My wishlist
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:43 pm
Hi,
Here's my wishlist.
GENERAL:
• Full modifier stack result support, including tiling, orientation and settings of multiple UVW mapping modifiers.
• Inclusion of an amount of swirling dust particles, so you can create volumetric sunlight falling into a room with swirling dust being visible in the light beam. That'd be great to create a nice atmosphere.
RENDERER:
• The ability to render spherical, cylindrical, etc. panoramas to be used for QuickTime VR and similar viewers.
• Lens effects, such as a specular bloom.
• I've noticed that you have to set your material colors to quite a low saturation to avoid oversaturation in the render. Oversaturation causes realism to decrease and it's something VRay suffers from as well. I.m.h.o. this is an issue that should be looked into.
Of course the lighting has a lot of influence as well. It remains fairly hard for me to determine a truly realistic light strength versus distance in a Maxwell scene. After all, a large 10,000 Watt lamp at a distance of half a meter can look quite normal when using a certain shutterspeed and fStop.
Maybe some sort of extreme light strength / overexposure warning could be implemented in Maxwell, so you're warned if you've got a lighting setup that's too unrealistic for real life? Just like Reactor warns that a certain object is too light-weighted for real world standards.
Another option might be to include some sort of global saturation balance for the whole scene, so you could adjust that value until your material colors match the colors of the rendered result.
• An animatable sunlight system, so one can animate a sunset or sundown, or a subtle atmospheric change of sunfall in a late afternoon.
• A value that controls the sharpness of shadows from the skylight. Sharpness of shadow is presumably a function of air clarity - a variable for light dispersion caused by particles in the air - for a real world solution.
• The ability to increase the maximum rendering time during the actual rendering itself. So if you've set the maximum time to 8 hours and after 7 hours you know there's still going to be too much noise after 8 hours, you can increase the time limit to 12 hours or so. Would be nice to have it as a drop-down menu option in the Maxwell render view window. Something like "Extend Time" and "Pause" next to the "Stop" option. If the "Extend Time" option will be added it'd be nice to have a dropdown-submenu with "15 mins", "30 mins", "45 mins", "1 hr", "1 hr 30 mins", "2 hrs" and so on, up to and including 12 hours or so, so you can extend a render by one night and check it again the following morning.
• Alpha channel support: the ability to determine which scene elements are visible, invisible and last but not least: matte objects (not visible, but only catching dropshadows from other objects).
• More efficient memory management. Not a lot of users already have 2 GB RAM and if I try to render a resolution of 2400 x 2400 with my 1 GB RAM I get a crash right now.
• Support for HDRI environment textures as a skydome.
• Noise reduction / smoothing algorithms.
• A speed versus quality ratio value. For example: 1 would be equal to the current Low Quality setting and 100 would be the highest possible quality.
• Alternatively, inclusion of render presets would be nice. High Speed - Low Quality would set the samples and bounces to appropriate values and High Quality - Low Speed would set according values.
MATERIALS/MAPS:
• Bitmap filtering!
• If you use a Multi/Sub-Object material, it doesn't work if you copy materials from one multi-material slot to another and change the settings of each material, unless the individual sub-materials all have different names.
• Presets for the physically correct Maxwell material parameters that approach well-known shader models, such as Phong, Blinn, Oren-Nayar-Blinn (nice for cloth), Hanrahan-Krueger (nice for skin), etcetera.
• A specular color for the dielectric material, in order to adjust the harshness of highlights.
• Support for all native 3ds Max (procedural) maps.
• An accurate Max material converter. From scanline to Maxwell and vice versa would be great, including VRay and finalRender to the converter would be fantastic.
• A true translucent material, in order to create thin surfaces that let light through in a phsysically correct manner, so we can make real studio softbox light filters and many other applications.
• More metal types in the metals drop-down list, such as chrome.
• A displacement map slot for all materials, for high mesh details at rendertime.
• A glossy map for the dielectric material.
• A transparency map slot for the dielectric material, so you can create dirty glass with less transparent parts.
• More dielectric types, such as plastic (for transparent plastic) and liquids.
• A tint color for the metal material, so you can for example have green tinted aluminium.
• Anisotropy support for all materials, especially metal, in order to create things like realistic brushed metal.
• More specific materials: several different fabric types such as velvet, satin, cotton, etc.. Also useful: translucent material types such as wax. Also special effects materials, such as X-Ray effects.
• Full Multi/Sub-Object material support.
• Option to generate dirt and/or dust on surfaces, depending on pits and peaks (dirt) and orientation (dust) of an object.
• Support for maps that are included in a ColorCorrect map (a free and very useful image processing plug-in map by http://www.cuneytozdas.com).
CAMERA:
• An automatically updating value indication of the focal distance.
• Both inserting "1/" in front of the shutterspeed value as well as a decimal indication of the amount of seconds beneath the Shutterspeed value would be extra clarifying.
• A light meter and DOF preview would be great (thanks to Krembo for this input). Both should focus on the camera target (or target distance value of a free Maxwell camera). Even better would be the addition of warnings if the light in the camera target area is too bright or dark and if the shutterspeed is too low or high. Such warnings would be very helpful to those of us not familiar with photographic settings. Additionally an "optimize values" button with an optional "automatic" checkbox would be fantastic. After all, most modern day digital cameras have all kinds of automated modes as well.
• Visual representations (along with an on/off toggle) of the different photographic properties (such as the DOF range) would be very helpful (thanks to Tom for this suggestion).
MAXWELL RENDER VIEW INTERFACE:
• "Extend Time" and "Pause" options next to the "Stop" option.
• A Photoshop-like auto-size of the render window, so it adjusts to the size of a 640 x 480 image or any other resolution, except when it doesn't fit on the screen anymore.
