Newbie questions
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:04 am
I have quite a few newbie questions, but don't want to hijack the forum boards and wear out my welcome. So, I'll start with a few basic ones. Please note that my background is commercial photography, so my knowledge of 3D modeling and rendering is pretty limited (tho' I'm learning a lot, especially via Jason Maranto's and James Coleman's videos). FYI, I'm planning to use Maxwell Studio, on Mac computers, as I don't have any modeling programs other than the Rhino 5 Mac OSX beta version, which I believe does not work with the Maxwell plugin. I currently have a few quad core i7 iMacs, ranging from 12-32 GB of RAM. I'll use Studio on one of them, then add 3-4 computers as render nodes when it's time to render. I'm guessing most of our renders will be in the 4K x 5K or 5K x 6K range, in order to be a similar size to the files from our medium format digital backs, especially if we're combining photography and rendering. So, now some questions, in no particular order:
- When receiving a file from a client, what things do we need to check right away, to make sure we've gotten a usable file?
- What file formats work best for importing into Studio, and why? Is STL a workable file format for Maxwell? If so, what are the best settings when exporting from SolidWorks? We have received a few STL files from clients, but have had many problems with the curved surfaces not being smooth.
- Speaking of smoothing, how do we know the correct amount of smoothing? Also, how do we undo smoothing? A regular "undo" doesn't seem to work for us, so we have to import the model all over again, then try a different smoothing angle setting.
- For Studio and rendering, what is a good amount of RAM? Is there a way to set how much is being allotted to Studio, how it's being used, and what types of models/materials/textures/render settings increase the RAM requirements? Also, is there any additional info to know about RAM when doing network rendering?
- Imported files never seem to be the correct size, and are usually way too large. Are we doing something wrong, or is that common? Specifically with Rhino to Studio, are there settings in Rhino we need to use so that the size is correct in Studio? We have tried different settings under Rhino's File>Settings>Units, to no avail. If we make a 1 meter primitive cube in Rhino, it doesn't come in that same size in Studio. And then, even after we scale it to the correct size in Studio, it doesn't seem to agree with Studio's grid (it'll be 1 meter according to the Info box, but almost 2 meters according to the grid).
- is there a way to Snap to Ground/Grid in Studio? Seems like that would be very useful.
- When rendering a Region, we can't make a selection right away, it seems to be necessary for it to render to the first SL before we can make a region selection. Any tricks to know, so we don't have to wait?
- We find that Studio crashes a lot, particularly when we make changes (moving camera, object, etc.) in the Viewport while FIRE is rendering. Anyone else having similar problems? Any solutions/suggestions? We are running the most recent version, 2.7.20.
OK, that's probably more than enough for now. Any help/advice/suggestions greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Dan Clark
www.weinberg-clark.com
- When receiving a file from a client, what things do we need to check right away, to make sure we've gotten a usable file?
- What file formats work best for importing into Studio, and why? Is STL a workable file format for Maxwell? If so, what are the best settings when exporting from SolidWorks? We have received a few STL files from clients, but have had many problems with the curved surfaces not being smooth.
- Speaking of smoothing, how do we know the correct amount of smoothing? Also, how do we undo smoothing? A regular "undo" doesn't seem to work for us, so we have to import the model all over again, then try a different smoothing angle setting.
- For Studio and rendering, what is a good amount of RAM? Is there a way to set how much is being allotted to Studio, how it's being used, and what types of models/materials/textures/render settings increase the RAM requirements? Also, is there any additional info to know about RAM when doing network rendering?
- Imported files never seem to be the correct size, and are usually way too large. Are we doing something wrong, or is that common? Specifically with Rhino to Studio, are there settings in Rhino we need to use so that the size is correct in Studio? We have tried different settings under Rhino's File>Settings>Units, to no avail. If we make a 1 meter primitive cube in Rhino, it doesn't come in that same size in Studio. And then, even after we scale it to the correct size in Studio, it doesn't seem to agree with Studio's grid (it'll be 1 meter according to the Info box, but almost 2 meters according to the grid).
- is there a way to Snap to Ground/Grid in Studio? Seems like that would be very useful.
- When rendering a Region, we can't make a selection right away, it seems to be necessary for it to render to the first SL before we can make a region selection. Any tricks to know, so we don't have to wait?
- We find that Studio crashes a lot, particularly when we make changes (moving camera, object, etc.) in the Viewport while FIRE is rendering. Anyone else having similar problems? Any solutions/suggestions? We are running the most recent version, 2.7.20.
OK, that's probably more than enough for now. Any help/advice/suggestions greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Dan Clark
www.weinberg-clark.com