[fv]

http://web.me.com/fillieverhoeven/bouwen/rabobank.html

I never post anything in the gallery forum, I don't feel SU work fits in there well, SU work is usually a little less refined although there are exeptions.

Anyhow, I can post it here. In architecture the fees are small and the time is limited and while modeling and rendering one is to be expected to help out designing as well. So, I usually like more Sketchy results to get the job done, easier on the eye and apllauded more because sketches look like a personal achievement. Photorealistic work tend to look as bought.
I like the combination and the layout f combined work, all achieved with a single CAD model.

I did not like using Maxwell much although I like the results. Problems:
1. camera atributes change when exporting to Maxwell, exporting lines from SU as jpg's results in different perspectives than the perspective rendering in Maxwell. When showing render area the perspective is very different from not showing render area. You can not export lines to a jpg when render area is showing. Banding will happen if you do so you have to export to a jpg when render area is of.
2. texture mappings are lost most of the time. No idea why. A material could render a few times and then it lost again, restarting or renaming materials will work in the end. The MXM gallery has lots of "shady" materials, many no tileable although advertised as such. Naming the imagefiles is also difficult and to be careful with. All in all Maxwell does not have a friendly way to use image files in a material
3. Render region works sometimes but often not.
4. I can not see when an object is active or not in Studio, the activ object give no clue if they are or not. There is a slight yellowish activ sign but its mostly invisable.
5. The sun in Studio can not be seen with physical sky on, the blue sky or the hdri will make the light yellow sun dissappear. Only in the dark the sun position can be seen.....
6. When you like to import an object you can not change the postition. I can not get any handles showing up. This also hapens with projectors, no handles to be seen. This is basic userinterface stuff, I know but Studio is lacking. I find the representation of objects, handles and activ symbols almost invisable.
6. Imported models show half the geometry missing. When rendered the objects are all there.

I love Maxwell for the results, like to keep using it but there is lots to be improved on the userinterface design.

[Mihai]

I can't say for the Sketchup export problems you have but for the Studio things:

4. I can not see when an object is active or not in Studio, the activ object give no clue if they are or not. There is a slight yellowish activ sign but its mostly invisable.

Check in preferences in OGL section if you have set to show selection handles or wireframe for the selected object.

5. The sun in Studio can not be seen with physical sky on, the blue sky or the hdri will make the light yellow sun dissappear. Only in the dark the sun position can be seen.....

The sky display will also update based on your camera settings, so you can lower the fstop or shutterspeed to see the sun dot more clearly and raise again before rendering.

6. When you like to import an object you can not change the postition. I can not get any handles showing up. This also hapens with projectors, no handles to be seen.

Check which selection mode you are in, object mode for selecting objects, UVs for selecting UVs (which you must first select from the Object parameters panel to have the handles show up in the viewport). You can also try changing the size of the handles with Alt and + - keys on the numeric keyboard.

6. Imported models show half the geometry missing. When rendered the objects are all there.

Perhaps they are imported as instances and they don't show up unless you select their parent object? There are some preferences about how to display instances in Studio.

[fv]

thanks for your reply, will try all you wrote. Your reply seems to be to the point and helpfull. I am sure that I can change the settings for better results. I usually have a tight time schedule and put up with default settings.

I think the sunposition indicator should not be in de geometry window like this. But its a good idea to change camera settings to have a better visual on the geometry. Have not even considered this once.....

I am sure for those who use Maxwell a lot my issues are a bit trivial. But for designers with "now and then use" the userinterface is too complicated. I am not sure if it needs to be.

Francois

[fv]

its indeed a lot better with lowered f stop.
Still, any light colored object will make the sun difficult to see.
I could change the size of the handles but once smaller I could not get them bigger again. Its still hard to manouvre around with objects and textures in Studio.

[fv]

The location of the handles seems also random. I have a hard time to find the handles, sometimes not at all close the object of manipulation.

