[Jesper Pedersen]

Dear Mihai / Nextlimit team,

I have a general query / concern about Maxwell and version 3:

We are running V3 within 3ds Max (version 2014) for about a month now and as we begin to test the new features when run within 3ds Max we are finding through our own experience and via forum posts that several of the features have bugs or only work with the stand alone maxwell software.

We use 3ds Max as our primary software and want to continue this setup. We like Maxwell, but the workflow is slow for 2 main reasons:

1 Constant glitches and bugs and time spent getting around problems with what in our opinion is poorly tested software (version 3)
2 Poor visual response within the materials editor (I believe Maxwell Fire is very nice but not available to 3ds Max users!?)

The new features we have tested so far and found to be not working / dissappointing include:

MaxwellSea object -not very intuitive and so far we are not getting the results we had hoped (we can create a nice piece of ocean provided we keep it small, but who needs a small ocean!?
Matwell Materials Assistant - created materials which by default insert "bitmaps" into slots if not allocated. These are then missing on render ! ..ie no error returned.
Procedurals - not available to 3ds max users !?
Improved FIRE voxelisation - ..but not for 3ds max users !?

So, of the new features we have attempted to use so far, with the exception of the new lenses feature, we have yet to find any to be working as we had hoped.

Perhaps we are making not using the software correctly, but it seems there is also no documentation / user manual for version 3 available.

We are far too often looking at your competitors and increasingly thinking "wow, wish we could do that in Maxwell!"

I am not sure what proportion of your users work within 3ds Max (compared to standalone Maxwell) but my advice: Please test your software throughly before release and understand your clients workflow/requirements better, or simply:

Please try to see things from our perspective!!!
Thanks

[Mihnea Balta]

2 Poor visual response within the materials editor

What do you mean?

I believe Maxwell Fire is very nice but not available to 3ds Max users!?

FIRE is integrated through ActiveShade. Set Max to render in ActiveShade mode and you'll get the interactive preview window.

MaxwellSea object -not very intuitive and so far we are not getting the results we had hoped (we can create a nice piece of ocean provided we keep it small, but who needs a small ocean!?

The Max plug-in exposes all the features of the Maxwell Sea object, so any shortcomings are unlikely to be due to the Max integration. Can you provide an example of this?

Matwell Materials Assistant - created materials which by default insert "bitmaps" into slots if not allocated. These are then missing on render ! ..ie no error returned.

This should be fixed in the latest beta version, did you try that?

Procedurals - not available to 3ds max users !?

The procedurals are not supported directly in any of the plug-ins, but you can use a referenced MXM material and add procedurals to it using MXED. We've made this decision because we are going to redesign parts of the system supporting procedurals, and after that we will add full integration inside the 3D apps.

Improved FIRE voxelisation - ..but not for 3ds max users !?

All the FIRE improvements are available to Max users.

We are far too often looking at your competitors and increasingly thinking "wow, wish we could do that in Maxwell!"

Can you provide examples of plug-in features which are available with other engines and are missing in Maxwell?

[Jesper Pedersen]

Hi Mihnea,

Thanks for your reply. And yes you've helped / tought me a few things already.

1. I need to hit "update preview" to see changes i the materials editor. So that certainly helps (after using Maxwell for several years!! ...oops!)
2. ActiveShade is the same as Fire -OK , then I'd have to say I'm not blown away, but at least it works in Max.
3. MaxwellSea - sorry this is not getting us the results we want but if someone is having more luck please post a sample scene with a large piece of water that looks like a realistic river / ocean for an archViz scene (ie no need for dramatic Hollywood effects, just animated, realistic water)
4. Maxwell Materials Assistant - fine, but we are not keen on using beta versions when we've paid for a full tested piece of software ! So if it's there and works, I'd say please get in into a new official update of v3.
5. Procedurals - again, I'm not having any luck using MXED to create the procedural. We still get a missing texture message (tried creating a Voronoi procedural in the bump channel of regular maxwell water material see here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lx2g1fzqvlyk8 ... 20bump.jpg
6. Finally, regarding the missing wow factor, I think my main gripes are probably the issues we have with Water, network rendering (something we need to resolve and judging by teh forum we are not alone here), Skies with clouds would be nice and finally we are a little jeleaus of vRay users who have an abundance of 3d models libraries & resources all ready to go with their materials

[Mihnea Balta]

2. ActiveShade is the same as Fire -OK , then I'd have to say I'm not blown away, but at least it works in Max.

We're not expecting people to be blown away, but you should get realtime preview rendering of your model, which can be a big productivity booster. It's not the same as the built-in ActiveShade you get with the scanline renderer. Have you been using this feature so far? (make sure Maxwell is set as the ActiveShade renderer, and not scanline).

