Maxwell Render | Official public forum

Here is a ring I've been chewing on for a while. The design is a generic *mall store ring*, yawn, but is a good style for practicing lighting of this type of setting for diamonds.
With significant help from a friend (Hi, Josh), I'm making some progress.
And yes there is a meshing issue with the metal surface.
Modeled in Rhino.
C & C's welcome.
Oh, this would be a catalog shot or POP display ad shot with copy added.

[img][img]http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7681/r ... ftscc6.jpg[/img][/img]

Coming along nicely Larry, ...

Now this metal mesh is a shame, ... why not just toss it and do a new surface w/revolve?

Hi Chris,
Thanks for taking a look and commenting.
There are a couple of things I could do about the mesh. One is learn more about Rhino's meshing tools. Which might be better than remodeling. The model is very clean, so remeshing would be quicker.
Or I could do a bit of PS work and save all the re-render time.
As its just a learning exercise, I'm just not sure.

Larry ... do you not have the meshing manager plug ?

It allows you to individually control per object mesh density, ...V4 beta I believe has it built in --- I think.

Hi Chris,
I don't mesh with a plug in in Rhino. I didn't know there was a plug to help out with Rhino mesh exports.
If I go to Advanced Settings when I use Export Selected I get the numerical settings. Thats what I need to work with. The generic slider meshes kinda suck as you see.
I've used dxf, obj and stl exports and starting to drop the dxf's in favor of obj's. STL's I repair in another soft.

The thing about that slider is that it's dependent on the global settings, ...so if those suck, ..then the slider sucks. Also, ..it's not the easiest thing to find settings that work globally for every object.

The meshing manager, ..still uses the global settings, ..but at least allows for individuation of objects. I may be wrong, ..but I think in V4, ..every object has it's own set of those familiar global settings, ..which introduces a lot more control.

So, ..let's say your ready to export (and assuming your using either v4 or the MeshManager plug), ... you would know what to plug in the numerical editor, ...because you would have already set that up during the modeling process, ...instead of just taking a shot at some good settings.

I have some good settings for STL export, I never use the slider for those.
I'm not use if the same settings work well with obj meshes.
And this is an old model I've recyclilng for Maxwell experiments, so no telling where I was re mesh skills at that time.
Most of my work involves displacements of the surface metal, which I do in C4D, so I haven't worked very much with smooth polished metal objects. Displacements I have no problem with as I knock the hell out of the original poor meshes.

One rendering problem I forgot to mention.
As the SL increases above 18 approaching 20, the dispersion colors seem to move from behind the front surface of the stone, to the surface of the stone. This gives the gems a very CG or PS look.
I have a number of renders of this ring with different lighting and different SL's. This current render is at SL 19.5 and the dispersion colors look almost painted on.
What can I do about this?

This current render is at SL 19.5 and the dispersion colors look almost painted on.
What can I do about this?

Sorry glyp, .. I did a lot w/the beta rendering out w/dispersion, ..but have done nothing w/1.1, ... this is a question for the master, ... hdesbois.

Perhaps it's one of those issues where increased SL's start to kill off the realism ....... ..been known to happen. Solution: stop render.

Pretty lame answer, ... I request A team help.

Hi Chris,
I think you are right. For now the only solution is *stop render*.
The problem with that is that these *artifacts* appear at different SL's on different diamond renders. And are most problematic when I get the most color from dispersion. Which is highly desireable.
So I can't just set the render to stop at SL 18, or 19 or 20 and know I'm going to get the best render. The ones with the least visible dispersion are best when cooked the longest. Monitoring can't always be done, as I often let things cook while I'm away.
Maybe a future release of Maxwell would allow for saving successive MXI files as the render is cooking. Something like auto Incremental Save in Rhino. So I could save MXI's from SL, 18, 19 and 20 to see which is best.
Getting the render engine perfected (if this is considered a flaw, which I'm not sure it is) would be nice, but until then an auto incremental save would be very convenient.

Remeshed.
SL 17.5, 8.5 hours.

[img][img]http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1297 ... ftsnd4.jpg[/img][/img]

....so nice.

Thank you, Chris.
I remeshed using the same settings I use for all my STL exports out of Rhino. D'oh!
Then brought a scaled mxs into the scene.
Viola.
The little sun dog in the lower right was an added bonus.

Hey Larry, that's really beautiful, but I liked it when it was a little more blue. Just nitpicking though. I'm glad I could help in any way. That little spectral reflection on the foreground is so real. It's what makes maxwell so fun to play with.

Looking good… I think your next step would be to use a mxi/hdri to show some nice reflections on the silver.