[DrMerman]

Hey guys (if anyone looks down here anymore.... ) A while ago I wrote a relatively nice animation exporter melScript (http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=16102) which I'm thinking about updating and adding a whole bunch of other stuff to (coding practice...)

SO the question is, what kind of things would you like to see added to the existing Mayall plugin?? I'm thinking about material convertors, light convertors, ability to animate the sun/environment settings through the batch script...the list goes on.

Reply with any ideas and I'll see if some day I can figure out how to code it...

Cheers,
Dr Merman

[3dtrialpractice]

material convertors, light convertors, ability to animate the sun/environment settings through the batch script...
Cheers,
Dr Merman

Doc,

That sounds great, esp the sun settings via batch script!
would totally come in handy!
not sure how well material and light would convert, I'm acctually relatively happy using mxms via plugin, i love the mxmgallery, and the v1.1 wizards helps a bunch!

I have been ultra slamed and have had no time in aug.
but I am super glad that you have had time to make the render mel script already, and for offer of devoting some of your mel knowledge to help maxwell's maya existence..

thanks!
-luke

lets get this maya section up and busy (Nextlimit: maya 8 plugin please!) (has maya8 sdk been released? that might have been a holdup)

[SunlightRocker]

Hi Doc.

Its great to hear someone think about Maya here.

I agree with 3dtrialpractice tough. The MXED works great and I dont think we need a converter. But on the other side, If I have this model I bought from ie Dosch Design, (they come with ALOT of materials), it would be great to just klick a button and SWOooOSCH - MaxwellRender it, and then, if needed, tweek the materials some in the MXED. So, I changed my mind. Add a Material Converter too.

The ability to change sun-settings via batch would be great to. And, humm, what else... I dont know... One thing that could come in handy is to change material-settings during animation, but I dont know if thats even possible. (Change, texture-positions, colors, transmittance and so on.)

/ Tobias

[DrMerman]

Hey guys, cheers for the support!

I'm figuring that a material convertor would probably work only for lamberts/blinns etc (the basic material set.) Any material that is using ramps/procedural textures, would require some kind of texture generator.


Hmmm....


Anyway The environment change via batch script should actually be pretty simple, its just a matter of making a nice UI. I'm pretty busy as of late, but I'll see if I can come up with a few ideas, and I'll keep anyone who's interested updated. Feel free to keep posting ideas or crits on the animation exporter, or anything that may follow.

Cheers,
Dr Merman


EDIT : I think I've solved the texture generator thing. Slowly getting there...

[SunlightRocker]

Im really looking forward to this.

About the material-converter. I dont really care if its a good or bad converter. Aslong as it convert them to simple maxwell-materials (with the right texture, transmittance, reflection, and saves them in a specified folder), Im satisfied.

Good Luck

Tell me if theres something I can help You with. (I dont know any .mel tough)

[DrMerman]

Hey guys. Right, I've been tackling the material convertor and have hit a snag. With the current SDK it is not possible to write an individual MXM file (like you would when exporting from MXED.exe,) you have to write an entire scene. Because of this, any material convertor that I write would only be able to convert to the old style materials, and not to an MXM. Which kindof sucks

However, I've got the Maya side of things up and working. So far I can successfully transfer the colour maps from lambert materials. Implementing the rest is just a case of sitting down and powering on through it (as and when work allows.)

I've also got a plan for an environment script, which would allow you to see sky colour and sun position in Maya. In my eyes, that would be REALLY usefull.

Keep your ideas coming,

Cheers,
Dr Merman

sunlightrocker : thanks for the offer mate. I imagine that anything that does get written will need some testing, so help there would be awesome!

[SunlightRocker]

Hey guys. Right, I've been tackling the material convertor and have hit a snag. With the current SDK it is not possible to write an individual MXM file (like you would when exporting from MXED.exe,) you have to write an entire scene. Because of this, any material convertor that I write would only be able to convert to the old style materials, and not to an MXM. Which kindof sucks

I Agree. Is it really not possible? I med REALLY really?

I've also got a plan for an environment script, which would allow you to see sky colour and sun position in Maya. In my eyes, that would be REALLY usefull.

Ohh, that would GREAT.

sunlightrocker : thanks for the offer mate. I imagine that anything that does get written will need some testing, so help there would be awesome!

Ill be there.

[DrMerman]

I Agree. Is it really not possible? I med REALLY really?

I'm far from being an expert when it comes to the coding side of things, but after going through everything a few times, apparently not. The SDK section of the site has been pretty much dead for a long time now, and the documentation that came with the v1.1 of the SDK is also pretty minimal. From what I can gather NL plan to add more functionality to it at some future date. We'll have to wait and see I suppose.

[SunlightRocker]

Well its not THAT important.

How is it going with the environment script?

[DrMerman]

Work dictates slowly The idea itself is pretty straight forward, I just need to figure out all the colours. It'll probably work as a fairly close interpretation of the Maxwell skydome, but it'll be better than nothing!

[3dtrialpractice]

DrMerman!

I had some time to think and I got a request for a maya node that would be handy for me in a few projects..

Animatable MXM Textures...

The ability to have a maya mxm node that would accept a sequence of MXM's

the theory here is that it uses regular MXM files.. but lets you key the file refrenced over time.. (connected to the time node?)... so at Frame 1 it would hae fire0001.mxm and then at frame 30 i would have fire030.mxm and then it would fillin 2-29 based on a sequence.. just like the regular maya image texture nodes let you assign a sequence of images to them.

AND THE abillity via graph editor to LOOP the playbay or pingpong the sequence or whatever since there would be maya time keys associated with the mxm node

You would still have to create 30 mxm's(in mxm editor) but the maya node just let you key what mxm is assigned to the obect per given frame.

the way I'm thinking of it is just simple appication.. and there still would be work involed in saving the mxm's in material editor (would be cool to have a batch options for creating mxm's in MXM editor).. Unless one day Next Limit would allow image sequences or movie files (avi/mov/wmv) to be assigned as textures...