3. MaxwellSea - sorry this is not getting us the results we want but if someone is having more luck please post a sample scene with a large piece of water that looks like a realistic river / ocean for an archViz scene (ie no need for dramatic Hollywood effects, just animated, realistic water)

I think it's better to ask this on the main forum, since it's not specific to the Max plug-in.

4. Maxwell Materials Assistant - fine, but we are not keen on using beta versions when we've paid for a full tested piece of software ! So if it's there and works, I'd say please get in into a new official update of v3.

The new public beta system allows us to push updates faster than before. We've made 3 releases in 10 days, fixing lots of things which weren't working properly in the initial 3.0 build. Eventually we'll promote one of these builds as a "stable" build, but in the mean time, if you're blocked by an issue, you can try the betas and possibly get a solution faster. Right now we're planning to make a new beta release tomorrow (fixing a bug introduced in the previous beta, and a few other things), after which we'd like to make a "stable" update (if no new bugs are discovered).

5. Procedurals - again, I'm not having any luck using MXED to create the procedural. We still get a missing texture message (tried creating a Voronoi procedural in the bump channel of regular maxwell water material see here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lx2g1fzqvlyk8 ... 20bump.jpg

You need to use a referenced material. If I understand your screenshot correctly, you're trying to create a material with MXED and import it in Max. That won't work. Use a referenced material which points to the MXM file you've created in MXED.

6. Finally, regarding the missing wow factor, I think my main gripes are probably the issues we have with Water, network rendering (something we need to resolve and judging by teh forum we are not alone here), Skies with clouds would be nice and finally we are a little jeleaus of vRay users who have an abundance of 3d models libraries & resources all ready to go with their materials

None of these are plug-in features. The last one isn't even an engine issue - it's not like Chaos Group makes 3d model libraries for vRay. They have a larger user base, so there are more resources available for vRay. I don't think you can fault Next Limit here.

[Jesper Pedersen]

Mihnea,

2. re active Shade yes we've got the renderer set to Maxwell and it's working fine.

3. Thanks, I've already posted there.

4. We're downloading the beta now and hopefullly it'll fix the issue.

5. That's what we did! but no luck. Even tried starting teh Maxwell editor separately and making the material there, then saving it, but it opens in 3ds max without the procedural texture !?

6. Yes I know but that doesn't stop us being envious of vRay users! ..and regarding water; we were creating a more realistic look back in 2002 using Seascape and MentalRay, so is it any wonder if we're a little frustrated with the new MaxwellSea feature. I hope to be proved wrong on this and hopefully we'll get teh settings right.
Thanks for your help (I have to get back to work now!)

[Mihnea Balta]

5. That's what we did! but no luck. Even tried starting teh Maxwell editor separately and making the material there, then saving it, but it opens in 3ds max without the procedural texture !?

What do you mean that it opens in Max without procedurals? The material shouldn't open at all in Max. You must create a referenced material, which is a separate node from the embedded material that you're using now (it's right next to the normal material in the "create material" list). The referenced material will only have a file control where you select the path to the MXM file, and no material settings, such as a layer tree, colors, texture slots and so on. You will not be able to edit the material inside Max, but it should render.

[Jesper Pedersen]

Hi Mihnea,
Thanks, the referenced material is working (again, a user manual would be great).
Our water already looks far better, so hopefully a combination of regular water material with a procedural bump and MaxwellSea will give us the result we are after.
I will post a link to the final image and a scene containing the water if we think it's good enough (in a week or two when the job is finished), .. to help our fellow Maxwell users

Again, thanks for your help!!!!