[Edwin C]

This might sound easy for some but I have seriously exhausted myself trying to figure what should be a simple process. I have tried to understand and I think I get the principals of the info at http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... axwell+Sea but the results I get are a no where near realistic
Scenario:
I have a yacht 90m long I need it in a sea that you would find in an anchorage or of a beach, lets say the Caribbean or the French Rivera.
Sea conditions would be a swell height max .5-1m with a bit of wind driven choppiness maybe even a bit of white caps.
The draft of the boat (the amount of boat in the water) is around 3.5-4m and usually a boat of this size would be in water that is no less than 8-10m
Usually a bit of a sandy seabed with a few patches of grass. we tend to make 8 views , Front, Back, Side profile, Plan - looking down , a back and a front 1/4 low (as if you were taking a photo from a small boat looking up at the yacht) and a back and front 1/4 high (looking down on the yacht from a helicopter.

Now the 1/4 views one would see the horizon and the sea would extend to the horizon which is bisected by yacht (partially in the sky and in the sea as the background) now this tells me I need a very large sea surface (I might be completely wrong here) The higher the camera the bigger the sea has to be until the point the horizon is out of the frame , this could land up being 20+km
The elevation and Plan views only need a sea surface to fit the frame.
I am using Rhino with the Maxwell plugin.
My process that doesn't work.
• I create a cylinder with a radius of 500m and a depth of 15m
• Make a new Maxwell sea extension and a water material (material wizard)
• Apply sea extension and water material to cylinder
• Then I attempt to adjust the Maxwell sea to get the scaling
No matter how high or low I make the settings the results are wrong
• Sea too high or too low
• Cannot get the “choppiness” to appear when the sea is too low

Any help will be greatly appreciated Thanks

[Edwin C]

No help here then? Are people using this feature?

[Mihai]

Sorry, I missed this message. So you've read this page as well?
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... Extensions

Post some screenshots and test renders please....

[Edwin C]

Sorry, I missed this message. So you've read this page as well?
http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... Extensions

Post some screenshots and test renders please....

Yup I have. But for some reason the download from the portal is "Maxwell_for_Rhino-3.0.0-x64 " and this support page is talking about "plugin version 3.0.3" and if I enter Command: "Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea" I get "Unknown command: Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea"
But if I use the "Scene Manager" I can add and apply a SEA extension.
All images are at the following link https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... =drive_web
The scene is modeled 1:1 in millimeters (Dimensions shown are in meters)
Image 01 Is the plan Boat 90M "water" object and sea bed diameter of 1.3KM (1356m)
Image 02 Is a bit closer showing the boat over the seabed pattern, a flat disk under the "water" object
Image 03 is the boat on the "water" object depth is 7.9m boat is submerged partially by 4m into "water" object
Image 04 is a Maxwell Fire render after the "Maxwell Sea" that has been applied to the "Water" Object with the default "Maxwell Sea" settings shown in Image 05 together with the water material shown in Image 06
As you can see the water is below the boat (definitely not what we want), it should be at the top of the black area of the boat .
Image 07 is showing the amount of the boat that should be in the water. by the way point 0 on the Y axis is at the very bottom of the boat and not at the bottom of the "water" object
There is no indication of the "Maxwell Sea" swell.
Image 09 When I add "Choppiness" and "Whitecaps" to the extension, even at factor 100 I do not get any perceivable difference than that of image 04
Image 10 I have raised the sea object by half its 7.9m hight ( expecting the "Maxwell Sea" surface to be in the middle of the "water "object) hopefully bringing the water level to the expected hight, as you can see no go still too low!


I hope that this is all clear
And thanks for the help
Edwin

[Wynott]

I've been struggling with the sea also... Got this from NL tech. I haven't really had a chance to follow through with it though. Maybe it will help you. Here's what he said:

I'm glad to hear that you are interested in the new Maxwell Sea feature for your projects.

We don't have an specific tutorial for this feature, but you can check the description in this page from our online Documentation resource:

http://support.nextlimit.com/display/mx ... axwell+Sea

Producing a huge sea extension that reaches the horizon needs a complex setup where you mix high-detail meshes near the camera with lighter meshes far away.

So, our suggested approach would be:

- Create a Maxwell Sea patch with the particular sea look you are after. A 15m x 15m size would suffice.

- As Maxwell Sea patches are seamless tileable, create several replicas (instances) of the original patch and distribute them to fill a bigger area. A 5x5 pattern would suffice.

Pay special attention to not leave gaps between the patch positions.

Rotating the camera a bit helps to avoid detecting repeated patters.

- This way you cover close and medium term. For the far distance, a regular huge plane with a simple Noise procedural applied to Bump does the job without any extra render cost.

And about the sea material:
Attached to this email I'm sending you a sample Ocean material I've created to let you see. You can adjust the Transmittance color to the particular sea color (blue, gray, green) you want and the Attenuation distance to set its amount of transparency (transparency depth).

Do not forget to put a ground plane mimicking the sea floor (to provide some place for the rays to stop).

Let me know if these tips were helpful on your projects.

Greetings

--
Dario Lanza
Maxwell Render Product Specialist
Next Limit Technologies

[JDHill]

But for some reason the download from the portal is "Maxwell_for_Rhino-3.0.0-x64 " and this support page is talking about "plugin version 3.0.3" and if I enter Command: "Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea" I get "Unknown command: Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea"

Hi Edwin, please visit the Maxwell Betas page to download the 3.0.3 plugin, which implements these new in-viewport Maxwell Sea features.

[Edwin C]

But for some reason the download from the portal is "Maxwell_for_Rhino-3.0.0-x64 " and this support page is talking about "plugin version 3.0.3" and if I enter Command: "Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea" I get "Unknown command: Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea"

Hi Edwin, please visit the Maxwell Betas page to download the 3.0.3 plugin, which implements these new in-viewport Maxwell Sea features.

Hi JD thanks I will go there and look into this. You are the Rhino Plugin Master.

I've been struggling with the sea also... Got this from NL tech. I haven't really had a chance to follow through with it though. Maybe it will help you. Here's what he said:

Thanks Wynott, funny thing is I had a similar thought but did not know how to get there. Maybe I should also consider some Volumetrics to hide the horizon and make the sea in the distance a bit hazy (but I think that is another challenge)

[Edwin C]

This has helped a little bit but it is still a trial an error shot in the dark and I am unable to get this look that is on the features page of the Maxwell sea http://www.maxwellrender.com/V3/feature/maxwellsea.
I have added (to the image link https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... =drive_web ) some real life reference images ("Sea Test 11-14 and 17 Reference.jpg"'s ) of a few of our boats (around 60m 75m and 134m) in some of the sea environments I am trying to achieve (a similarity not replicat).
Following the instructions, above and using multiple blocks No matter how I change the settings the sea is either looking like a toy boat (image "Sea test 15") or sitting on the local duck pond (image "Sea test 10").

I hate to say this but I have spent a lot of time trying to get this working but unfortunately not getting there. I struggle to understand that this Maxwell Sea (as it is) is in the current Maxwell 3 and not as a beta add on. There is a lack of clear documentation on how to use it, even JDHill (the Rhino plugin master) has pointed to the Maxwell Betas page. Even a few sample or pre-sets could help. One of the reasons why we upgraded to 3 (and I was the one here in the office pushing for the upgrade, being the biggest Maxwell fan in the office, since before V1 ) was the Maxwell Sea extension.
Ok rant over
My end result is to be able to create a few environments where we can render our boats resulting in images where we do not have to spend hours blending multiple views it into multiple background images. Image "Sea Test 16 Reference” is an example of one of our 3D images blended on an existing image this takes time and this particular image is still not 100%, we ran out of time. Ok understand we cannot achieve the wake of the boat so easily in a 3D model (I am currently , when I get the time, working on a material and wave object to simulate the foam and the wake but that is another story and there is no Maxwell extension for that;) ) but at least if we can get the Maxwell Sea right the reflections in the water of the boat, the reflections of the water on the hull and not needing to cut the boat out of the render ( blending the far distant Maxwell Sea and the far distant real image would be easy) this would save huge amount of time specially working on lots of different view.
Once again any help will be appreciated.

