[oz42]

Hi,

I finally got my serial number from Autodesk today and have installed Softimage 2011 (x64) (on Win XP x64) Obviously the first thing I always do is install the Maxwell plugin However, when I render I get this error;

# WARNING : Material 'Material' first seen on object 'sphere' does not have a valid surface shader; it will be exported as red diffuse.

and the object renders red

I'm wondering whether it's something to do with the way 2011 now creates materials in the render tree - there is now and 'out' option on the material node

Has anyone else had problems with materials on 2011?

[Mihnea Balta]

We'll look into it and fix it for the next plug-in update.

[wjo53]

<Edit> Re-read initial question, and realised I mis-read where problem existed. My bad.

John

[oz42]

Mihnea, thanks again for getting back.

Currently I am working on existing projects with Softimage 2010 but, as I say, I have just installed 2011 (v9.0.243.0) and am keen to swap over to this version. With Maxwell materials not working on this version at all at the moment, obviously I can't do so yet. Do you have any other users with this issue and would it be possible to ask for a rough timeline for the updated plugin?

[Bogdan Coroi]

From the "Less is more" Saga, we found out that Autodesk starting with XSI v9.0 aka 2011, decided that the way shader parameters were connected internally to a material (in the last decade) is simply bad, unacceptable, so they changed it. As Mihnea said, it will be fix it for the next update, but I don't have an ETA for the release.

[oz42]

ah, Autodesk in their infinite wisdom

It does sound from their website, however, that 3rd Party renderer integration is sooo much easier

, and third-party renderer developers can now take advantage of a completely new shader authoring environment. The new environment automatically hosts external shaders and renderers, so you don't need to build a custom shader UI or other tools. Shaders and renderers can automatically access the powerful Softimage rendering features—Render Passes, Render Region, Shaderballs, Render, Tree and Material Manager—via a single .dll.

- taken from the 'Rendering Sandbox' section of http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc ... d=13571400

[oz42]

...and now you've got 2011 SP1 to contend with!!!