[ASyme]

Hi all-

I have a few questions with workflow with Maxwell. I'm a newbe here so try and be nice. MXS, MXI? What exactly are these files? Working on a scene (through C4D) I have multiple cameras. Should I save different scene file for each camera so I don't over wright my MXS? (Not sure what that is...)

I guess I'm asking what is the preferred workflow here. I'm very used to Cinema with a scene file and related textures stored either in a network location or in a TEX folder with the scene file. It seems there's way more to it than that here. I've still got textures located in a network or C drive location plus the local textures just associated with that particular scene but I'm unclear how these MXS and MXI file work and what they do.

Please help me sort this out. It's super vague right now and I love this renderer so much I expect to use it a LOT.

Thanks guys-
Alec

[JDHill]

Here is where those names come from (also see here):

• MXM: Maxwell Material
  MXS: Maxwell Scene
  MXI: Maxwell Image

An MXS contains geometry (and other things) in Maxwell's format, and it is produced by your plugin; in other words, a Maxwell plugin is a file translator, like an OBJ plugin or similar. An MXI file is basically a proprietary HDR file, and it contains the cumulative result of the work done by the render engine, as it renders an MXS file. Any RGB outputs you get (png, jpg, etc) are all derived from the MXI file.

Say that you wrote an MXS file with your plugin; you could then copy that to ten machines and render ten MXI files from it, one on each machine. Provided that a random seed was used on each machine, those ten MXI files could then be combined into a single MXI file -- the random seeds ensure that each machine has done work on a different set of light rays; in other words, no machine has duplicated the work of any of the others. This is what is known as cooperative rendering in Maxwell.

So, those are the Maxwell file types: MXM, MXS, and MXI. Any other files are just files which are referenced by an MXM or MXS file; mainly, textures. As far as workflow is concerned, all that matters is that referenced textures are able to be found by Maxwell Render (maxwell.exe) at render time, or by the network system, if you render on the network. Many of the plugins (Cinema, for example) provide a "Pack and go" feature, where during the writing of the MXS, they gather any files which are referenced in the scene and copy them into a folder next to the exported MXS. In Cinema, the files are copied into a /textures folder, next to the MXS, similar to how Cinema puts things in a /tex folder.

As to your question about cameras, most plugins will write multiple cameras into the MXS file, if there are multiple cameras or views in the host document; when you open such an MXS in Maxwell Render (maxwell.exe) you will find that there is a dropdown from which you can select any one of the cameras it contains. Similarly, were you to open the MXS in Maxwell Studio, you would find those cameras in the camera list. Here is some info on using cameras in Studio.

[Nova66]

MXS, MXI? What exactly are these files?

You probably should check out the on line help which you can find here: http://support.nextlimit.com/category/maxwell but to get you going, here's a quick summary:

MXS: This is the Maxwell Scene file that contains all of your exported geometry; material definitions & mappings; camera, lighting & render set-ups.
MXM: This is an externally saved Maxwell Material definition file.
MXI: This is the high dynamic range Maxwell Image file that is created when you do a rendering. From this file you save your PNG, TIF, or JPG rendered images. Maxwell allows you to stop a rendering at any point you like and as long as you still have the MXI file, you can resume the rendering from wherever you left off.

Maxwell Studio: [Red Icon] This is the Maxwell scene viewer. From here you can modify all render parameters and start a render job.
Maxwell Render: [Grey Icon] This is the render engine. It can be launched independently, with Maxwell Studio, or via the Maxwell Exporter.
Material Editor: [Purple Icon] This is a standalone material editor used to edit externally saved material definition files.
Maxwell Render Node: [Green Icon] Launch this on any computer that needs to participate in Network Render jobs.
Maxwell Manager: [Brown Icon] Launch this on the computer that administers Network Render jobs.
Maxwell Monitor: [Blue Icon] Use this to set-up & initiate Network Render jobs.

HTH,
Andrew.