[Tyrone Marshall]

The following poll is to get an idea of response from the how the users feel about the current implementation of maxwell render into the Cinema 4D environment.

You can use the post space to state how you feel if you wish about the question and poll. This poll is only to gage how the users feel by the users of Maxwell Render for Cinema 4D.

Please reference the following threads to help in selecting poll options:

Development 1:
The System of materials and/or tags discussion which lead to important material enhancements to standard cinema 4d material for use with Maxwell Render for Cinema 4D plugin.

ref: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5104


Development 2:
Maxwell Copy Shop user enhancement to standard cinema 4d material was born from the integration of two concepts for how a better inteface approach could work that aids new users in understanding the Maxwell Render material concepts and allows experienced users the access necessary for fast adjustments to material channel textures and strengths.

ref: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5226


Development 3:
Camera Maxwell user enhancement to standard cinema 4d camera and maxwell render camera tag that allows for smarter adjustment of DOF using cinema 4d's front and rear blur planes, synchronizing of film height and width between Maxwell Render camera tag and Cinema 4D standard camera aperature settings, synchronizing of Maxwell Render camera tag fstop with Cinema 4D standard camera front and rear blur planes for setting DOF, and synchronizing of Maxwell Render camera tag fstop with shutter speed for automatic exposure control based on DOF.

ref: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2451

[Kabe]

1. To integrate the emitter tag in materials is a Certified Bad Idea™
Materials and Emitters don't share *any* common attributes, and they are fundamentally different things.

2. I take an educated guess that you can not simple add new fields to the Cinema camera. This is part of the concept of Cinema that you can tell what's part of the application and what's an add on.
Additionally the user needs to see if the camera already has Maxwell settings or not, so a camera tag is a necessity anyway.
The camera tag could take more data from the Cinema camera, though this has it's limitations exspecially for DOF.

3. I would even suggest another entity: A Maxwell environment object, that integrates all the settings for location, sun, atmosphere, fog etc.

Kabe

[Tyrone Marshall]

1. To integrate the emitter tag in materials is a Certified Bad Idea™
Materials and Emitters don't share *any* common attributes, and they are fundamentally different things.

2. I take an educated guess that you can not simple add new fields to the Cinema camera. This is part of the concept of Cinema that you can tell what's part of the application and what's an add on.
Additionally the user needs to see if the camera already has Maxwell settings or not, so a camera tag is a necessity anyway.
The camera tag could take more data from the Cinema camera, though this has it's limitations exspecially for DOF.

3. I would even suggest another entity: A Maxwell environment object, that integrates all the settings for location, sun, atmosphere, fog etc.

Kabe

I agree with your comments and support the idea of a third environment object for sun settings as you spoke of!

[big K]

3. I would even suggest another entity: A Maxwell environment object, that integrates all the settings for location, sun, atmosphere, fog etc.

i am with you on that one

1. To integrate the emitter tag in materials is a Certified Bad Idea™
Materials and Emitters don't share *any* common attributes, and they are fundamentally different things.

yes they do (well not attributes - but the way i want to handle them): like adam said if you use "emitters" in a c4d scene as well (with radiostiy and a glowing c4d material) - it might be as comfortable exchanging emitter materials as doing this with the other materials.

michael

[big K]

by the way i like the camera tag just as it is.
it is even comfortable being a target camera because in this way you are sure where the focus of the camera is.

[Maximus3D]

I prefer the current system and it works great, it's awesome for imported readytextured models with lotsa maps on them. If this system was to be remade it would be like it is in 3dsmax where you have to re-texture all your objects over again and it's a hell. Which is why as a example Poser models imported into C4D with all textures are a blessing to render there with Maxwell. So please please please do not change the current very well working system.

/ Max

[Kabe]

I prefer the current system and it works great, it's awesome for imported readytextured models with lotsa maps on them. If this system was to be remade it would be like it is in 3dsmax where you have to re-texture all your objects over again and it's a hell. Which is why as a example Poser models imported into C4D with all textures are a blessing to render there with Maxwell. So please please please do not change the current very well working system.
/ Max

If the system works like I would intend to do it, then you shouldn't have to fear a thing. Then you simply have a Maxwell material with all the "steal maps from Material" boxes checked and you are set.

Actually, you don't even need Maxwell materials if you don't need any adjustments! M~R could just take the basic maps and use them (color + bump + other channels if the user set the option to import them?)

The current system works *only* with pretextured models. It's useless for professional work that requires building up libraries, it's quite hard to design materials.

Kabe

[Kabe]

I see no reason why the emitter tag shouldn't be incorporated into the general Maxwell material. It's quite analogous to using a luminous material with Cinema's own GI render engine.

It's quite similar with the current approach, i agree on that. However, I'm not shure if this stays that way. When the lighting computation became a bit more complex,- and I think they will over time - then this could differ.

I'm not shure if mixing in the emitter with the materials is a good idea for two reasons:
I would like to know what objects in my scene are emitting light, so I would like to have a clear visual clue in the tag that this tag is a emitter.
I hope to get an option sometime to have both an emitter tag and a material on the very same mesh.

Kabe

P.S.: I agree that the option to steal materials from standard Materials is important!

[Rochr]

Absolutely "Ditch all the tags"!

Personally i find the current system to be an idiotic one.

[Tyrone Marshall]

Absolutely "Ditch all the tags"!

Personally i find the current system to be an idiotic one.

I personally agree, with the comments from the 3dsmax version there seems to be a new maxwell material for the max users and that is a special mxm material that comes from the RC1 Studio material editor.

So it seems from the render core end, there is only one material now, and if our plugin is anything like the max version when it is updated, there should be one new material that correllates to the Studio material editor material.

I hope the camera gets integrated into a special Cinema 4D camera that is maxwell specific. It collaspes things down into more simplistic terms.

I am looking forward to a new plugin.

[Kabe]

Folks, I said it once, and I say it again: You can't simply ditch all the tags. The tag system is the Cinema way of storing additional information in a way that's compatible with *future* generations of the software, and the only alternative are invisible tags (which just hides that information from the user and mostly hinders access).

Given the RC materials, there needs to be a Maxwell material tag that is referencinng to the *.mxm and (hopefully) provide access to the preview, and eventually even allow to set some maps.

Kabe