The big Maxwell Studio release 1.x wishlist...!

Any features you'd like to see implemented into Maxwell?
 Reply
User avatar

By Hervé
-  Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:55 am #108936
I second that Xlars !! good idea !

By Robert Turner
-  Mon Jan 16, 2006 10:05 am #108971
I honestly would like to see better app intagration, I allready use a few and am trying to learn Houdini, so trying to keep track of Modo, Maya, LightWave, Shake, RenderMan, final cut and the rest, and then having to learn more UI, its a bit boggeling. I think it would be nice if maya users could just switch between MentalRay or Default to M~R or have it setup like RenderMan pro server and Artist Tools. Better texture representation in the maya UI would be nice too, granted that proablly will never happen because MentalRay still has issues.
Studio is a cool idea, and i can see its use, but it isnt always necessary, if its app intagration was better studio would be moot, but Studio, if improved, can be really cool. It would be like how MotionBuilder is for animation, but for rendering.
So i guess my wish list is
a working linux version
tighter intagration with host apps
a 64bit build of the renderer
i like Xlars's idead for navigation and shortcuts, being able to say ok Maxwell studio, you will have Maya's keyboard shortcuts, would be very nice, that helped me learn Modo alot faster.
better online documentation
possiable GPU support(i know this is a big if but hey, its a wish list)
and a personal one for me, my license to work again.
User avatar

Procedural Materials

By Ernesto
-  Wed Feb 08, 2006 3:27 pm #118081
Not only noise, but procedural Tilings with joints, that could be converted to bricks tiles etc, Procedural wood, Procedural marbles, Procedural waves.
The ideal would be as AccuRender 3, software by Mc Neel.

Ernesto

my wishlist

By tikal26
-  Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:54 pm #118128
A working linux version
A working 64 bit linux version
A debian Linux version
Better rendertimes
User avatar

Re: my wishlist

By jdp
-  Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:35 pm #119113
tikal26 wrote:A working linux version
A working 64 bit linux version
A debian Linux version
Better rendertimes
couldn't agree more. please NL give us some feedback....

By JTB
-  Sat Apr 29, 2006 6:31 pm #146745
1. MXI resume
2. MXCL -hd option
(These two are coming so..)


Update... 1/May/2006

1. VERY IMPORTANT*** Arrangements with other companies for libraries of people,cars,plants or make it yourself. Think about it, no RPC, no LOWPOLY3d, no EVERMOTION ARCHMODELS, competition (and you know what I mean) has tons of 3d content and textures. It is difficult to me to buy all these and then having to convert everything to maxwell compatible. I guess all these companies would be very happy to see that there will be many new customers through NL's new product.

2. MAX files , DWG files direct import...

3. Separate the camera views from the current view. That means have a default camera which I can move and rotate and all other views should be instances of that view. For example in MAX, I have a perspective view, and I create camera views. What we have now, is a camera view that changes when we want to have a look at the model from a different angle. Then, when I want to go back I see that there is not the previous view, because all that time I was moving the camera I want to see.
(Sorry if it is confusing, I can't write it better).

UPDATE 3/5/06 : OK, I think what I want to say is to be able to save a view and when choosing a view the camera and the target should be automatically move to the appropriate coordinates. Much easier this way.

By lichtwerk
-  Wed May 17, 2006 9:47 am #154630
- cinema plugin with full support of all studio functions

- sensors for readout of photometric values

By casey
-  Thu Jun 01, 2006 2:19 am #158184
As a general note, I don't think Studio has much point, because once you edit things in there, you can never edit the original source without having to re-export and re-do all the Studio work. I don't see that being a viable long-term workflow. So I would vastly prefer that the majority of the efforts on Maxwell in the future be focused on expanding the core technology, with the assumption that everything that needs special editors just has a little stand-alone app like the MXM editor that writes out files that the various 3D app plugins attach to scene objects. This workflow works great, keeps the level of integration low, and is the least amount of wasted effort by Maxwell programmers, in my opinion.

