[mattomeara]

Hey,
I need to model an LCD TV screen with an image on it. How do I go about getting an image on that surface? Do I do it pre-render or post-render in an image editor?

Also, I'm a newbie to Maxwell and I have an engineering background not a design background. From the posts I've read so far on this forum, an image editor is a must. Sounds like most people use Adobe PS. I never have. I checked pricing and it's ridiculous. I saw one post about Pixel Image Editor for $38. I'd appreciate some input into choosing an image editor with regards to what features it would need to have in order to work well with Maxwell.

[Thomas An.]

Well, you do not have to have Phtoshop.

Over the years I have used Paintshop Pro and have no complaints: http://tinyurl.com/2v8jzn

About the display:
1. If you press the "print screen" button on your keyboard, it will capture a copy of your screen into the clipboard.
2. Then you can open PaintShop and do "paste" to bring it in as an image. 3. Then you can save this image as png
4. Launch Maxwell render (mxcl.exe) ... goto File-->LoadImage and load your png you just saved earlier and immediately save it as an MXI.
5. You will use this MXI later as an emitter texture for your LCD screen.

Create an emitter material and assign that emitter material to your LCD screen.
1. Make sure to open the emitter material and edit the light properties so the "input" source is set to "image emission" (instead of "color&luminance" in the drop down list),
2. then load your MXI image that you just saved earlier.

[martgreg]

depending on what program you are using ???

you may have to do some work in making sure teh image/material is in te right scale for the lcd screen yo are trying to achieve

also leaving multilight on will allow yo to adjust the intensity of teh screen out put...

let us know if yo have any problems

screen shots are always helpful

good luck

[Leonardo]

http://www.gimp.org/

Is a free alternative to photoshop.... I have never run it in windows, but from the website it seems possible.

anyway, follow Thomas An. step by step and you should have a screen tv material

here are some examples of TV materials done by others
http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/sea ... &search=tv

leo

[piem]

Gimp 2.4.2 is really now a powerfull program. I use it more than photoshopCS. It got ton of plugins and filters (and the normal mapper - a little bit complicated to install but really good ), resynthesize, perspective corection (lancoz if needed), GreyCstoration (aka noise ninja), clone for perspective etc.. . In fact, gimp is what Blender is for 3d now..a good and free application.

[-Adrian]

Yes, i'd agree about giving Gimp a shot, it's recently gotten some badly needed features and is imo a lot more useful now. A lot of users also like PaintShop Pro as a more affordable Photoshop alternative, it has quite large userbase/community as well. Pixel i can't really recommend, i found it to be quite unstable which is a big NO when you wanna get any work done. Also its brush-fx aren't live; You see the result when you finish your stroke, kinda unpredictable.