[jjs]

First off congrats on a great leap forward. All installed without a hitch - I must have done something wrong

Been looking at how we can do everything in SW. and it seems possible .

But am I right in saying one needs Photoworks to get the material mapping correct in its angle and scale and type ( cylinder , planar etc)

I have tried just using the realview controls instead of the photoworks tools but had more luck with the photoworks tools --- but I seem to just get myself tied in knots and am wondering if there is a simple way! but thats the SW / real view and photworks interface for you , and I just know I am going to have to learn to use them just to get the textures mapped right ----- arghhhh.


How does one use the displacement map in the pluging? - I try to drag and drop onto the 'volume' within the Maxwell Displacement tab, but it keeps snapping to the Materials tab. The help manual is not very clear - I think it is written by experts for experts and not idiots like me


Congrats again


Jonathan

[JDHill]

Hi Jonathan,

1. best would be to use the Maxwell Texture Editor. Maxwell can't rotate textures like SW, so if you do that, it will never line up. So for example:

- open the Material Editor
- create a new Material
- right-click the Reflectance 0° Texture button in the BSDF to open the Texture Editor
- browse for a map to use for the main reflectance
- drag the Material onto a body in the viewport
- adjust Tile X or Tile Y (they're tied together in SW)
- left-click the Bump channel's Texture button in the Material Editor to show the Bump channel in the Texture Editor
- browse for a Bump map
- adjust the Bump map
- hover over the parameters in the Texture editor - the InfoTips will tell you tricks, like how to adjust all the Material's Textures at once by holding CTRL+SHIFT, etc.

2. you create a Displacement in the plugin similar to how you do in MXED - right click the Material node (top node, with the Material's name) in the Material Editor's layer-tree. If you really like the Displacement, and want to store it for later, drag it from the Material Editor over into a volume in the Database Manager's Displacements window - later you can drag it from there back into the Material Editor.

Hope it helps,

JD

[jjs]

Thanks JD for such a prompt reply - my system keeps crashing with realview so if it is not required - brilliant - never liked it anyway - always had it turned off - SW for engineering - and my brain for aesthetics ! - but I digress.

Are you saying that we no longer need to apply a texture in sw for the plugin to get the UV (?) map to use then for its own textures. ( we had toi do this in the past as a work around) Can it all be done within the Maxwell plugin and we can map the texture to cylinders, spheres, planes etc within this plugin?

I hope this is what you are saying.

Yours confused but hopeful.

Jonathan

[JDHill]

Hi Jonathan,

First, you don't need to apply textures with anything but the plugin - really, I find it best if you don't. When you use the plugin, at least I get the chance to set up the viewport to look like the render will, and not the other way around, like when you fiddle with SW things. Second, no I can't read PhotoWorks projections - it's still unclear, but I may have access to some of this type of thing when I drop support for SW2007. For now, map scale is the only thing we can control, and it's best if you do so from the plugin's Texture Editor. Just a note, since we can't read the rotation - If SW doesn't put the texture on in the direction you would like, it will need to be rotated in the actual map file...that's only 0-90-180-270 rotation, but it's helpful to know anyway.

Hope it helps,

JD

[jjs]

JD - gone through your tutorial - and getting the hang of this.



Note to every one - sw 2008 is quite stable ( fingures crossed) so the sooner we move over the better

Pity about the rotating the texture on an object - - but I think that can be fine tuned in Studio if there are any textures that are direction dependant.

I'll keep playing


TTFN


Jonathan

[Eric Lagman]

JD - gone through your tutorial - and getting the hang of this.



Note to every one - sw 2008 is quite stable ( fingures crossed) so the sooner we move over the better


TTFN


Jonathan

I have had good luck so far with 2008 also. Maxwell is written by a company called next limit so this means we should be ahead of the curve and move on to 2008 Maybe jan 1 2008 we can drop sw 07?