[simmsimaging]

Just putzing with the demo before looking at ordering and have a couple of questions that I couldn't find on the forum or in the manual:
(using Max 2011 x64)

1) in the Max plugin help there is mention of a manual focus distance that needs to be turned off/on, and can be turned off to make all objects in focus. Does this provide a "fake" camera with no DOF? Is so, where is this option now, as it no longer seems to be in the plugin rollout

2) There is an option in the general tab of the render rollout: what is the option "Include lights in scene" for?

3) When using network rendering, sent from the render rollout button, is there an option to have MW automatically include the sending workstation, or do you need to always manually run the render node widgit in the background for that to occur?

Thanks /b

[simmsimaging]

4) Using the blow up option, either through the Max plugin, or in Studio itself: the render always seems to stop short of the targeted time and sample level. It's at the default of 30min/12SL but it always stops after a minute or two and at 8-9SL. Is this a bug or is there a setting hiding somewhere?



Thanks /b

[simmsimaging]

Having a lot of problems with network rendering as well. None of the several renders I have tried at high res have managed to actually finish merging the mxis so I get no result, unless I can go looking for the individual mxi's and do it manually, but not sure where they went. Not in the temp folder, not in the Maxwell folder.

The network system seems to be a bit iffy, and given the length of times involved the risk is problematic. Any input/help from NL on this, or any of the questions I've posted?


/b

[Bubbaloo]

Are there restrictions on network rendering and resolution during the demo period?

[RobMitchell]

I'm not too sure about the other questions you've posted, but a patch for V2 has been released which helped remedy the MXI merging bug (2.1.0.3). It's been working for me so far, anyway (touch wood).

[simmsimaging]

Brian: not sure, no warnings or other things cropped up.

Rob: thanks, installed already. Not sure it was necessary as I only installed the latest version of Maxwell anyway, but I didn't see any differences. I think the problem has to do with network path issues that are popping up with Studio as well, but don't know.

[simmsimaging]

I had basically given up on getting any answers on these questions, but since Mihai replied to another question on a different thread I thought I'd bump this one more time.

NL?

b

[Mihnea Balta]

1) in the Max plugin help there is mention of a manual focus distance that needs to be turned off/on, and can be turned off to make all objects in focus. Does this provide a "fake" camera with no DOF? Is so, where is this option now, as it no longer seems to be in the plugin rollout

No. That option was redundant with the "target distance" setting in the "Parameters" rollout, so it was removed. It allowed you to type in the focus distance manually instead of having the plug-in compute it from the target handle of the camera, but you can do the same using the "target distance" control.

2) There is an option in the general tab of the render rollout: what is the option "Include lights in scene" for?

If you mean "Save Lights In Files", that creates a separate output image for each light, so they can be composited separately after the render.

3) When using network rendering, sent from the render rollout button, is there an option to have MW automatically include the sending workstation, or do you need to always manually run the render node widgit in the background for that to occur?

In order to use a machine as a render node, it has to run the node application. We can't do that automatically because it depends on how people set up their render networks, how many licenses they have etc.

4) Using the blow up option, either through the Max plugin, or in Studio itself: the render always seems to stop short of the targeted time and sample level. It's at the default of 30min/12SL but it always stops after a minute or two and at 8-9SL. Is this a bug or is there a setting hiding somewhere?

I cannot reproduce this, but I'm running a more recent (beta) version of Maxwell, so it's probably a bug that was fixed for the next update.

Please post Max-related questions in the Max forum, Bogdan and I don't read all the threads in the main forum.