[caryjames]

Hi Everyone: I am trying to use an .mxi for a texture on my emitters for studio lighting. I am trying to convert a bitmap to an .mxi

In the manual it says that in Maxwell viewer you can select "Load image" then you can load a bitmap and then save as .mxi, hdr etc.

I am having trouble doing that. I can only open the viewer when I hit render. Then I stop the render and try to "load an image", all that happens is that it closes the "viewer" and I am back to Rhino. Am I doing something incorrect? I am 99.999999% sure I am . Any tips?

Thanks again
Cary

[JDHill]

Hi Cary,

Have you tried loading a different image? How about, rather than doing this after starting MXCL (i.e. mxcl.exe) by rendering from Rhino, you open it either by choosing 'Maxwell Render' from your Start > Programs menu, or by opening a command-prompt and typing 'mxcl -d', then hitting Enter. If that doesn't help, maybe you can be more specific about what you meant by 'stop the render and try to "load an image", all that happens is that it closes...' - exactly what buttons/menu items are you clicking, and when does it close?

Cheers,

JD

[caryjames]

Hi JD: Thanks for getting back to me. This time it wasn't me !

I tried opening a different file that I made in GIMP and it worked fine. I had copied the gradiant colour .jpg from the Next Limit tutorial on studio lighting, looks like the file must have been corrupt or too small to load.

Thanks for the tip on opening Mawwell render I was going into a render I was working on and then stopping the render and attempting to load the file.

Now I just have to figure out how to load the .mxi into the emitter .
Cary

[JDHill]

1. Material Editor > Options menu > New Emitter
2. click the emitter's node in the layers tree
3. switch 'Input' from 'Color and Luminance' to 'Image Emission Texture'
4. right-click the texture button to open the texture editor and show the emitter's texture
5. everything else works similar to any other texture

[caryjames]

Thanks JD I got it! I am still not chuffed about the results though. I am trying to render jewellery and just ordered some of the hdri's from hdri studio. I will use the idea of an .mxi added to an emitter for the future though.

2 hours later........

I just finished rendering a scene with an hdri!!!! Boy did it turn out better than just using straight emitters. Thanks again here is the image, any advice, tips, criticism is welcome!