[JDHill]

As noted in the Announcements section, version 1.8.1.1 of the Maxwell for Cinema 4D plugin is now available; here are the details:


Two ways of working with Maxwell Instances:

1. Through the use of the new ‘Maxwell Instance Object’: the plug-in provides a dedicated Cinema plug-in-object which is used to explicitly create instances from source geometry. This object is capable of duplicating entire hierarchies, for example, here are two Instance objects in use:
   
   
   
   What is shown here is the Body Paint ‘LowPoly Girl’ example model, grouped under a single Null object. This Null has then been set as the target for a single Maxwell Instance object, which has itself then been set as the target of another Maxwell Instance object. As you can see, each Instance object has the ability to inspect and draw bounding boxes to represent the geometry which it duplicates.
2. Automatically: there is a new switch in the Scene object which, when enabled, will cause the plug-in to identify potential candidates for instancing based on their names and mesh-topologies. This works transparently, and is very useful when working with things like arrays or particle systems.

Other improvements:

• The Scene Object now provides an in-viewport Sun direction indicator. It operates in real-time as you adjust the date/time/location/ground rotation of the Scene:
  
  
• The viewport-representation of plugin materials is much more comprehensive in the new plug-in version. Changes made to Maxwell materials result in changes to the way they are depicted in the viewport, and black/white maps used in weight channels are converted to alpha/white for viewport display:
  
  
  
  Additionally, when converting native Cinema materials, the plug-in will convert alpha maps to black/white maps for Maxwell Render.
• Added a new ‘Disable Materials’ switch in the Scene which causes all objects to be assigned the default material
• Colors may be dragged from one material component (i.e. BSDF, Coating) to another in the Material Editor
• Added support for export of per-selection UVs
• Object render dots are now correctly interpreted, as is the visibility of an object’s layer
• Export has been greatly improved, both in terms of speed, and memory usage
• The plug-in now supports correct export of Cinema XRef objects and the materials contained in their target documents
• The Scene’s location may now be set using a .kml file
• Added a ‘Low-priority’ switch to the Scene object for starting Maxwell MXCL in low-priority mode
• A new Maxwell page has been added to Cinema’s Preferences window; various defaults and actions are controlled here

Fixes:

• Fixed some issues with incorrect film back being exported
• Fixed an issue with Glare & Obstacle maps being switched
• Fixed lens-shift not being exported when a Maxwell Camera tag was used
• Fixed an issue with Cinema lights being exported even when they were disabled
• Fixed an issue with the default material not being written correctly
• Fixed an issue where material previews were not correctly read when importing an MXS file
• Fixed a conflict which occurred when the plug-in attempted to read Vray materials
• Fixed a failure of the Region Rectangle to draw correctly on R10.5/osx