[Mihai]

It seems very simple in your case:

Start with "Sea test 15" but increase the Quality parameter to have a finer displacement. Watch out for the RAM usage though, increase it one step at a time.

Depending on what the dimension of the sea surface is, you may have to adjust the Vertical scale. In your case here it seems you need to lower it a bit.

Have a look also at the explanation on "Minimum wave length" in the docs page.

Also, copy pasting more info from the docs page:

Understanding Resolution and Dimension

Dimension of the sea piece and Resolution of the displacement map are closely related and you need to keep them in mind to adjust the level of detail in your sea.

In general terms, you can estimate the size of the minimum feature (thus the amount of detail) by using this expression:

Features size [ m ] = Dimension [ m ] / Resolution

The smaller this resulting value (the smaller the wave features), the more detail you were obtaining, but like in any displacement mapping the more effort needed in the map generation and in the surface displacement.

An example: Let’s assume you have created an ocean surface of 400 m side and you are using a map Resolution of 1024 . The smallest feature (the smaller detail) you can observe on this ocean will have a size of 0.39 m according to the formula above:

400 m (Dimension) / 1024 (Resolution) = 0.39 m

Depending on the camera framing, if you need even more detail and smaller structures, you can either raise Resolution or lower Dimension. With higher Resolution, Maxwell will take more time and Ram generate the displacement map and displace the surface.

Finally, you also have the option to export your scene to MXS, open it in Studio and do some tweaking there to the Maxwell Sea object - maybe you'll find that more convenient.

Post also the settings you have for the sea object, it makes it easier to help.

[Edwin C]

Sorry for the slow response I have been on something else for the moment and now back on this elusive "sea"
Using the Beta and the command "Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea" I made a single sea object ( X=1000, Y=1000 Z=10 point cloud)
Using the formula Features size [ m ] = Dimension [ m ] / Resolution
Feature 1000= Dimension 1000/ 1024 = 0.9765625 (See settings in image "Sea Test 17") the result is image "Sea Test 16"

Now I go the patch route (this seems like it is really heavy copying and moving the patch the whole model becomes quite laggy, when making several copes of a100x100 sea object and I have not even got out to the horizon ).
Using the Beta and the command "Maxwell_CreateMaxwellSea" I made a single sea object ( X=100, Y=100 Z=10 point cloud)and copied it 8 times (really need more)
Using the formula Features size [ m ] = Dimension [ m ] / Resolution
Feature 100= Dimension 100/ 1024 = 0.09765625 (See settings in image "Sea Test 19") the result is image "Sea Test 18"

Now it still seems I have not got anywhere with these two ways, so I have tried the settings “Sea Test 21” that gives me image “Sea Test 20”
This is getting there (a bit ) but the small details are not on. So I tried the following same as “Sea Test 21” but with Choppines and Whitecaps checked (no other changes) result in “Sea Test 22”

I am still at a loss !!!

Some other thought’s
1. would it not make sense to put a sub-tab in the Rhinoceros Properties tab(just like the Maxwell materials properties sub tab) where if an object that has a extension associated to it can

[Mihai]

Could you please upload the generated MXS file from the plugin, just with the sea object. Because trying your settings in Studio I don't get at all the same look, especially with a 1000m dimension, and a 0.97 vertical scale. The scale is much too large if these are truly the settings you used.

Also, I don't see how you can get better performance by using patches of sea. Just create one big patch, and you can always increase the resolution ("Quality") parameter of it at render time. Also, it IS possible to use a normal map in the material you have applied on the sea surface for ultra high detail, instead of raising the quality parameter too high. Use procedural noise for that for example.

But first, upload the MXS. It's a good workflow for you to keep in mind also, that if you see unexpected results in the render, first thing to do is open the MXS in Studio and check settings etc.

[Edwin C]

Could you please upload the generated MXS file from the plugin, just with the sea object. Because trying your settings in Studio I don't get at all the same look, especially with a 1000m dimension, and a 0.97 vertical scale. The scale is much too large if these are truly the settings you used.

