[brodie_geers]

I don't seem to understand bump very well. The effect seems to be so very subtle that it's almost negligable quite often. It didn't bother me terribly until I recently tried a bump in 3ds Max and the result was exactly what I was hoping for. As I upped the bump value it got increasingly pronounced to a degree that in Maxwell I could only do with discplacement and eventually would get over distorted if I raised the bump too high.

In Maxwell, doing the same thing I might notice a subtle difference up to a relatively low number like 15-30ish and then going to 100 doesn't seem to make any difference at all and it's still too weak.

I'm currently having the same problem on a stucco material. I'm wanting to have one BSDF with the small bump variation of the stucco and then a separate BSDF with a much larger subtle bump to give the wall some variation to it. I'd like to do something similar with a grass material as well but I just can't seem to get it right.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there some trick to making the bump maps more pronounced?

[Bubbaloo]

Show some rendered examples, even a Max to Maxwell comparison.

[Leonardo]

I don't seem to understand bump very well. The effect seems to be so very subtle that it's almost negligable quite often. It didn't bother me terribly until I recently tried a bump in 3ds Max and the result was exactly what I was hoping for. As I upped the bump value it got increasingly pronounced to a degree that in Maxwell I could only do with discplacement and eventually would get over distorted if I raised the bump too high.

In Maxwell, doing the same thing I might notice a subtle difference up to a relatively low number like 15-30ish and then going to 100 doesn't seem to make any difference at all and it's still too weak.

I'm currently having the same problem on a stucco material. I'm wanting to have one BSDF with the small bump variation of the stucco and then a separate BSDF with a much larger subtle bump to give the wall some variation to it. I'd like to do something similar with a grass material as well but I just can't seem to get it right.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there some trick to making the bump maps more pronounced?

have you try using normal mapping instead of bumps?

there is a free plugin from Nvidia for photoshop to creat them
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/phot ... ugins.html

you could also try/ buy pixplant
http://www.pixplant.com/

[JTB]

...or Shadermap, or Crazybump...

The first is much cheaper and very nice....
I 've seen Pixplant and it is nice to make seamless textures...

Shadermap only costs 20$ and it works well...
Crazybump costs 5 times more and Pixplant almost 9 times more...

[x_site]

Leonardo, surely there must be some tricks in using bump in Maxwell... i am no expert and for this reason have the same frustrations, i have tried all sorts of settings and the only results i was happy with is when i use displacement [we all know the cost of doing this] and the results are no better when using normal maps. so i leave it to the experts to enlighten us on this matter.

[kami]

bumps aren't very enlightening in maxwell. it depends very much on the scale of the texture and the size and its behavior is very unpredictable ... with normal maps you'll get better results.

one example: I once used a bump map 1x1 meters and it created tiling artefact. so I created a new texture 4x4 meters with of course 4 times the width and height (in pixels) of the old texture and modified it a bit (clone stamp) to get rid of the tiling.
I used it in maxwell with 4x4 meters but the nice bump from before had been gone

[Richard]

I once did some material tests for brickwork with greyscale bump maps and normal maps in both sun / shade with physical sky, and with skydome!

Interestingly with bump set at 200 and using very good maps the results pretty much proved to me that no matter what type of bump map you use if your material is in the light maxwell produces no bump effect at all!

I didn't keep the tests unfortunately but the results were quite outstanding. I cast the sun almost directly directly down the wall and put some random obstacles to cast some shadows.

With both greyscale and normal maps the bump was VERY noticable in the shade though in the unshaded areas absolutely no bump was noticable at all, which when I look at the brickwall out the window exactly the opposite occurs. BTW it's worth doing this test - it gives you the weirdest image as it defies what the eye would normally see!

If counting on good bump effect (without displacement) the only way to achieve any worthwhile result is to render the scene twice, once with physical sky and once with skydome and combine the result in photoshop.

Hopefully V2 of maxwell will have a working bump effect.

[Stinkie7000]

Interesting, Richard. Your findings confirm my own. And here I was thinking I'd gone mental.

I hate to sound negative, really I do, but MW has far too many issues for an app this expensive. Worse, it seems it takes NL ages to squash even the most apparent bugs.

I am not happy about that (who would be?). If NL doesn't manage to adress certain issues with V2 - a stable Studio would be nice! - they lose a customer.

[Richard]

Mate I don't know if I'd be holding my breath for all these type of issues to be addressed in V2. You would hope that a stable fully functional release might be 1.8 considering the current economic climate!

