[mvanderzee]

maybe this is already common knowledge, but it took me a while to figure out:

if you are working with nurbs surfaces, makes sure you always use explicit/advanced tesselation - if you use simple tesselation, it seems that the polygons that are rendered in maxwell are not what you see with 'display render tesselation' turned on.

and of course the easiest way to set this up so it renders well in maxwell is to select all your surfaces, open the Attribute Spread Sheet, click the 'tesselation' tab, click on the 'explicit tesselation' header, and enter '1'. also, turn 'Smooth Edge' on the same way. this eliminates gaps between surfaces better.

-mv


UPDATE -

Now I am having tesselation problems. i have the tesselation settings turned up to where they should work well, and still the surfaces arent smooth when rendered in maxwell:




here is how it looks rendered in maya hardware (smooth, like it should be!)





here are my tesselation settings:




so it looks like it should come out smooth!

any ideas?

[mvanderzee]

i exported the scene to maxwell studio, and it kinda looks like Maxwell doesnt use the tesselation that Maya shows:



i'm not sure if the yellow lines in maxwell editor indicate the actual polygons of the surface, or are just a general indicator of the surface's shape. but even with all the lines shown (top right), the contour of the shape looks low-poly (bottom right). if those lines are the polygons, then maybe it is just a issue with the normals?

so i guess what i said before about advanced tesselation vs. regular might not be accurate - it is more an issue of the tesselation that Maxwell decides to use.

does anyone know how to compel maxwell to use the tesselation set in maya?

[mvanderzee]

the workaround that i have found is to turn the tesselation up beyond where it should need to be. this image is with it turned up, and it still looks not the best, but i won't be as zoomed in in most of my renders.




if i turn the tesselation settings way up, it does get smoother. this is with about 2000 polys (as reported by maya). notice the annoying ridge where the top and bottom halves meet.



so i guess it is just like all tesselating, where you need to up the settings to get better renders. it is just strange that the maxwell tesselating doesn't match maya's.