By ekrantz
#291693
Hi all :)

I am a new user of Maxwell and I have a couple of questions about the plug-in. I am using it with C4D R11.

First, I notice that if I apply a maxwell material it will not render within the C4D viewport, but it will render in the Maxwell Renderer. This is a pain for me because sometimes I just want to check and see how things are looking while working and I prefer to be able to render right in the viewport. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Second, I applied a standard C4D material to an object and added SSS (sub surface scattering). It renders as expected in the C4D renderer and vieport, but when I render it to Maxwell the texture does not appear to have the translucency of an object with SSS. It does apply the rest of the texture settings however (color, bump, etc) Again, any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks
-Elizabeth
By JDHill
#291706
Hi Elizabeth,

On your first point, the plugin's material is not meant to be used as a Cinema shader. It is only meant to provide viewport feedback for changes you make to it, so if you want to render using Cinema, you should use a Cinema shader.

On the second point, the plugin does try to do automatic translation of Cinema materials into Maxwell ones, but it does have its limitations. Maxwell materials are very different than Cinema ones, so to use the more advanced Maxwell features (like SSS), you should create and use a custom Maxwell material.

Just let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers,

JD
By ekrantz
#291730
Hi JD,

Thanks that clears some things up. It's not so much that I want to use C4D materials as much I just wanted to be able to check progress in a C4D viewport since its a fast way to work for me. This is easy enough to work around.

I will need spend some time learning the more advanced features of maxwell materials if this is what's required for properties like SSS. Is there a good tutorial somewhere on this topic?

Thanks again
-E
By JDHill
#291742
Hi Elizabeth,

I would recommend a few different things:

- Tutorials (esp. Mike Verta's tutorials)
- MXM Board
- MXM Gallery
- Maxwell manual ([Program Files]\Next Limit\Maxwell\manual)
- http://think.maxwellrender.com
- forum search

The main idea is just to get familiar with the ideas behind Maxwell materials, since they are quite different than traditional rendering materials. Different, in this case, is a good thing in my opinion, because the different components which you use to build them have parameters which correspond to real-life types of properties. The way I would approach it would be to start playing with the material editor, observing the effects of changing different parameters, and consulting the Maxwell manual when something doesn't make sense on its own. You can also learn alot by downloading different materials from the MXM gallery and inspecting how they have been built.

Cheers,

JD
By Becco_UK
#293783
JDHill: This indirectly relates to something I raised some time ago about the priority ordering of materials changing - with previos versions of the plugin I could render my in development Bodypaint psd texture without keep having to remove the objects Maxwell material - is it only me that uses dual materials?
By JDHill
#293790
I completely understand, but to do so would require the plugin to interpret the material precedence differently than Cinema does; that means the viewport would not usually match up with the image rendered in Maxwell, and this is to my way of thinking, a very important requirement (believe me, it would much easier to code otherwise). So where does that leave us when you have a legitimate concern about convenience? Well, personally I think it would be more appropriate if Maxon were to make the layer system work with texture tags the way one would assume it should. As it is, while changing the visibility of texture tags via the layer manager removes them from view in the object manager, it does not remove them from consideration during rendering. I suppose this is an oversight, but that's how I think this would most appropriately be handled.
By Becco_UK
#293791
JDHill: I do not have your technical skills with this sort of thing but in almost every Cinema scene I do then BodyPaint features in its construction (using psd textures) - in time I suppose I will get used to it and overall the new plugin is the best yet and generally a pleasure to use.
Will there be a Maxwell Render 6 ?

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