[mjcherry]

beautiful render ; the texture of the wall look it have repetitive element ?

Thank you, I will redo that.

[Mihai]

IMO with environments which are supposed to be worn and old, the thing that usually bothers me is that everything is equally worn or dirty and this makes it look a bit fake.

For example the top windows all seem to have the exact same amount of dirt, in reality some would be less dirty than others.

The ceiling wood also seems not high rez enough, and also too evenly worn.

The old wood floor, I'd add a little bit of coating to make it look like old varnish which gives a thin film interference effect. To add a coating in this case, here is a blog post by Tom that explains the details (very useful info!):

http://blog.maxwellrender.com/tips/push ... materials/

[mjcherry]

Thank you, I'll make some adjustments over the next couple of days and will repost.

I did add a gloss/sheen layer to the wood floor. Would you use the coating instead of that or in addition to?

IMO with environments which are supposed to be worn and old, the thing that usually bothers me is that everything is equally worn or dirty and this makes it look a bit fake.

For example the top windows all seem to have the exact same amount of dirt, in reality some would be less dirty than others.

The ceiling wood also seems not high rez enough, and also too evenly worn.

The old wood floor, I'd add a little bit of coating to make it look like old varnish which gives a thin film interference effect. To add a coating in this case, here is a blog post by Tom that explains the details (very useful info!):

http://blog.maxwellrender.com/tips/push ... materials/

[LadleSky10]

Wow!! That is so cool! Thank you so much for taking the time to create/share that Fernando!!

I really appreciate your input. And, again, thanks.
Jim

[mjcherry]

The blog post is great but, once again, better documentation would be extremely helpful. No where in the manual does it say how to set thickness for different colors so we're left with a hit or miss approach.

[Forum Moderator]

Here you have some info about the thickness-color relation: http://soapbubble.wikia.com/wiki/Color_ ... _Thickness

Greetz!
F.

[Forum Moderator]

And this is what Maxwell outputs when using a gradient on a coating from 1 to 1000nm over a plane with a black BSDF:

Coating coloration.png.png

Cheers!
Fernando

[mjcherry]

I appreciate your response Fernando, but I think it highlights something of a disconnect that exists between those of you on the development side and those of us who come from more artistic backgrounds. There is no doubt in my mind that you and your colleagues are exceptionally brilliant. As an artist, I like to think that I'm reasonably intelligent, but I'm certainly not a physicist. While the physics of material construction, light transport, reflection and refraction (and a host of other concerns) are obviously critical to how the software works, those of us on the art side, need to be able to understand use it. Your documentation is, quite frankly, not very good, at least for artists. I can see how to you, this may seem silly, as the documentation probably makes a great deal of sense, I mean, why expand on how to use a coating if the science of coating is already out there. But most of us are not scientists.

Pretend your customers are 10 years old, and explain stuff to us like that, preferably with video lessons.

[Forum Moderator]

Sorry Mathew,

I agree we tend to assume too many things, especially in these cases when we start to talk about physics related terms to which artists are not usually related.
I apologize. Also tried to modify the documentation in order to make it a bit more comprehensive: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/ma ... +component

You can download the mxm by clicking on the material editor image there.
Probably it can be improved, but I hope it helps a bit.

Best regards,
Fernando

[mjcherry]

Much better!!!

Even *I* can understand that!

[Mihai]

We're going to add a lot more examples to the docs but we also need to be as concise as we can or every page in the manual will begin to seem overwhelming. And any field can become pretty complex and there is just so much you can do to "dumb it down" - for example photography can get extremely technical. Or oil painting...

[mjcherry]

Personally, I think the videos you make are a better idea. Maxwell is the only bit of software I have that I don't go immediately to Youtube for. I've only rendered in Arnold a few times but feel I can do anything with it already, just because of the videos that exist on it.

We're going to add a lot more examples to the docs but we also need to be as concise as we can or every page in the manual will begin to seem overwhelming. And any field can become pretty complex and there is just so much you can do to "dumb it down" - for example photography can get extremely technical. Or oil painting...

[Eric Nixon 20170610100005]

Thats sphere you showed has bad topology for a hdri emitter, the polygons should have equal areas for equal light intensity.

[Forum Moderator]

Thats sphere you showed has bad topology for a hdri emitter, the polygons should have equal areas for equal light intensity.

Hi Eric,

I'm afraid that's not true. Maxwell distributes the light intensity all over the objects uniformly regardless the topology.

Capture.PNG

Cheers!
F.

[Eric Nixon 20170610100005]

Well its been true before (and i think it still is) so whats changed? Notice I said HDRI emitter, did you use a hdri/mxi for that render?