strange bitmap / paths problem
Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 5:48 am
I'm struggling to get Maxwell to work on my network on a new Linux machine I'm setting up. I've reduced the problem to this:
1) I export from 3ds max with texture paths that point to existing textures.
2) Open up the .mxs file on the linux machine in the gui and try to render.
3) I get errors about "Format not recognized" and "Bitmap not found" when it goes to load textures.
4) This problem happens even if I specify the alternative texture path pointed to the right place.
However, the render succeeds if:
1) I export from 3ds max with texture paths that point to textures that aren't really there.
2) Open up and render, giving Maxwell the right place to look as an alternative texture path, and it renders fine.
So for some reason the only way it's able to load textures is if it can't find them as given in the .mxs file and instead has to look in the alternative search path given in the gui. I'm using UNC paths for everything so the path to a texture might be \\nexus\vault\house\textures\grass.jpg
Has anyone else run into this problem before? Is it maybe a permissions issue with the Samba share I'm serving the textures from? I've changed all the rights to the textures to 777 across the board, so I wouldn't think it's a problem with permissions, but I'm pretty new to Linux so I could definitely be wrong. It's loading the source .mxs file from almost the same place, just one directory to the side of the textures, i.e. house/renders vs. house/textures.
Here's an example of what I get when it fails:
1) I export from 3ds max with texture paths that point to existing textures.
2) Open up the .mxs file on the linux machine in the gui and try to render.
3) I get errors about "Format not recognized" and "Bitmap not found" when it goes to load textures.
4) This problem happens even if I specify the alternative texture path pointed to the right place.
However, the render succeeds if:
1) I export from 3ds max with texture paths that point to textures that aren't really there.
2) Open up and render, giving Maxwell the right place to look as an alternative texture path, and it renders fine.
So for some reason the only way it's able to load textures is if it can't find them as given in the .mxs file and instead has to look in the alternative search path given in the gui. I'm using UNC paths for everything so the path to a texture might be \\nexus\vault\house\textures\grass.jpg
Has anyone else run into this problem before? Is it maybe a permissions issue with the Samba share I'm serving the textures from? I've changed all the rights to the textures to 777 across the board, so I wouldn't think it's a problem with permissions, but I'm pretty new to Linux so I could definitely be wrong. It's loading the source .mxs file from almost the same place, just one directory to the side of the textures, i.e. house/renders vs. house/textures.
Here's an example of what I get when it fails: