking so good

Is there a knocked down , cheap , Maya lite version available now - I looked into Maya a few years back and even bought a Begineers guide CD from them but it was just too mind blowingly complicated etc. I curse Solidworks , but I have just grown used to it. and its relvive simplicity.

Superbad - Are you sure about the re-importing of parts - is this an SW2007 thing, as I am sure I have re-imported changed geometry in the past and it keeps the materials as set in Studio on the old geometry. I will check this again.

Jonathan

Just dug out my Maya CD - Its a Personal Learning Edition. I'll reload it , but I wonder if it will run the Maxwell plugin or export a file that can be used by Studio.

Any ideas? anyone.



Jonathan