Thanks and cheers!
Metin
Here's my wishlist.
GENERAL:
• Full modifier stack result support, including tiling, orientation and settings of multiple UVW mapping modifiers.
• Inclusion of an amount of swirling dust particles, so you can create volumetric sunlight falling into a room with swirling dust being visible in the light beam. That'd be great to create a nice atmosphere.
RENDERER:
• The ability to render spherical, cylindrical, etc. panoramas to be used for QuickTime VR and similar viewers.
• Lens effects, such as a specular bloom.
• I've noticed that you have to set your material colors to quite a low saturation to avoid oversaturation in the render. Oversaturation causes realism to decrease and it's something VRay suffers from as well. I.m.h.o. this is an issue that should be looked into.
Of course the lighting has a lot of influence as well. It remains fairly hard for me to determine a truly realistic light strength versus distance in a Maxwell scene. After all, a large 10,000 Watt lamp at a distance of half a meter can look quite normal when using a certain shutterspeed and fStop.
Maybe some sort of extreme light strength / overexposure warning could be implemented in Maxwell, so you're warned if you've got a lighting setup that's too unrealistic for real life? Just like Reactor warns that a certain object is too light-weighted for real world standards.
Another option might be to include some sort of global saturation balance for the whole scene, so you could adjust that value until your material colors match the colors of the rendered result.
• An animatable sunlight system, so one can animate a sunset or sundown, or a subtle atmospheric change of sunfall in a late afternoon.
• A value that controls the sharpness of shadows from the skylight. Sharpness of shadow is presumably a function of air clarity - a variable for light dispersion caused by particles in the air - for a real world solution.
• The ability to increase the maximum rendering time during the actual rendering itself. So if you've set the maximum time to 8 hours and after 7 hours you know there's still going to be too much noise after 8 hours, you can increase the time limit to 12 hours or so. Would be nice to have it as a drop-down menu option in the Maxwell render view window. Something like "Extend Time" and "Pause" next to the "Stop" option. If the "Extend Time" option will be added it'd be nice to have a dropdown-submenu with "15 mins", "30 mins", "45 mins", "1 hr", "1 hr 30 mins", "2 hrs" and so on, up to and including 12 hours or so, so you can extend a render by one night and check it again the following morning.
• Alpha channel support: the ability to determine which scene elements are visible, invisible and last but not least: matte objects (not visible, but only catching dropshadows from other objects).
• More efficient memory management. Not a lot of users already have 2 GB RAM and if I try to render a resolution of 2400 x 2400 with my 1 GB RAM I get a crash right now.
• Support for HDRI environment textures as a skydome.
• Noise reduction / smoothing algorithms.
• A speed versus quality ratio value. For example: 1 would be equal to the current Low Quality setting and 100 would be the highest possible quality.
• Alternatively, inclusion of render presets would be nice. High Speed - Low Quality would set the samples and bounces to appropriate values and High Quality - Low Speed would set according values.
MATERIALS/MAPS:
• Bitmap filtering!
• If you use a Multi/Sub-Object material, it doesn't work if you copy materials from one multi-material slot to another and change the settings of each material, unless the individual sub-materials all have different names.
• Presets for the physically correct Maxwell material parameters that approach well-known shader models, such as Phong, Blinn, Oren-Nayar-Blinn (nice for cloth), Hanrahan-Krueger (nice for skin), etcetera.
• A specular color for the dielectric material, in order to adjust the harshness of highlights.
• Support for all native 3ds Max (procedural) maps.
• An accurate Max material converter. From scanline to Maxwell and vice versa would be great, including VRay and finalRender to the converter would be fantastic.
• A true translucent material, in order to create thin surfaces that let light through in a phsysically correct manner, so we can make real studio softbox light filters and many other applications.
• More metal types in the metals drop-down list, such as chrome.
• A displacement map slot for all materials, for high mesh details at rendertime.
• A glossy map for the dielectric material.
• A transparency map slot for the dielectric material, so you can create dirty glass with less transparent parts.
• More dielectric types, such as plastic (for transparent plastic) and liquids.
• A tint color for the metal material, so you can for example have green tinted aluminium.
• Anisotropy support for all materials, especially metal, in order to create things like realistic brushed metal.
• More specific materials: several different fabric types such as velvet, satin, cotton, etc.. Also useful: translucent material types such as wax. Also special effects materials, such as X-Ray effects.
• Full Multi/Sub-Object material support.
• Option to generate dirt and/or dust on surfaces, depending on pits and peaks (dirt) and orientation (dust) of an object.
• Support for maps that are included in a ColorCorrect map (a free and very useful image processing plug-in map by http://www.cuneytozdas.com).
CAMERA:
• An automatically updating value indication of the focal distance.
• Both inserting "1/" in front of the shutterspeed value as well as a decimal indication of the amount of seconds beneath the Shutterspeed value would be extra clarifying.
• A light meter and DOF preview would be great (thanks to Krembo for this input). Both should focus on the camera target (or target distance value of a free Maxwell camera). Even better would be the addition of warnings if the light in the camera target area is too bright or dark and if the shutterspeed is too low or high. Such warnings would be very helpful to those of us not familiar with photographic settings. Additionally an "optimize values" button with an optional "automatic" checkbox would be fantastic. After all, most modern day digital cameras have all kinds of automated modes as well.
• Visual representations (along with an on/off toggle) of the different photographic properties (such as the DOF range) would be very helpful (thanks to Tom for this suggestion).
MAXWELL RENDER VIEW INTERFACE:
• "Extend Time" and "Pause" options next to the "Stop" option.
• A Photoshop-like auto-size of the render window, so it adjusts to the size of a 640 x 480 image or any other resolution, except when it doesn't fit on the screen anymore.
Thanks and cheers!
Metin