[daros]

X ludenhud,
hi,
to have a correct material exportation from Rhino you need to:
create a layer for each material.
isolate each layer.
select the the wohle layer.
In object propreties define a Object Name.
this operation must be done for each layer.
the object name will be the material name in MatadorLight

export it as LWO and import it in MatadorLight.

Thats all.

David Rossmann

[Tyrone Marshall]

NK: I too find the camera a little difficult to use but considering MatadorLight is free this is something I can live with until the time is found for another update. The recent improvements were very good.

My cam' problems start at the time of importing - there is no scale factor to use so it's pretty much trial and error when importing something from other software - In my case, as .obj files, Cinema4D 8.5 using Riptide.

So, too large (or small) and there doesn't seem enough movement in the cam' as a way of compensating - this uses up much time keep having to export from other software to get the scale right.

Perhaps in future it may possible to rescale a scene within MatadorLight, please?

As already mentioned in another post, it would also be nice to have the ability to move/rotate the imported scene. Moving the camera to set up the render can take a lot of time also.

Hello Becco,

What scale are you modeling in Cinema4D? I usually model in inches, so I will change the export scale in riptide to include a factor of 39.4 times my units to get it up one meter scale. I will test this tonight. I find that for the camera just use the left mouse button to zoom and pan with the right mouse button, I can get the scene to maneuver into view with this.

I really appreciate the camera correction, is this right NK, I seem to get really nice distortion free test images.

[Becco_UK]

Tyrone: In Cinema4D I use metres and I leave Riptides' export scale at 1. Maybe I model my scenes too large but I always use this scale and the Cinema4D plugin exports camera data so my large scenes render as seen in the viewport. I think the MatadorL' camera and scene manipulation could be a little more versatile but I still like the plugin very much.

[Tyrone Marshall]

Tyrone: In Cinema4D I use metres and I leave Riptides' export scale at 1. Maybe I model my scenes too large but I always use this scale and the Cinema4D plugin exports camera data so my large scenes render as seen in the viewport. I think the MatadorL' camera and scene manipulation could be a little more versatile but I still like the plugin very much.

I agree Becco, I have been very pleased with what it offers over the cinema 4d plugin, and I will most likely be moving to using it as primary. I would like to see some kind of texture/object mapping preview, so I can check scaling without test rendering. For open source program, I think it is wonderful.

[philipbruton]

hello,

Using .3ds format out of 3dsmax i import a mesh into matador which is fine, but the next import replaces this one, hmmmm, what the hell am i doing wrong ???


Phil b

[Becco_UK]

philipbruton: I don't think you can add objects into an existing MatadorLight scene.

In your modelling software give each object a seperate material, then export everything as a single 3ds file. In MatadorLight you should see layers (your objects) with the material name you initially gave them.

That's the method I use when exporting C4D scenes as 3ds and it works very well.

[philipbruton]

ah cheers, i got it. Bit of a pain to navigate but it's good fun !

[Micha]

Hi,

thank you for this fine tool. Only the view handling is very difficult for me too. Will it be possible to get two tilings for u and v?

[daros]

Hi tonfarben, to assign a bump map load the 24bit texture in TGa or JPG format in the texture editor.
After that you are able to load the texture in the bump map channel in the material editor.

David Rossmann

[Tyrone Marshall]

Hello Daros and NK,

I am unable to detect any change in mapped texture size when I change the input to different values using a simple sphere bump map(spherical mapping) with Maxwell Metal Aluminum.

The mapping looks the same regardless of input value.

Thanks for the wonderful gem of a program.

[oz42]

I've created a thread with my findings on using MatadorLight to get models out of XSI and into Maxwell.

Read on...

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 7639#27639

[Tyrone Marshall]

Yes great, it works!
I have gotten it to work with UV from Cinema4d also.
What I found out being usefull. When exporting obj via riptide I set scaling to 100. Then scale is right so emitters work. I tested this using cm in cinema and I made default cubes and exported them to matador using riptide-plugin. With a scalefactor of 100 my emitters are not black anymore.
A second tip: When you find it difficult to navigate, try this: before exporting with riptide put your scene into a nullobject. Move that nullobject until the camera is as close as possible to world origin. Rotate then the scene around y-axis until the camera looks as close as possible in global z-direction. Then move the scene so the floor matches global y=0 again. After exporting the camera is not "somewhere" but near where you wanted it. The thing is, the camera is not exported and so Matador uses world origin as camera.
Have fun rendering!

Thanks Tonfarben,

I plan to use this plugin for a complex scene that I am currently in the process of completing.

