All posts related to V2
User avatar
By gianca
#331427
I'm working on a print campaign that features a 3D face: I'm trying to optimize the textures which are huge, but I'm running against some limitations here.
I'm using Maya to generate Maxwell scenes, and for pipeline reasons I wont be able to do much in Maxwell studio, since I the main scenes have to stay Maya native which means any work done in Maxwell Studio would have to be redone every time we render a new frame.

The main problem is that the 3D face needs very high resolution textures for few areas of it's surface, and low resolution textures for the rest.
For instance, a general texture has been used to modulate the shininess of the face, while a very detailed texture needs to be used for the lips.
By using a map that covers the entire 0-1 of the UV space the end results requires a 4k map for the shininess map and a 16k map for the displacement of the lips. Clients demanded a certain look for the lips, so normal maps are only used generally for the face and we are forced to use displacement for the lips.
You may see where I'm getting to: the entire face is displaced by a 16k map but only to displace a tiny portion of the face. This is very inefficient.

There are several options that I used in the past to solve this problem, like using UV sets, or using texture coordinates to reduce the map to a certain area, or tiling, or layering textures.
None of these options works in Maxwell 2.1, and after a day spent try to find a workaround, I'm now back to use the 16k map for the displacement. This is very disappointing.

Here is a list of functions missing or not working properly:

Maya UV set and Layered textures are not currently compatible with Maxwell.

By using the "Repeat UV" and "Offset" value I was able to get a map to sit within a specified area,
but this would work on normal texture channels (like Reflectance 0) but does not seem to work with displacement when used in conjunction with the "Wrap U" and "Wrap V", which I use to turn off the map in the area where I don't want modulate the surface.
Also when you set the "Wrap U" and "Wrap V" value to off Maxwell correctly renders the map repeated only once, but it does not allow in any way to set a color for the areas not repeated, so the function is kinda there but useless for my purposes. Maya has a Default Color value under the menu Color Balance which sets what color should be rendered outside the wrap texture. Useful also for layering textures without using the Layered Texture node, since Maya allows you to map that color with a texture and an alpha.

One thing I'd like to have in Maxwell is a mask channel for the Displacement mapping, and also a layer function for file textures.

Gianca
User avatar
By gianca
#331432
Adding a correction...
I found out I was using incorrect settings for the offset in conjunction with the wrap settings: it is possible to render a displacement of a texture confined to a smaller area.
However... because of Maxwell default settings sets the area out of the texture to zero (when Wrap settings are off), it means it can be only used when displacement maps are used with the offset set to zero as well, which means also I can't use what I got since I need negative displacement...
So... Close but no cigar...
:(

Here is a render of a plane using an image of a white dot over black with default settings:
Image

Here are the texture settings I'm using to turn off texture wrapping and setting the image to the center:
Image

Which this results in this render (nice!):
Image

However using a white dot over gray (with the Displacement Offset set to .5) results in this render:
Image

A you can see outside the boundary of the texture Maxwell sets the Displacement value to zero: it should set the value to the same value as the Displacement Offset value instead, or even better set the value equal to the Default Color set in Maya.
User avatar
By tom
#331434
gianca wrote:A you can see outside the boundary of the texture Maxwell sets the Displacement value to zero: it should set the value to the same value as the Displacement Offset value instead, or even better set the value equal to the Default Color set in Maya.
Non-wrapped area is equal to offset level already. It still pushes up the grey color (in fact, it pushes down the black off the UV) in the texture because, offset is relative to geometry, not to the given color. But, I understand you're trying to set the color of non-wrapped area instead. Not all applications have the same thing with Maya, so we should add an additional parameter, here. Instead you could shift the texture colors down and easily sort it out. ;)
User avatar
By gianca
#331435
tom wrote:
gianca wrote:A you can see outside the boundary of the texture Maxwell sets the Displacement value to zero: it should set the value to the same value as the Displacement Offset value instead, or even better set the value equal to the Default Color set in Maya.
Non-wrapped area is equal to offset level already. It still pushes up the grey color (in fact, it pushes down the black off the UV) in the texture because, offset is relative to geometry, not to the given color. But, I understand you're trying to set the color of non-wrapped area instead. Not all applications have the same thing with Maya, so we should add an additional parameter, here. Instead you could shift the texture colors down and easily sort it out. ;)
Our clients requests unfortunately dictate negative displacement to make a correction on the lips after the modeling, uv'ing, rigging and texturing has been done already... So I'm stuck with the 16k map with zero displacement as gray.
Luckily it does renders somehow, but with 16 hours render times it makes our life very, very difficult.

