[m-Que]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering, is it possible to make a 'perfect color' material other than 'perfect-black' in Maxwell. By 'perfect color' I mean such a material that would represent only one specified color on applied geometry.
So far only black seems to be working.
I just hope you understand what I mean.

Thanks.

[zdeno]

I am tring since beta but idea of WYSIWYG is far far away from maxwell.

but You can have perfect white too but have to set ISO about 99999 then all scene will be perfect white.

[tom]

I was wondering, is it possible to make a 'perfect color' material other than 'perfect-black' in Maxwell.

Could you make such a material in real life?

[m-Que]

You got me there, Tom. That's a KO.

But, as far as I remember 'perfect-black' material only exists in theory, yet it can be simulated in Maxwell pretty good.

[tom]

But, as far as I remember 'perfect-black' material only exists in theory, yet it can be simulated in Maxwell pretty good.

Now, that's a plus but otherwise is not a loss.

However, you still have a chance
http://think.maxwellrender.com/lighttra ... p=2&lang=0



It's possible to enclose an emitter inside a TLT body so that it won't illuminate but look in the perfect color you like.

[Bubbaloo]

If you are talking about materials with perfect color representation on screen with no gradients (shading), just define your materials' mat id color, then render the channel. (But that's probably not what you are talking about)

[zdeno]

Could you make such a material in real life?

Could you hide something from camera in real life?
Could you hide something from reflection in real life?
Could you make TLT material in real life?

maxwell engine is very "selective" in matter - what is and what is not psychical correct

maxwell don,t allow to create "unrealistic" solutions, so it is not only as easy as taking a photo but it is so limited as taking a photo. It limits maxwell to archviz and productviz. You can,t reneder stupid pure red circle with almost 1000$ worth engine. but mayby in v2 it is possible now. but to be honest- I use it for archviz so I still love this poor child.

[itsallgoode9]

I was wondering, is it possible to make a 'perfect color' material other than 'perfect-black' in Maxwell.

Could you make such a material in real life?

I could be wrong, but I believe a perfectly Lambertian material isn't possible in real life either, but Maxwell lets us do that.

I know this is a bit off the topic, but sometimes I feel like Jeff Goldblum's has a line in Jurassic Park that makes me feel how I sometimes feel about Maxwell. (i don't have the movie right in front of me, so it might not be 100% correct) but in the beginning of the movie everybody is having dinner at Jurassic park and everybody is talking about whether or not making dinosaurs is a good thing. Jeff Goldblum says something like (referring to the fact that they can make real dinosaurs):

"You know that you can, but did you ever stop and think if you should"

Yes Maxwell is a physically correct renderer, but does that mean it always HAS to be? Especially when it sort of picks and chooses, as a previous poster mentioned. Alpha map renderings are a good example of this. Two values, plus the couple of values for aliasing at the edges is all that is needed...free open source software can do this via ray-casting. Working in video games for the past 5 years, I know games do ray-casting real-time, behind the scenes, at 30-60 fps and they use that data in real-time to create fx, alpha sorted even. Situations like that, or a "perfect color", as the OP talked about frustrates me.

Maybe too far off topic. I don't want to derail, I'll start a discussion in a new thread if it happens to get off topic here.

[tom]

Do you guys care about the above solution or you're just eager to complain forever?

[zdeno]

I found solution I bought vray for all this non-reallife situation, perfect colors, custom reflectance curve, as customer needs.
so now I am just bitching , maxwell is so non-flexible, and "guessing game".

but this all complaining works . few years ago it wasn,t possible to render with ortographic camera. Now it is suddenly available in psychical correct maxwell. So let's tell what is hurting us.

but to be honest - I love maxwell and just want to make it better.

[tom]

Of course, your wishes are welcome but, please post them under the Wish List section. You should not hijack questions of other users this way. Besides, your repetitive equation "Maxwell must have X feature otherwise I use Y engine." Ads are something well-known here and there on forums and you can't help yourself like this. Everybody on the planet knows Maxwell also can't achieve 100 or more other things and it is not that surprising. In the end, we're not selling the meaning of life.

[itsallgoode9]

Do you guys care about the above solution or you're just eager to complain forever?

Could you make such a material in real life?

