[balt]

mvar: you seem to be the only person that actually has it working. You also frequently refer to "we" when talking about NL. That all kinda points towards you actually being part of NL. Are you?

[andronikos916]

ok

...an advice is to open task manager and minimize it so you can see if your CPU are rendering since there is no progress bar at the moment.

1) create a scene in max. or load one.
2) make sure your units are set to 1mand 1mxw unit =1m
3) remove the check from render



4) then after .mxs is exported - open maxwell studio

5) import geometry and select the .mxs that we just exported

6) select physicl sky

7) at the drop down shading -> preview




...wait 2min to see rendering.

hope this helps,
Andronikos

[lpotamianos]

that is still a preview...

[Joss]

You have any other ideas? Yes, the quality of this Alpha Candidate is awful, but it works, and we can test it's speed and caustics and other things.

I think we can expect massive plug-ins update at next week, but i'm afraid that december 22th is actually NOT a release day anymore. Or NL will release awful quality piece of software.

Now i've got how to render objects in Studio:
1. use old plug-ins for exporting .MXS from you packages. If you'd like to use OBJ - triangulate it first, since Studio seems like don't understand even quadrangulated geo.
2. import it into Studio. If you importing OBJs, then Studio will hang if you will try to render it right now. First you need to assign some materials to it(you can use drag-n-drop right from materials bar from the left).
3. Take a look at settings bars that resides around your viewport - you may tune materials a bit, turn on physical sky, etc, etc.
4. Use "Ctrl-P" hotkey mentioned above.

After it you will get some very neat preview, and at least you can test new algorithm speed/features. It seems that "Render" button doesn't works because it can't find mxcl.exe, but it won't work for me even after i've added mxcl dir to the path. I'll try to dig into it a bit later.

[lpotamianos]

well, I loaded a nice old project which I rendered with beta, but ended up doing it in vray. It uses physical sky, plus some nice emitters. loaded it up in studio. render does not work. in the preview, it seems that the emitters are screwing up everything:

[Xlars]

adehus -

I've been a beta tester for some time now... putting in all the same hours you have been, but instead of complaining on the forum, I've been working to help in any way I can. We all know Maxwell's far from ready, it's also a powerhouse underneath there... and after their first night's sleep in a LONG time, the team's back at work tomorrow. For now, I'll try to help you guys in any way I can.

_Mike

Well spoken ! - thanks for your insight, advise and help. Btw. Your posted mxs file worked fine in Maxwell Studio for me (i can see both preview and render inside Studio).

[WestCAD]

I have some questions that someone my be able to help with.

I have exported mxs from viz and opened it in Maxwell Studio
The preview seems to work ok.
When I render it goes thru its routine and finishes with a black screen.
How do you set the render time, SL level. The render options on right don't seem to have any effect (they open at RT of 1000000 (what are these)

If my units in viz or max are millimeters what is the scene scale?

When I assign sky with sun and save, next time I open the same file the sky and sun are turned offand the camera changes back to default but changes to materials are saved.

There doesn't seem to be an import for 3ds files.

When I try to assign bitmaps to materials the program locks up.

[Jun In Gi]

remove the check from render

is there any reason to do uncheck?

if i render after check this then i should get a error on each time put render button, can't find mxcl.

[andronikos916]

remove the check from render

is there any reason to do uncheck?

if i render after check this then i should get a error on each time put render button, can't find mxcl.

we are aware of that. so that is why there is reason to do uncheck it.

cy,
Andron

[Matt Hsu]

command line render did works! and the new RC maxwell viewer will pop up if you specify -d in the command ( -hd crash the render,don't know why..)

[Becco_UK]

Wide awake and ready for another day of trials and tribulations!

First off is that I inferred earlier that I had got the main render button working. I hadn't, sorry. It was either the Preview window firing up or a render within the viewport window.

The tiny render button does nothing visible. It may do something I can't see but that's no use if it won't open mxcl and do a render.

dd: Forget trying to use the Cinema plugin with RC. It will end in tears.

TyroneMarshall: I have doubts that the smaller image you posted is of an actual render using the render button in Maxwell Studio.

andonikas916: Those images you posted are viewport renders!

As said in some above posts - we get chance to become familiar with controls and materials but when it comes to the crunch time of render - then things fall flat on their face

[Matt Hsu]

[Joss]

Are you using new plug-ins? I mean fresh versions?

[Duncan]

Okay. I can get the render icon to work now (on a different computer). The MikeTest.mxs scene works. However, the scene I uploaded still only shows anything if rendered in Preview mode.

I've tried:

Physical sky
set, saved, reloaded (sometimes 'sticks', sometimes it doesn't -- it never produces anything but black on that scene)

Emitter
6500 w
65000 w
with and without physical sky.

The scene is consistently black when rendered.

I exported the geometry from Lightwave. I tried both LW native and .obj. All polys were tripeled. The LW native file wouldn't load. No error, but no data either. I'm thinking this must be a problem with the data.

This is the same problem I'm having.

Mvertas file works fine, its the files I export to OBJ from XSI that
don't work. I've triagulated the polys first, so theres no problems there.
Maybe its a scale thing ?

I hit the render button with Mvertas scene, it renders fine, the render
window pops up. I do it with one of my scenes and it turns black.
Also tells me the render failed.




_____________________

[MetinSeven_com]

Hi y'all,

Phew, finally ready digging through all pages of this thread.

My impression ...

At first I was a bit annoyed by the new workflow, having to go from Max to a separate Maxwell editor in order to perform final edits before being able to render. Plus all my previous scenes render as an overbright black and white result, so I felt uncomfortable with this latest development.

But my advice is to have a little patience, fool around a little with the new Maxwell interface and once you get the hang of it it feels quite exciting.

Having said this I did encounter a MXST [or something like that] crash, so it all feels unstable at this stage. But I'm glad we can all be an active part of the advancements again from now on.

My current most important question regarding RC1 is: what's the easiest approach to get my old scenes to render like they did in the previous Maxwell versions? I suspect something has changed with the way the emitter materials work, because the scenes now look overbright.

My current most important wishes are:

1: Undo

2: Please let us customize the controls, as I'm using a Wacom tablet pen and have not tuned my pen to simulate a middle mouse button, so currently I cannot pan around my scenes in Maxwell.

3: Please keep developing the 3ds Max to Maxwell bridge, so the gap between the two programs remains as small as possible. Currently V-Ray's total 3ds Max integration is one of its strongest competitive features compared to the isolated Maxwell module.

Next Limit, keep up the groundbreaking work and Mike, I think you're doing a fine job trying to keep all of us satisfied.

Cheers,

Metin