[Mihai]

Try selecting an object and clicking Center Pivot in the object parameters. This might be because of how objects are imported from Sketchup. Their location is actually 0,0,0 so that's where the handle appears.

[Sheik]

1. camera atributes change when exporting to Maxwell, exporting lines from SU as jpg's results in different perspectives than the perspective rendering in Maxwell. When showing render area the perspective is very different from not showing render area. You can not export lines to a jpg when render area is showing. Banding will happen if you do so you have to export to a jpg when render area is of.
2. texture mappings are lost most of the time. No idea why. A material could render a few times and then it lost again, restarting or renaming materials will work in the end.

1. I get the SU image and the Maxwell image to lign-up perfectly when "show render area" is on. I don't see banding in SU jpg´s when "Show reder area" is on. Do you have an example of that?
2. I am not seeing this either, but I have heard about this before. Are you on a Mac?

[pelias]

I cannot comment on Studio related issues (#3-#7) but I will cover plugin related stuff.

1. camera atributes change when exporting to Maxwell, exporting lines from SU as jpg's results in different perspectives than the perspective rendering in Maxwell. When showing render area the perspective is very different from not showing render area. You can not export lines to a jpg when render area is showing. Banding will happen if you do so you have to export to a jpg when render area is of.
2. texture mappings are lost most of the time. No idea why. A material could render a few times and then it lost again, restarting or renaming materials will work in the end. The MXM gallery has lots of "shady" materials, many no tileable although advertised as such. Naming the imagefiles is also difficult and to be careful with. All in all Maxwell does not have a friendly way to use image files in a material

The camera related problem is a combination of multiple issues. First SU doesn't provide a mechanism to control the size/aspect ration of its own view - so it is not really possible to save JPG file out of SU with given image resolution/aspect ratio. You can set image size when exporting JPG but you do not know what part of the view will be included - you have to guess.

The solution I can offer is the ability to generate Maxwell image with exactly the same resolution as SU view. I am working on this - it should be included in one of the next SU plugin releases. Doing this it will no longer be necessary to rely on show render area to get the same aspect ratio in both SU and Maxwell. BTW - I can reproduce the banding on OSX - it is really a SU bug. Plugin uses this mechanism as it is suggested way of showing the visible area - it was used in Film&Stage SU plugin designed by SU guys as well.

I haven't experienced issue #2 myself - if run into it again can you please send me a sample file/images? Overall I do agree that Maxwell should really store supporting texture files inside of MXM material otherwise the problems with locating them will continue. SketchUp can be an inspiration - SU .skm files are really zip files in disguise - they store material parameters together with texture in a single file.

Pavol

[fv]

yes, I am on a mac. Probably the banding issue is Mac nd SU related.

The problem with the texture mappings is that the system has to look for these textures and so depends on the system-organisation skills of the particular user. I am sure because of the extensive use of my system sometimes a workflow or file gets corrupted. Restarting will sometimes help.
NL must foolproof their materials. The mxm gallery is a good example of what kind of mess a material library can become. Wish btw that someone explains to material uploaders what "tileable" really means....

And thanks so much for the advise here. I do read and follow up most what is written here and it helped a great deal.

I am looking forward to see the SU7 exporter. SU7 is a lot faster and easier to use. Working in 6 is a hassle now. When would you say could we expect a first beta version ?

[fv]

just saw the othr thread on the plugin, next week looks great.
Thanks

[Stinkie7000]

Weet je ... BootCamp werkt écht, hoor.

("You know ... BootCamp really does work.")

[fv]

Mihai, I can get the pivot centred but not for textures. I have to change the mappings by using the object parameters and numbers input. There are no selection handles close enough to still see the object. Center pivot and resetting does not give any visable result. Some objects do centre but many do not.

One is always wondering what to charge a client and what should be regarded as a loss and be left out of the bill.

[fv]

Actually I could get the texture handles centred by typing the parametric input to zero. But not through the "center" and Reset buttons.

This works for now. Happy about it hoping I will not forget how I did it.....