This response did nothing to help solve the problem either, Tom. Although not all posted comments aided in fixing the problem, the majority of them were at least talking about the subject the OP made this thread about. Your comment did nothing to help find a solution, nor did it really relate, in any meaningful way, to what the OP had a question about. Your little snarky comment is the one that actually set this thread off track. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I'm not trying to start anything, but dude, don't chastise people about something that you, yourself, have done.


Depending on the complexity of the scene, you could do this in post by rendering an alpha map of the objects you need your "perfect color" for and using those masks to create the colors in Photoshop.

[zdeno]

pax pax !

itsallgoode9 - don't be so angry Tom is good Jedi Master and helped more more maxwell users .

I understand His frustration when he reads all my moanings again and again and again

but Tom - did not you think it is rather funny when one can,t render a few oversaturated color meshes for silly animation? with profesional render engine?

It is like you buy a book and can read it , but you can't kill a fly with it

I understood for different jobs are different tools but this all unbiased thing is sometimes so funny
When you have nothing in the scene besides sun&sky and maxwell RENDERS it It samples , its own sky hahaha traces bounces of the sky LOL X10

It is faster to set enviroment - psyhical sky, and save it to HDR than render it
why? engine doesn,t know there is nothing else in the scene ?

but finally - it will change , cruel biznes will force that. We have IES now in v2 (back then it had to be modeled) so it is just a little step to optimization and more flexability, and it will be just better with every new release. So mayby one day we will see cartoon shader in maxwell paint&ink (so not psyhical correct )

[m-Que]

It's possible to enclose an emitter inside a TLT body so that it won't illuminate but look in the perfect color you like.

Sounds interesting. But it might be hard to get exactly the right color. Plus complex scene/geometry might be a problem, too. And I'm still working with v1.7, so no colorful emitters for me at the moment.

Depending on the complexity of the scene, you could do this in post by rendering an alpha map of the objects you need your "perfect color" for and using those masks to create the colors in Photoshop.

This sounds like the best (and easiest) solution so far.
Actually, this is exactly how I started doing it yesterday, and it came out nicely.
The reason why I was asking is that 'perfect black' works just fine, so I thought I was missing something in material settings with the rest of the colors. And yes, 'perfect-black' is definitely NOT a loss, so no need to fixing it in the future versions

Thanks for help everyone!

[tom]

Sounds interesting. But it might be hard to get exactly the right color. Plus complex scene/geometry might be a problem, too. And I'm still working with v1.7, so no colorful emitters for me at the moment.

I just thought it's better than coming up without a workaround.

And yes, 'perfect-black' is definitely NOT a loss, so no need to fixing it in the future versions

Because the pure black is not a color while any other color means an existing reflectance so, physically it's not possible to set a solid object color independent of view and illumination angle. We could keep the material's physical existence pure black and paint the desired solid color as it's a special pass. Still, I can only accept this as a wish. Apart from the wish, you already have several workarounds above.

but Tom - did not you think it is rather funny when one can,t render a few oversaturated color meshes for silly animation? with profesional render engine?
It is like you buy a book and can read it , but you can't kill a fly with it

Yes, it IS funny and not. When you shoot it under wish list it's welcome. When you shoot it as a question and pissed off with the available workaround, watching others pollute the pages with engine wars is not a good idea. Let's analytically examine how such a question arise and mutate into a discussion:

1) Can I do X with Maxwell?
2) When will I be able to do X with Maxwell?
3) Why don't Maxwell have X?
4) It's a shame Maxwell doesn't have X, why didn't/don't/won't you do it?

"1" asks for technical support,
"2" asks for a new feature (a wish),
"3" is a curiosity/judgement,
"4" is a conclusion/pressure.

1 and 2 have their own sections and corresponding answers.
3 and 4 are open to discussion. It's like questioning why the weather is sunny today...

It is like you buy a book and can read it , but you can't kill a fly with it

This doesn't sound objective and like a good statistic at all. Killing a fly with book could be demanded by everyone while not all of Maxwell users are dying for such a feature which is sadly not available by now. We should take care of how many people is asking for X feature, not how badly just 1-2 are dying for it. Otherwise, a professional software cannot be successful. This does not mean we roughly neglect any words. It's just a matter of time, roadmap, technical possibility, feasibility and so on. Maybe from outside, it looks funny like "Maxwell doesn't have X so damnit!".