I must admit myself being a maxwell devotee as you well know by now that I so hope they iron these type of issues out prior to the adding of additional features! Bump in any rendering application I feel is an integral and essential element and not something to be placed on a wish list. Heck even the most basic of render engines has it as standard.

When you consider the added render times when using displacement - even a mild response to bump mapping I feel is warranted with Maxwell.

Mate I know when the design market kicks in again a bit I'll certainly consider what other options there are. I certainly won't be kicking the can for V2 unless I'm assured V1.? is offered as fully working and functional. Heck I'm still using 1.5.1 for 90% of my output given it's the last semi stable release!

Though I'm certain NextLimit wouldn't consider or make the drastic mistake of any release of V2 until a fully functional release of V1 was achieved, that would be like committing commercial suicide!!!

[Stinkie7000]

You would hope that a stable fully functional release might be 1.8 considering the current economic climate!

Well, that's my hope too, obviously.

Mate I know when the design market kicks in again a bit I'll certainly consider what other options there are.

I am already doing that. For some time even, as I am growing increasingly tired of MW's shortcomings. Remember that 'components get strewn about when going through the Studio' bug? Still there. It's weird it's in there to begin with, but the fact that they haven't resolved it after all this time, is ... well ... inacceptable, really.

Now, don't get me wrong. Fundamentally, I like MW. I wouldn't have bought it if I didn't. It's just that I'm getting the impression it might not be beneficial for me to stick with a company I'm not entirely sure can deliver the sort of service/product quality the price of it's app warrants.

Now, that sounds all very negative, doesn't it? There's an upside as well, though! If NL stops dragging it's feet - that's what they're doing from my point of view - they have a bright future, I think.

[Richard]

Mate I think RealFlow might well be where all the effort is going now!

In regards to the instance bug yeah it is rather surprising given Whaat's plugin for Indigo has supported instances for some time without any of those bugs to start with.

Maybe they could grab the scripting for that from there and overcome the issue fairly easily.

OOOPS - I guess though we should stick to topic really - this isn't helping Brodes with his issue (or maybe it is)! You and I have ranted about this now on a few forums! LOL!

[Stinkie7000]

Mate I think RealFlow might well be where all the effort is going now!

In regards to the instance bug yeah it is rather surprising given Whaat's plugin for Indigo has supported instances for some time without any of those bugs to start with.

Maybe they could grab the scripting for that from there and overcome the issue fairly easily.

You know I've actually suggested to Whaat he'd write a plugin for Maxwell? I think NL should take a long, hard look at SkIndigo - workflow wise it's far, far superior to MW's SU plugin. You know that, I know that.

You've probably heard Indigo's going commercial. I'm not going to jump right in, but I will most certainly be keeping a close watch.

EDIT: you're right. Back to the topic at hand!

[Richard]

Mate I think RealFlow might well be where all the effort is going now!

In regards to the instance bug yeah it is rather surprising given Whaat's plugin for Indigo has supported instances for some time without any of those bugs to start with.

Maybe they could grab the scripting for that from there and overcome the issue fairly easily.

You know I've actually suggested to Whaat he'd write a plugin for Maxwell? I think NL should take a long, hard look at SkIndigo - workflow wise it's far, far superior to MW's SU plugin. You know that, I know that.

You've probably heard Indigo's going commercial. I'm not going to jump right in, but I will most certainly be keeping a close watch.

EDIT: you're right. Back to the topic at hand!

Mate I didn't know about indigo going commercial. Sounds like a great move! I must say though that although I've tested a bit with Indigo the time it takes to clean up initially has always for me been a bummer!

As far as Whaat doing a plug for maxwell - I think that could be great though I can't at this stage lose any cofidence with Pavol, I know he has been trying to get the instancing issue sorted and also suggesting the option to substitute SKP place holders for MXS files on export!

If he nails that one life as we know it for export from SU to maxwell takes another HUGE step forward, in fact I think if that works well it blows all else way from the water.

I personally can just imagine the day when working in simple models within SU and exporting with dummy trees, cars, etc being replaced with high poly MXS subs to be paralled with man going to mars! (can you tell I've been drinking tonight - not too obvious I hope!)! - Man I'm half tanked - maybe even a bit more than half!

[Maximus3D]

Hehee, it's Monday and you're drunk already Richard you're starting early.. it's not weekend yet.

/ Max

[Bubbaloo]

LOL