[ryanloku]

Hi My name is Bernardo, I work for FKA Australia. I have been testing the Maxwell for Archicad the last month and I have to say I am very impressed with the results. Setting up the materials straight from AC is a great work flow (better than using reference files from Artlantis). Speed was really an issue until I unchecked all Caustic settings.. this really made things go much faster.
Congratulations for the Maxwell team.
I do have a few questions though:

1- Is it possible to have an image with the AC sun as the main Light source but also have Image based reflections? When I tried using IBL it overrides the sun setting and I comes out as soft shadows like in a overcast day.

2-How do we set up a invisible light source without having to open MXS (straight from AC)?

3-Any chance of creating a manual sun? I do not want to change the North settings just to get a better render...

4-Is it possible to set DOF from AC?

5-At the moment, the plugin does not read Archicad 3D element Filter (story range, marquee and element types), so everything that has been modeled on negative stories are exported to the MXS. This is really important to be resolved because instead of rendering straight from the current file, we have to save a copy and delete all unnecessary elements to be able to render...

Looking forward to hear from you guys

Gracias

[Marton Day8]

Hello Bernardo,

1 - On the Environment panel "IBL Settings" area you can see four buttons "Background" "Reflection" "Refraction" "Illumination".
When you click on the background button you can set the HDR parameters of the background channel.
When you click on the Reflection button, you can set the HDR parameters of the reflection channel.
You have 4 channels to play with, and you can set hdr image for each or the active sky parameters as you wish.

2 - It is probably not possible yet, but it depends.... what do you need exactly?

3 - Do you want to make a second sun, or you want a sun independent from the AC sun? Second sun is not possible, but you can set sun independently from AC sun -> Maxwell Render Engine settings -> Environment -> switch off "Use ArchiCAD sun"

4 - There is no separate DOF value in Maxwell, DOF depends on the f-stop and focus settings just like in photography.
Please read more about how DOF works in Maxwell here:
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Camera

5 - Plugin doesn't handle the ArchiCAD 3D view section cuts, but otherwise it handles the 3D view filters. Open the plugin preferences dialog (leftmost button on the Maxwell panel), on the export tab switch on "Visibility by 3D Window"

Márton

[ryanloku]

Hi Marton,

Thank you for the reply.
maybe I am doing something wrong...

1- On the Environment Tab, if I set Environment Type to Image Based and If my illuminatin s set to HDR Image it overrides the Archicad's Sun liht contribution making the image look like soft shadows (overcast sky). Is it possible to have Image Based Illumination and SunLight Illumination at the same time?
2-I know that you can select a object to become invisible from camera using the Maxwell Studio. I would like to be able to use an Emitter that is not visible on the rendering so it won't show on reflections, but contributes to the illumination.
3- I did not mean a second sun. Just a Sun as a light source that could be set independent from geographical location Lat. Long, etc.. In AC it is possible to set the Sun both ways... either on the 3D window setting o on the Geographical location and time.
4-Ok, understood that.
5- I did not noticed that click box. That helps!

Thanks

[Marton Day8]

Hi Bernardo,

1 - In case you set the illumination channel to HDRI, the Maxwell sun won't illuminate the scene, only the HDRI image. Make sure you use good quality HDR images to have good results!
2 - It is not possible from the plugin yet:(.
3 - Sorry it is still not clear. Could you explain it?

Márton

[ryanloku]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Diagram of question 3
I Hope we can clarify this now.

Gracias

[Marton Day8]

Yes, now it is clear.

It will be fixed for the update.

Márton

[joaomourao]

Marton, do you have date for the plugin realese? For me, it has been a struggle because I am already on ARCHICAD 16 and have been unhable to use maxwell for a while now... I love maxwell but my daily work is on ARCHICAD and version 16 was released almost 6 months ago...
Please update it...
Cheers

[Marton Day8]

I wanted to release it many times but I had to re-check it again and again..... now I really hope it can go out soon.

Márton

[joaomourao]

Thanks Marton!
Will be waiting for it...