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Lightwave clipmaps? *RESOLVED*

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:32 am
by acclaimimaging
Wonder if anyone can help me, I'm new to Maxwell and am using the Lightwave plug-in but can't seem to get clipmaps to work. I've looked through the forum and tried the ghost layer workaround, and have also tried emulating the way that Maxwell studio deals with them by using the transmittance channel for the alpha map but I can't get any of them to display properly - when rendered I get a black surround and the area that should be visible is transparent.

Has anyone else encountered this and can anyone help please?!?!

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:35 am
by def4d
I'm not a LW user, but i would download a mxm from the mxm gallery, and see if the problem persists!

Re: Lightwave clipmaps?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:02 pm
by mrcz
acclaimimaging wrote:...I've looked through the forum...
What about clip map tutorial then?

Martin

Re: Lightwave clipmaps?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:29 pm
by acclaimimaging
mrcz wrote:
acclaimimaging wrote:...I've looked through the forum...
What about clip map tutorial then?

Martin
Yes, I've followed this tutorial, but still no joy.....
Phil

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:30 pm
by acclaimimaging
def4d wrote:I'm not a LW user, but i would download a mxm from the mxm gallery, and see if the problem persists!
Thanks for the reply def4d, I have tried this and have also tried creating a clipmap in Maxwell material editor then importing into the LW plugin but I still get the same result :(

Phil

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:05 pm
by hdesbois
Have you tried weightmapping? That's better with multilayer materials. Whenever possible, i find it more easy to use LW just to build the scene and set UV's, then do most of the texturing with studio. My prefered method for clipmaps:
Create a map where the clipped parts are pure white, the rest pure black.
Create as many maps as you need layers, with clipped parts black, and the other parts according respective weight of you layers.
In material editor, create an "air" layer with maximum transmittance (color pure white), nd=1. Weight with your first map.
Then built other layers as suits you, applying relevant weighmaps.
HD

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:18 pm
by def4d
i red what u said first again, have you just tried to invert the transmittance map?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:26 pm
by acclaimimaging
def4d wrote:i red what u said first again, have you just tried to invert the transmittance map?
Hi, yes I've tried it both inverted and not inverted but it gives exactly the same result...

phil

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:35 pm
by def4d
maybe a simple quick render would help!

Re: Lightwave clipmaps?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:25 pm
by mrcz
acclaimimaging wrote: Yes, I've followed this tutorial, but still no joy.....
Phil
It is strange. I have tried it and it worked for me.

And what about Texture Projector/Locator?

Did you check it in Studio? Or you fired mxcl right from Lightwave?

Martin

Re: Lightwave clipmaps?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:50 pm
by acclaimimaging
mrcz wrote:
acclaimimaging wrote: Yes, I've followed this tutorial, but still no joy.....
Phil
It is strange. I have tried it and it worked for me.

And what about Texture Projector/Locator?

Did you check it in Studio? Or you fired mxcl right from Lightwave?

Martin
Hi, yes it is strange, the clipmaps work fine if I render from Studio, once I have created the clipmap in the maxwell material editor. However, I am trying to fire mxcl from Lightwave and this is when I get the problem. It seems I can't use Studio reliably, as I keep getting runtime errors/crashes which I assume relate to a lack of memory, but that's another issue.

Phil

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:31 pm
by mrcz
I have tried it your way.
Lightwave 8.5 32bit - lwo with Maxwell Material Shader attached.
Rendered directly via plugin version 1.5.8.
Planar, Cubic and UV projections are working fine.

I have no idea what is wrong in your case.

Martin

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:17 pm
by acclaimimaging
Thanks everyone who has helped, I have now got it working. The problem was that I was using a clipmap with a black background/clip area (0,0,0) and then inverting the texture rather than using a texture with a pure white clip area (255,255,255). This works fine in Studio but obviously not in the LW plugin. Thanks for the help though guys!
Phil

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:43 pm
by def4d
so you can add "resolved" on top of the topic :wink: