Any features you'd like to see implemented into Maxwell?
User avatar
By Nasok
#394281
Like internal Maya's nodes, say procedural Noise nodes or colour ramps.

Would be cool to have maybe a colour combine node and colour blend node.
So, for instance you could blend AO with Diffuse via colour blend node with multiply parameter, which could be quite handy and would simplify layer editor's interface.

Additionally, would love to have maxwell's extra nodes for Maya. Like Curvature node or Colour Remap float node.
Curvature node could be used to find object's curvature (once shape node is plugged in input slot) - this could be handy for creating AO, cavity, dirt, edge-wear and so many cool effects :)

Just thinking :)
Cheers,
Tim.
Last edited by Nasok on Wed Mar 07, 2018 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
#394292
Well, nodal system will really simplify everything for one user and might complicate everything for another user.
Have to agree that not everyone is comfortable with nodes. But having them working - especially with software packages like Maya - is something that will greatly improve the workflow and overall speed :)
Maya has lot's of useful nodes and procedurals, lot's of cool utilities that are just there and free of use (for those who already got Maya)

In fact right now if you plug in Maxwell Render plugin in Maya in node editor you can use some simple nodes like image input or texture coordinates.


Oh, also, would be great to see how maxwell could work with linear workflow approach. Should there be a little gamma correct node for each image input ? or should it just utilise drop down menu from maya (on each file selection there is a Colour profile drop down menu)

Those little things would be just a huge time savers
User avatar
By Nasok
#396722
Also, I think that "Colour Jitter Effect" could be a very handy tool for a scatter plugin, ... and even standalone it would be nice to add a "colour jitter effect" to a BSDF layer (say only one per material) .. so that if there are more than one object that carries it material - then you can choose to alternate the colour / hue / lightness / min and max values and so on. that way if you, say ... have 20 objects (with textures) colour jitter could shift the hue a bit to randomise the visual appearance of those objects ... that way you don't need to make 20 different materials with slightly different BSDF settings .. and that way your scattered grass or rocks won't looks like it's just 3-4 different objects scattered around. In Maya it's currently done through vertex colours .. I think Maxwell can just use Maya's data to identify which objects are going to be affected.
Screen Shot 2018-03-02 at 10.19.58 AM.png
The other thing that I believe would be super cool to have is the "isolate" mode in FIRE. I know it is more of a Node based approach but it would greatly benefit us to see how roughness map is mapped over the object (just as black and white image) so we could see whether we need to tweak it or not ... or how pure albedo looks like .. and so on. Since the viewport is not really an option anymore to see the way textures are represented .. "Isolate selected" would remove all "shading" and would just show the "flat map". This would really REALLY help with look-dev.

Cheers.
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User avatar
By Nasok
#396742
I was thinking about how colour jitter might work without the node system ... and here is what I came up with.

In main properties we can have a tick for "Jitter" Once you select it new menu (would be available .. maybe in Colour correction tab) where you're per image / channel can do a colour / lightness / HUE / random (with a slider to control the amount of randomness)

Imagine you're making a 100 (or 1000) transparent candies .. every candy has a unique colour on transmittance channel. And we know that Maxwell is perfect for transparent materials. Or you're making a moisture drops .. or paint drops. Or grass or .. anything could benefit from this feature. The key is that all object that have this material (with Jitter applied) will provide their IDs to identify the amount of different values to be generated. Each ID might have a multiply by random number and that would be divided by a given range in Jitter controls.

Hope it makes sense :)

Cheers.
User avatar
By Mihai
#396744
I was thinking that the objectID would work as the seed value for the randomness generator, and then we add underneath for each of the sliders of Hue, Saturation, Brightness a checkbox named "Randomize" and a numeric field named "Range". So it will go plus/minus on that range based on the current value already set in those sliders.

This would work for the texture picker.

Something similar would need to be done for the Color picker. To the right of each of the 3 color sliders (when either in HSV or RGB mode) we add a randomize checkbox and a range numeric.
User avatar
By Nasok
#396746
Yeah .. well .. I'm absolute "0" on programming .. so I'm just guessing how it potentially could work.

In maya it natively uses Vertex Color sets. In Maxwell it could be based on object IDs.

Yeah ideally you would want to have this "Randomiser" in Texture picker (in colour correction tab). So that way your textures could be randomised a bit.

For colour-only situations - it could be either a separate section which is when activated gives you the percentage sliders over HUE / Value / Saturation so you could get any possible combination.

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