So, you got UV maps to work, that is great- that means you can use low polygon people! Have you had an opportunity to check out map scaling? I am having problems with that.

I like the sensitivity of the focal length and focal distance, it is very easy to adjust DOF with this, and it is not that big of a deal to render out small test shots to see it. Once I figure out the map scaling issue I will be back in good spirits using matadorlight!

Here is a small test of just a metal aluminum sphere with gloss and bump map. You can also see the delicate handling of DOF as the front center of the object is in focus as I want. But the edges are just slightly out of focus- I also got a very nice effect with the combination of maps- you see you can see through this object!

[Tyrone Marshall]

wow, continuum! How did you achieve this Material?
I am asking because atm I am setting up a complex scene. I want to have a metal-material for example (uv-mapping), and on top of that a alphamapped lettering (flat projection). Imagine for example modelling a keybord, make plasticmaterial with bump and then apply all the letters and numbers on top of that. Can you give me a tip?
Yes, the DOF setup is so cool now. It never has been simpler.
What I am missing in Matador or I don´t know how to do it, Animation. How to setup that?
Another thing: In my scene atm. I have phys. Sky with sun. Now I want to test with artificial light. But I forgot an emitter. I cannot load/add another obj to my scene? Or is it already possible? (I read it isn´t)....

Other things I experienced:
With riptide-export using a scale of 1000 (when you model in cm) is even better than 100. The emitter is white then, not grey.
Strange map-behaviour: I said above that I rotate my whole scene before exporting so that i have a better "startposition" in Matador. There I noticed a strange thing. I tested bumpmapping on cubes. I had them cubic-mapped with a picture in bump and in diffuse. With exportscale of 100 I had them right. Before that I had export scale of 1. this caused tiling in cubic maps. To have correct maps again I had to reajust the tex-size in the projection-tab of the material-editor to 100,100,100 (default is 1,1,1) then they were OK again.
I thought so...beut they weren´t. I moved the camera so I looked down on the cubes. I rendered the view and saw the textures where not correctly alligned. They lie diagonally on the surface. I think it is the same angle I had rotated the scene before exporting.
The only fix for this problem was to step back to cinema: There I mapped cubic and made the tex fit to object. Then I deleted the uvw-tag and created a new one to store the cubic mapping in it. Then the export worked fine.
Conclusion, UV-map ALL your objects before exporting the scene. And additionally, give each object a unique uv-tag and a unique material. Otherwise you run into problems.
This is what I experienced. My two cents.
Happy rendering!
And thanks for making this program free to use! Yay!

Tonfarben,

I changed the material it only has a bump map applied to maxwell aluminum. I will give you the settings:

Type: Metal
Base Type: Aluminum
Roughness U: 0.25
Roughness V: 0.25

Smooth Threshold 30 (I do not have smoothing checked)

Maps:
Bumping (I have a water caustic image)
Strength: 500
Projection: Spherical
Projection Axe: Y

Scale does does not affect anything because I do not include uv map for the sphere or the ground plane.

I cannot wait to see your idea of this render! It should be wonderful.

Thanks for the tips, I will definitely make this a practice. I think for your project, use Aluminum for the keyboard (Add some U and V roughness so it is semi-shiny but not reflective), and white plastic (with some u and v roughness) You will get a very nice result!

I do not think we can do animation with Matador Light- I have looked at Matador Remote from the website Daros posted, and it is much more advanced so I think you could do an animation with that if you need this service..

I do not think you can add object to a scene in Matador Light at the moment. Although I would love an update object feature so that you could make some changes in your host software and then have Matador just update the object layers so a new object (new layer) would appear in the right place ready for a material assignment.

I am going to test the light movement, it may be that you can control the physical sun position in matador light, since you cannot rotate the model - maybe Matador light does this when you move the light around. I need to check it out!

Good Rendering to you. I am very thankful for this program!

[Tyrone Marshall]

HOT TIP! View Setup.

I found this out when using Cinema 4D to setup my model.

If I use the orthrographic view of front, and set up the model the way I want to see it in Matadorlight then all I need to do is make sure the object(s) [if more than one, group all objects (in a null)] axis is such:

Y points north.
X points to the right
Z points straight at you from the screen.

Have the model in the way you want to see it in Matadorlight using the front projection view.

Export!

BONUS: If you are using inches as your system of units, insert 39.4 into the scale factor for riptide (it correlates perfectly in Matadorlight - as it should because it is correct through math.)

[Tyrone Marshall]

I still cannot get the map scaling to work no matter what I input.

tonfarben,

how did you get the scaling to work? I cannot have missed anything here!?!?!