[adl]

Hi Hervè,
i confirm your work method.
I'm working on an AMD X4 4400+ with win64 and 4 Gbyte Ram.

I'm working now to translate in Maxwell a huge architectural (with trees) project of about 1 milion of polygons and;

1) I load in LW 8.5 some parts, I check points, polygons an textures about them and then I make a fast test with MR plug-in with simple textures and materials inside lw...

2) when all the parts are complete and without any errors from MR plug-in I save in mxs and import them in Maxwell Studio to make advanced materials and final rendering... it's simple in Studio assemble some differents part of the same project...

Ciao,
Antonio
adl@imagonet.it
www.imagonet.it

[thxraph]

interesting Hervé...

i'll give a try to your workflow !

As far as i dont need advenced feature from the studio, i dont have any probleme rendering from LW, even 500K poly more & 150mat and more scenes... no critical problem so far

for multilight, you HAVE TO pass in studio

Every body that have problem with LW & maxwell should try the Hervé workflow

[RonB]

That sounds fine Herve. But how do you do that? I mean, I have a large scene set up in LW. Do I export each individual object from within the scene? Or are you saying load each object individually into LW, apply UV map and save as MXS. Then set up the scene in Studio? That seems a pain in the butt!

I am willing to try anything at this point of course, and I thank you for your help.

Ron

[Toxie]

I agree with Hervé. This is thge method ive been following all the time

[Hervé]

ok, if you have setup already your scene in LW, and you want to recover all objects positions, scale, etc... of your scene, save as many scenes increments as you have objects... like 20 objects , save 20 scenes increments.. very easy, and take little place too in lw.. then in each scene delete all objects, except one... you guess it... now export from each scene, and give each mxs that you save the name of each object... (it seam tedious, but it is not, really fast indeed.. takes 20 min for 20 objects.. hehe) Now for each object of each scene, just put a color map into the color channel (to get it exported), it can be a lw projection like cubic, planar.. or some uv's... (always try to merge the different uv's you might have for an object, it won't export to many projections then.. best is to have in uv per object, then you get only one projection per object...)

now in the Maxwell shader (surface) for each surface click make mxm from surface, (create in your lw content folder another folder named "Materials") Maxwell points it right away with the surface name and mxm extension, so it is easy... no hassle here..

Ok, now you have your objects in mxs format, with their right positions and scale, whatever displacement.. that are exported also.. so now load eachof your mxs-object into a simple scene that I advise you to make... A scene containing a lighting approximation that you're intend to use later in you final scene... a couple panels made in lw, to make a floor and walls, a couple emitters or more, and you're set ! (that will be the scene where you will tweak and texture your objects, so you will always work under the same lighting conditions...

OK, now open that test scene, and one by one, like you'd do in LW, import your objects, texture them (for each one, pay always attention of the projector #...) then save your mxs's (your objects in fact) and now, import them all in your final scene, they 're now all in their right place, with the right ready material, focus your camera, and render !.. you can off course always tweak your materials here & there, if small differences occur, due to now your full scene and all of the objects nicely interacting eachothers...

ok.. now go and render something, this will get you started.. at least.. now IF you don't get all or if you have any further questions.. I'll be here.. he he..

the other advantage of working like this...,? now you just turned your objects into ready to render mxs files... later you can use them back in other scenes and then how cool and ow fast..? very fast... unlike LW or other programs where for each scene and lighting, you have to go all over again... twik twik twik... he he.

Anyway, I found this method efficient, sure, and easy to control at each step.. voila..

Cheers..

thaks ADL, thxraph, and Ron...

[RonB]

Thank you Herve!

Ron

[bbuxton]

Thanks, really its great to see something go from Lightwave Layout to Studio.

But we are not in beta anymore. This is about as easy as taking a photo with a handful of parts from a seriously broken camera. I really wish that my projects consisted of only 20 or so objects. It is not uncommon to have scenes with several hundred objects, take away the ability so use layers, parts or multiple materials and we are looking at many more. At least the betas & RC's didn't require me to manage several hundred scenes to squeeze out a render.

Herve you really are a master at getting stuff out of Maxwell, a champion of workarounds. The problem is NL see your results and assume the software is production ready for the rest of us mere mortals.

But really a big thank you, for giving enough insight to at least experiment with Maxwell's new features and capabilities.

BB

[Hervé]

hey thanks BBuxton.. ! well the fact is ... I was saying so with an example of 20 objects... ssure just 20... but if you have several hundreds objects, I suspect a lot of objects are the same category, like maybe trees & cars... so here you can all group them in the same scene in LW prior to export it..

Now if several hundreds of objects are ALL different... well then I'd say you're doing LOTR 3... he he..
No really, can you tell me what are all these objects... it really depend...

Like a parking lot with cars would go in one mxs... anyway, if you have so many objects, the best is to group by sort...

BTW, we're all mere mortals... I'm a zombie myself... hehe..

[adl]

Hi All,
i'm using MR 1. with lw 8.5, win64 and 4 Gbyte ram.

I have a very big and complex architectural scene (700.000 polygon with a lot of materials and textures).

No problems if i have not textures to export the project in .xms parts from LW and import them in Maxwell Studio with some workaround ... but the problems is that i add textures to the scene Studio crash with last .xms that i import...

C++ Error follow the crash of studio.

I see that when the memory reach 2,5Gb Mb it crash than i think i'ts a problem of RAM. The PC has 4 Gb and win64 but i think that MAxwell studio use only 2 mb because i'ts a 32 bit application.

Then i think that without a 64 bit version of MR e/o -hd version options is impossible FOR NOW to make the rendering for big and complex projetcs...

Now a question? Is it possible joins 2 .mxs files wihout open Maxwell Studio?

ADL
www.imagonet.it

[bbuxton]

Now if several hundreds of objects are ALL different... well then I'd say you're doing LOTR 3... he he..
No really, can you tell me what are all these objects... it really depend...

Like a parking lot with cars would go in one mxs... anyway, if you have so many objects, the best is to group by sort...

Not LOTR.... but concept graphics for hotel & leisure new builds.

Problem is that if I group everything by material I lose my UV's. I know that studio allows multiple projectors but it will not import multiple UV's (at least from lightwave). Of course I could combine the UVs and arrange everything in modeller merging all those objects into one. Then I'll get the email saying "actually we want to have the other chairs instead"

So I either murder my clients or use another render application.

[bbuxton]

Wow!
New build of the Lightwave plugin (minor update) in announcements.
Will give this a go in the morning!

BB