Gianca
User avatar
By tom
#331444
gianca wrote:but with 16 hours render times it makes our life very, very difficult.
Keep the base mesh subdivision as high as possible while the displacement precision low.
User avatar
By gianca
#331450
tom wrote:
gianca wrote:but with 16 hours render times it makes our life very, very difficult.
Keep the base mesh subdivision as high as possible while the displacement precision low.
These tips are very, very welcome!
Keep 'em coming!
:)

I think that will help...
What is actually killing us is the SSS: clients complained about the face looking "too rubbery" so I turned SSS on, which helps a lot but introduced noise that took way longer to clear up than everything else... I'm thinking to turn it off and set a scene with ONLY SSS to see if I can split the problem and SSS in comp...


Gianca
User avatar
By gianca
#331452
tom wrote:Try IBL-only illumination in order to avoid SSS noise.
Another gem!

... which brings me to my other comment in the "hdri creation from maxwell render" thread...
There isn't an easy way to create an IBL node out of a scene, isn't it?
In Vray there is an option in the Render Globals that allows you to use a spherical camera mapping (or Lat Long) instead of the camera original lens and FOV: what would be the equivalent workflow in Maxwell 2.1?

I'd LOVE to transform some of my lighting to IBL, although not all my lighting can be swapped easily: I'm currently using cards with mapped EXR of practical lights, and their positioning is critical to get the lighting exactly right. I'm getting comments from clients like: "can we move the highlight her left eye a couple of degrees left camera?".
Ah, that remind me of another limitation that is currently preventing me to do another optimization... The images I'm working are full shots of a girl: to generate close ups of the face I'm using Maxwell Studio to set a region crop on the face which is great, but I'd like to be able to set a render without using the region crop because the region is very small and Maxwell produce mxi files that are currently 1.4Gb big for an image that is just few hundreds pixels wide...
I tried to set up a render using instead a narrower FOV together with Camera Offset, which is possible to do in Maya, but Maxwell will not allow me to use Camera Offsets with values larger than 1, so I'm unable to reproduce the same region crop (I would need values over 4 or more)... Any advice?

I apologize about this thread going OT... Once the campaign goes online I will compile a list of the solutions and techniques used in this project as well as links to the final images...
I've been trying to promote Maxwell to be used in VFX for years, and this is the third project I've been able to use it...

Gianca

P.S.
The second project I've succesfully used Maxwell is that silly "bending" movie... and one of the actual shots ended up on Cinefex! Is the one with big wave behind the castle wall: everything except the water and the live action plate (a small little rectangle in the center) is actually a Maxwell render with some paint over it...
User avatar
By tom
#331453
gianca wrote:There isn't an easy way to create an IBL node out of a scene, isn't it?
No, not yet.
gianca wrote:Ah, that remind me of another limitation that is currently preventing me to do another optimization... The images I'm working are full shots of a girl: to generate close ups of the face I'm using Maxwell Studio to set a region crop on the face which is great, but I'd like to be able to set a render without using the region crop because the region is very small and Maxwell produce mxi files that are currently 1.4Gb big for an image that is just few hundreds pixels wide...
I tried to set up a render using instead a narrower FOV together with Camera Offset, which is possible to do in Maya, but Maxwell will not allow me to use Camera Offsets with values larger than 1, so I'm unable to reproduce the same region crop (I would need values over 4 or more)... Any advice?
You can use "Blow Up" render with a smaller resolution.
gianca wrote:I apologize about this thread going OT... Once the campaign goes online I will compile a list of the solutions and techniques used in this project as well as links to the final images...
I've been trying to promote Maxwell to be used in VFX for years, and this is the third project I've been able to use it...

Gianca

P.S.
The second project I've succesfully used Maxwell is that silly "bending" movie... and one of the actual shots ended up on Cinefex! Is the one with big wave behind the castle wall: everything except the water and the live action plate (a small little rectangle in the center) is actually a Maxwell render with some paint over it...
Sounds great! Can't wait to see them once ready.
User avatar
By gianca
#331480
tom wrote: You can use "Blow Up" render with a smaller resolution.
Tom, did you just RTFM'd me???
Oh well, I deserve it, I did overlook that one.
:)

However... it has a bug. So again: close but no cigar...
If I launch a render from Studio with the "Blow Up" settings, it does exactly what I need, which is to render only a region of the whole image. But when I send the same render to the network nodes it does render a slight different area then the one I set with Studio. Looks like the settings are not passed on correctly. If I try to render locally (instead of using Manager) the same mxs scene it does not work either and it produce the same image with the incorrect area rendered.
I was able to replicate the issue with a small mxs scene, which I will be very happy to send to you.

What chances I have to see this fixed soon? Not being able to render efficiently a portion of my renders is going to impact my project...

Gianca
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