[Mihnea Balta]

1: Matte functionality (a Matte material and/or Matte object properties) with adjustable alpha contribution (1 causes object(s) to be fully visible in the alpha channel, 0 means fully invisible in the alpha, -1 causes only shadows to be visible in the alpha).

3: An object property to include or exclude objects from the alpha channel.

The renderer does not support these features, so we can't implement them in the plug-in.

2: Support for other 3ds Max maps than only the Bitmap map, such as the Noise map, Tiles, Gradient Ramp, etcetera.

Maxwell doesn't have procedural textures so the only way to support those would be by baking them. However, as explained here, this could introduce some serious problems.

4: To be able to set the Maxwell render background color in 3ds Max.

I'm not sure I understand this correctly, but if you're using a sky dome you can set the color in the render globals. If you don't want to use the sky dome, you can't set the background color directly (again, this is a renderer limitation) but you can work around it in a couple of ways: either render with an alpha channel and add the background after that or use a background image set to that color in the Image Based Environment.

by the way anyone had issues when using normal maps?

Did you find something wrong with the normal maps in the Max plug-in?


PS: render channels (z, alpha etc.) are not in right now, they're coming in the next update.

[MetinSeven_com]

Thanks for your reply Mihnea. I understand your argument (really too bad about the matte material, it is very useful for compositing).

Is it possible to include a background color option in the next Max plug-in update, so we don't have to prepare an image in that color to set the background? I render a lot of magazine illustrations against a white background, where the background is excluded from the alpha, so magazine layouters can easily change the background color.

When you include the alpha channel in the next version, is it possible to include it along with the rendered image file (TIFF, TARGA etc.)? That would be more convenient than having the alpha as a separate image.

Thanks again. The 3ds Max plug-in is really becoming very good now.

[Maximus3D]

Maybe support for 3dsmax normal procedural noise would be possible and then bake that out into a bitmap the same way it works in C4D. Unless 3dsmax's SDK is a complete and total mess so something like that requires another year of coding..

/ Max

[MetinSeven_com]

To be honest I've never really checked out how texture baking works in Max. Never needed it so far. I'm not into games creation anymore.

[Mihnea Balta]

Maybe support for 3dsmax normal procedural noise would be possible and then bake that out into a bitmap the same way it works in C4D. Unless 3dsmax's SDK is a complete and total mess so something like that requires another year of coding..

In the reply above I gave a link to a post by corneliu explaining why we don't automatically bake textures in Maya and Max. We could add an option for it, but it might take a while for Max, I didn't see an easy way to do it in the first 3 minutes of searching the documentation. :)

Is it possible to include a background color option in the next Max plug-in update, so we don't have to prepare an image in that color to set the background?

I'm not sure if we can fit this in the schedule right now, but we'll see.

When you include the alpha channel in the next version, is it possible to include it along with the rendered image file (TIFF, TARGA etc.)?

This can be done, but it requires some extra work so the answer is the same as for the question above. :)

Thanks again. The 3ds Max plug-in is really becoming very good now.

Thank you too. :)

[MetinSeven_com]

Cool! I'll patiently wait and enjoy the current version of the Max plug-in in the mean time.

It's great to have frequent feedback from NL again. I really missed that.

[vansan]

BIG Thanks NL team, I can now continue to write my unfinished script with that new 3dsmax plugin to adopt maxwell to my workflow.
Still it needs much work.
Hope to see material-wizard working before xmas

[MetinSeven_com]

Hi Vansan,

A V-Ray converter should be easier to script now, and it would come in MIGHTY handy! So thanks a lot in advance for your efforts!

It would be ideal if you could make the script convert more than only materials, such as converting V-Ray plane lights into Max plane primitives with a Maxwell emitter material.

[Duncan]

I'd like to see Maxwell use Mental Ray's Arch&Design shaders interface.
Like the way in the Maya video how it uses existing Mental Ray materials.
This would be sweet.

BTW I love the new plugin I'm using Maxwell again.

cheers

[vansan]

Hi MetinSeven!
I'm really interested in a good vray-maxwell converter, as a temporal solution I use 3dzver's vray->standart and then standart->maxwell material conversion.

[MetinSeven_com]

Thanks for the tip!