Maxwell Render | Official public forum

Hi all,

I write a little code from time to time, and thought it would be nice to create a topic here to collect any 3rd-party utilities that are designed to be used in conjunction with Maxwell Render. If you have any programs of your own to offer, please feel free to post them here. So here we go...

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Render Progress Monitor (.exe)


download


info:

This is a simple application for monitoring render progress on remote machines, and runs in one of two update modes:

Auto Mode:
the application refreshes the image when notified by Windows that the selected file has been updated

Timer Mode:
the application refreshes the image on a user-defined scedule
Auto Mode is the preferable method of update, but in some network configurations, it may prove troublesome. In these cases, Timer Mode should be selected. The image may also be updated on-demand by selecting 'Update Now' from the Options menu.

The Options menu is accessed by right-click, and user-settings are persisted between sessions. The image may be zoomed and panned using the left mouse-button and the scroll-wheel. In the event that the image has been zoomed/panned out of view, or to quickly set the image scale to 1:1, it is possible to reset the image by selecting 'Reset Scale'. There are several pixel-interpolation options available. Also available in this menu is an option ('Render History') to record the progress of the rendering. If you select this, a new folder will be created in the output directory, and a copy of the image will be saved each time Maxwell updates the image...so, don't turn it on right away unless you want a whole lot of images saved. There is also a command to delete the history folder.

*requires Microsoft .Net Framework v1.1

v1.0.7 update:

- the application can be started from the command line, just supply the path of the image to be opened. If the image does not exist yet, the monitor will wait until it does, then display the image. Now if you really like the viewer...since Windows just passes the path on the command line to open registered file types, you can register the program with Windows by right-clicking an appropriate file (e.g. myImage.jpg), selecting 'Open With', selecting (or browsing to C:\Program Files\JDHill\RenderProgressMonitor\ProgressMonitor.exe), and ticking the 'always use the selected program to open this kind of file' checkbox. Then you should be able to open images in the viewer just by clicking their icon in Explorer.

- added optional 'Stay on Top' behavior
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Render Progress Monitor (.htm)


download


info:

Similar to .exe version...pretty self-explanatory.

*requires a browser
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That's all for now...have fun.

~JD

Wow, thanks JD. These tools look really useful - unfortunately I'm no coder but will test...

Wow, that fantastic.

Thanks JD Hill.

Yadi

These are really great utilities there, JD! Thanks mucho!

Outstanding Mr Hill

Really great utilities.

Thank you very much for sharing, JD.

Thank you for the toys Jeremy, excellent!

Maybe someone has done it...maybe its stupid

What about command lines? it is a little hard to write command lines all the time (if anybody use it)

I dont know anything about creating applications but what about making an application with a UI where you can click..activate...deactivate...make paths for MXI files (or browse to them) images sizes, large images formats ect... and everything that is related with command line in maxwell and then with the push of a button it creates a text file with everything in the right order so we can just copy the text and paste it into maxwell??

Just an Idea if somenone is a genious making this kind of things, i saw Jeremy´s toys and like this effort..unfortunatlly I can not program anything...I lack the knowledge.

anybody knows abot an application like that? or will it be a waste of time?

Thnak you

Thanks JD,

i´ve been using your Render Progress Monitor since it´s first release! Great Tool!

Is there a chance to control the Monitor via commandline / batchfile? I would like to open up the monitor automatically with a freshly generated image when doing batchrendering. I mean, i can start the thing via .bat file, but would like to know how to give the name and path of the file to the application.

Your help is appreciated!

Cheers, Alex

thanks verymuch JDhill!
stefan

Hi JDHill,

I really like your Rolodex but i will prefered to have it fully integrated inside rhino. Is it possible?

Thanks for all the nice comments, everyone.

@rendertaxi: Done...details added in the first post. I hope it works out good for you.

@hyltom: Done...installation details and download added in the first post. 'Fully integrated' would be a stretch...it's really no more than a Rhino-based launcher for MXM Rolodex, since as noted above, the program really has very little to do with Rhino...but plug-ins and toolbar buttons are fun to have.

Thanks all, and have fun!

~JD

Thanks JD
A little problem I have: when I run MXM Rolodex it is looking for
'C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell\materials database\mxm files' and it is not there!!!
I have it in in 'D:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell\materials database\mxm files'
Is ther a wave of changing the path?
Thanks
ESEA

Hi ESEA,

MXM Rolodex looks for the initial materials folder in the system's generic 'programs' directory (it's not hard-coded to C:\), but since you installed Maxwell in a non-standard location, it's not finding it. To get around this, you should be able to just create a dummy directory on the C drive to match what its' looking for...after that it should work fine.

~JD

JD Got it
This helps out finding things
Thanks