Page 1 of 1
what's up with using FormZ sun?
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:58 am
by monochrome
First of all, why can't Maxwell just read the manual position of the sun in FormZ? I can't stand entering everything numerically
Second, it's not working. I input the right numbers with 0 degrees Angle of Site North and Maxwell ignores that, defaulting to 90 degrees.
Third, is there a possibility of using other FormZ lights, likes cones or points?
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:59 am
by juan
Hello monochrome,
I don't understand your first issue. Maxwell reads the sun in FormZ when it is set using the option "by site, date and time zone". is it not what you are looking for?
About the 2nd issue, is there any other parameter ignored apart from the sun rotation? We will try to implement it for the next revision.
Regarding using FormZ lights, we are looking into that, as you know Maxwell needs real geometries instead of point lights but we are changing our sdk to convert native lights to geometries on the fly.
Regards,
Juan
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 11:09 am
by Fernando Tella
juan wrote:...but we are changing our sdk to convert native lights to geometries on the fly.
That sounds cool! Great news.
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:12 pm
by dkessler
With "Use formZ Sky" checked, the latitude and longitude correctly export to Maxwell Studio. The City location does not (it always shows up as Kabul, Afganistan).
FormZ's "angle of site north" and MW Studio's "ground plane rotation" do not match up (already mentioned). It also should be noted that formZ's angle of site north starts at 3 o'clock and is measured counter-clockwise. What I'm not totally sure of though is the ground plane rotation in MW Studio. It appears that it points south, starts at 6 o'clock, and is measured clockwise. I say this because if I use an angle of site north of 135 degrees in formZ, I need a ground plane rotation of 315 in MW Studio to get the sun angles to match? Woah, that's confusing.
GMT is also incorrect (mine is an hour off). I'm also not sure if the formZ checkbox "Daylight Savings" translates. For example, Mountain Time (USA) is GMT-7 during standard time, and GMT-6 during daylight saving time. Maxwell is showing my sun position (for Denver, CO) as GMT-5.
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:11 pm
by juan
Many thanks dkessler, we will look into that for the next update.
Regards,
Juan
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:12 pm
by monochrome
So why not just allow the sun to be manually set in FormZ? I often set a time of day and then adjust it manually to get the 'right' amount of shadows in a rendering.
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:50 pm
by dkessler
Just guessing, but it's probably because you'd be creating a sun angle that doesn't exist in reality. And, Maxwell wouldn't be a "physically correct, unbiased rendering engine" anymore?
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:30 pm
by juan
Hi,
Sun rotation of FormZ sky is properly readed and will be available for the next version, we are testing it right now.
Regards,
Juan
PS:
Just guessing, but it's probably because you'd be creating a sun angle that doesn't exist in reality. And, Maxwell wouldn't be a "physically correct, unbiased rendering engine" anymore?
You are right, not all the angles are allowed, but anyway we are looking into the possibility to allow setting the sun with angles for next updates