That said, here are all my specific wishes to date:
  • Ability to save render environment settings (physical sky, etc.) to a data file like the .mxm system for materials, so that in MAX or other packages you just pick which one of those files you want for your enviroment and off you go. This would get rid of lots of special work the Maxwell folks have to do to put editting of this sort into each individual plugin.
  • MAXScript command for exporting an MXS file. This way you can write batch scripts that generate lots of MXSes and so forth.
  • Ability to specify layering as the method for compositing BSDFs in a material instead of blending (ideally, the ability to make multiple blended groups which are themselves layered together). See http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... p?p=158136.
  • Proper filtering for bump maps. See http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... p?p=158171.
  • Allow clips maps on non-lambertian materials.
  • Fix MXM material in MAX so it doesn't periodically lose material names and MXM filenames.
  • Fix MAX plugin to not leak memory and crash after large MXS exports.
  • Fix Maxwell Free Camera yielding all-blck images in MAX plugin.
  • Single-polygon-thick translucence, ie. the full BSDF but on a single polygon without having to enter and exit an object to get translucent effects. See http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=15530
  • Allow the MAX scene scale to be set from MAXScript, and also have a checkbox that locks it to be whatever the proper units per meter is as specified by MAX. See http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=12159.
  • Ability to launch network renders from the command line, instead of having to manually do it through the MXCL -d gui.
  • Fix broken cooperative render MXI merge step.
  • Have material reflectance color modulate the texture color if texture is specified, rather than it being either/or.
  • Procedural texturing / the ability to write custom shaders (although this is probably a 2.0 thing).
  • An SDK that works with 1.x.
  • Ability to have participating media that you could optionally have the camera inside. Ie., a ray is cast from the camera location to some extent of the world and object crossings are counted to determine the initial inside-ness of the camera relative to the various participating media objects.
  • Ability to separate texture filenames into a separate part of the MXM, so you could have multiple versions of the same material with different texture filenames and they would still share a common material specification so that when you changed it, they would all be properly updated (ie. because they all point to the same base material file).
  • Ability to turn off "always on top" by default in the material editor (so that it starts up with this un-checked).
  • Ability to export an MXS file from MAX that does not have the MXMs embedded in it, so you can re-render the MXS multiple times after changing the source MXMs and you will properly get the changes.
Thanks for listening,
- Casey

By Miles
-  Thu Jun 01, 2006 2:24 am #158186
casey wrote:As a general note, I don't think Studio has much point, because once you edit things in there, you can never edit the original source without having to re-export and re-do all the Studio work. I don't see that being a viable long-term workflow. So I would vastly prefer that the majority of the efforts on Maxwell in the future be focused on expanding the core technology, with the assumption that everything that needs special editors just has a little stand-alone app like the MXM editor that writes out files that the various 3D app plugins attach to scene objects. This workflow works great, keeps the level of integration low, and is the least amount of wasted effort by Maxwell programmers, in my opinion.

- Casey
Those of us without plug-ins beg to disagree with YOUR opinion :wink:
User avatar

By Rickyx
-  Fri Jul 07, 2006 9:41 am #168414
a little linux version... :roll:
also only command line...

Some notes I've been taking

By superactionfunboy
-  Sat Jul 29, 2006 10:06 pm #174417
I've been jotting down notes as I work, but i'm guessing 90 percent of these are a result of me simply not knowing the app' well enough. Even with the little time i've spent in Maxwell, i've been able to get some beautiful results. :) Money well spent, thanks! Anyways, here's my feedback/requests so far:

-Hotkey to render-preview. A Hotkey editor.

-Displacement. N-gon support.

-Modo plugin?

-Clip maps for subsurface Scattering.

-Some good Skin material examples. I’m seriously missing the boat on my attempts. :D

-Ability to Right-Click rename objects in the object list. All my objects seem to come in as ‘default’

--My arroway materials can't find the coinciding texture dir', even after pointing out the new location. Still seems to expect to find them on C:\ despite the fact I installed Maxwell onto D:\. after I get that error, preview renders no longer work.

-Backspace to work inside material browser.

-I generally work outside the default Maxwell project directory, and usually in a different folder every project. Any chance of a “remember last folder” option?

-Per pixel materials possible already? I frequently hit circumstances where I don’t want to create additional geometry to support minute material changes.

-Some additional camera controls for those of us who aren’t camera savvy. Setting up a desired DOF and field of View can be a lot of guess work for me.

-The reload geometry button doesn’t seem to work for me. Or I’m misunderstanding its use.

-I work on white a lot, and find it difficult to impossible to read some of the text inside the render window.

-Xrays? Probably too gimmicky to be worth anyones time, but I could certainly squeeze some use out of it.

-I like to do flip compares of different material edits, be great if I could save the preview render. Presently I just make copies of the mxst_default

-Full track ball rotation on the earth/sky widget. Heh, I lose a lot of time just trying to get the sunlight pointing the desired direction.

-When I move a light and coincidentally move the widget across another object it, it selects it. Boooo. :)

-When I split-create a new window, I’d prefer it to default to a blank view, not a 3d view. I can bring my studio to a crawl with larger scenes.

-I’m not certain, but does saving a scene save adjustments to lights to the .mxm? I’d prefer it instance the .mxm or duplicate it, I’m sort of worried I’m ruining my default light and material libraries.

Thanks, more as I poke around! Having a great time.

By superactionfunboy
-  Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:49 pm #175962
sun as a reflective element in physical sky? I have a character shot staring into the sun, and i really miss the hot specular dot from the source light. I've been floating dummy objects to mimic this, but it's introducing other issues.
 Reply
  • 1
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
 Return to “Wish List”
render engines and Maxwell

I'm talking about arch-viz and architecture as tho[…]

READ MORE
Materials show no thumbnail or preview (macOS)

When wanting to select a material with File > O[…]

READ MORE
Benchwell with command line broken in Maxwell 5

> .\maxwell.exe -benchwell -nowait -priority:[…]

READ MORE
VIEW MORE TOPICS