But first, upload the MXS. It's a good workflow for you to keep in mind also, that if you see unexpected results in the render, first thing to do is open the MXS in Studio and check settings etc.

Thanks in advance for looking into this I have added the "Sea Test.MXS" to the Google Drive. I included just the Hull of the boat for scale reference. By the way I used the "veins" texture from the "C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 3\materials database\textures" just to get some form of variation in the seabed.

Also, I don't see how you can get better performance by using patches of sea. Just create one big patch, and you can always increase the resolution ("Quality") parameter of it at render time. Also, it IS possible to use a normal map in the material you have applied on the sea surface for ultra high detail, instead of raising the quality parameter too high. Use procedural noise for that for example.

The Patches was mentioned a little earlier in this thread. I will look into the using a procedural noise for detail.
Thanks

[Mihai]

Well the thing is you have the surface size itself much too large and the camera only sees maybe 10% of it. So you are looking at 10% of the detail. The sea surface is made up of polygons and even at the highest quality of 8192x8192 (which are 67 million polygons btw), you may still not have enough detail. What you need to do depending on the shot and how much of the water you see (horizon etc.) you will have to do some compositing with maybe a real sea image or do another render with just a bigger sea plane and nothing else in the render. On the other hand if you have a shot where you are looking more straight down at the boat then just the patch will probably be enough to cover the image area.

Be careful also not the "squash" the sea surface itself too much by having a too low height (Y setting in Studio, maybe in Rhino height is Z). You can take a look at the MXS I used for the image below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7x7ogf6tgapcg ... tMihai.rar



What I did was first make the sea surface itself smaller so that the camera captures more detail in that square of sea. Then I raised the "Dimension" parameter (to about 3500 in this case, meaning you want that patch to represent 3.5km of sea) - this gives you the kind of detail you want and makes it look less "pond like". Then I lowered the vertical scale a lot, and also played with the Y scale setting in the object itself to make the sea look more rough or less. I needed to also change the Y scale setting itself because I reached the decimal limit of 5 inside of Studio. Maybe in the Rhino plugin you have more decimals and you can make the scale even smaller, just with this setting and not have to change the Y scale.

A slight procedural noise is used as a bump set at a tiny 0.4, or it will quickly look too strong.

Some things to watch out for:

Choppyness was enabled, but it was set at 0. Choppyness will also have more effect if the vertical scale is bigger. Be careful in some cases where choppyness is too strong and the tips of the waves start turning in on themselves. Then you need to lower the choppyness.

Maxwell doesn't do polarized light effects, and in some of your example photos, I bet they used a polarizing filter to make the water look much less reflective. You can mimic this in a way by lowering the default ND of water (1.333) to 1.1 or even 1.05 for example.

[Edwin C]

Well the thing is you have the surface size itself much too large and the camera only sees maybe 10% of it. So you are looking at 10% of the detail. The sea surface is made up of polygons and even at the highest quality of 8192x8192 (which are 67 million polygons btw), you may still not have enough detail. What you need to do depending on the shot and how much of the water you see (horizon etc.) you will have to do some compositing with maybe a real sea image or do another render with just a bigger sea plane and nothing else in the render. On the other hand if you have a shot where you are looking more straight down at the boat then just the patch will probably be enough to cover the image area.

Be careful also not the "squash" the sea surface itself too much by having a too low height (Y setting in Studio, maybe in Rhino height is Z). You can take a look at the MXS I used for the image below:

Thanks Midai , It has been a busy week, not much time on this! I took your scene and placed my boat in it "Sea Test 24" (sorry can't show all the boat) My crit on this is the scale is still too big (just remember this boat is around 90m the water would suite a boat around 20-30m.
Now as we try to reduce our workflow time we do not really use the Maxwell studio as this will just add another step.
The big issue I am seeing is the scaling in Rhino is all out of whack I used the same settings you had in Studio in Rhino (see "Sea Test 24) and the result "Sea Test 25" is what I get, the sea is not the same at all!!
Sorry did not have time to look further.
Thanks once again

[Mihai]

But what are you scale settings in Rhino? And what units are you working in? Meters, feet....?

Post a screenshot of the settings you used in the Sea25.