[rivoli]

nope.

[Aldaryn]

Having the nothing emit energy? Well, that would be totally physically incorrect.

[Thomas An.]

Here is another wishlist item:
"Maxwell is too different right now and this is not good. Lets make it behave like Vray, Brazil, and Mental ray please for consistency. Many Thanks"

[Hervé]

I'd really love to be able to hide polys, yet affecting the scene... very very important...

[DELETED]

DELETED

[psanitra]

From my poin of view is very good that it`s different!
It`s time for revolution!after years of raytracing and global ilumination...
new king must rise!

[DELETED]

DELETED

[Becco_UK]

I too would like the ability to hide emitters in the render yet still have them outputting light.

A useful example is a sky dome using an HDRI map (or at present a converted HDRI map) used as an MXI in the emitter.

[Aldaryn]

Yes, to be serious, I think a "visible to camera" switch is quite important in any rendering engine. Mostly in production pipelines, or in visualization, this can be be invaluable.

ArtDikov, for now, try to put several emitters around your camera, or try to re arrange your scene. For emitters its quite important to be "visible", otherwise you can't have specular reflections from that particular emitter. (highlights)

[iandavis]

Again I'll raise a very, very important point.... Maxwell is NOT real life. Most animators and artists want to have the results that LOOK like real life while having the freedom from 'real life' constraints offered by a rendering system.

It's IMO silly to say something like that. Lights are solid in the real world, therefore they must also be in maxwell? PSHAW! Doing a photoshoot or a movie shoot is all about HIDING the equipment. Ask any real world director or photographer.

"photographer or director dude.. if I could click a toggle switch and make your camera, your crew and all your lights invisible... what do you think of that?"

they would say nothing because they would have fainted straight away from the sheer bliss of the idea.

No... the REAL WORLD looks for RESULTS. Not some idealogical care package. I for one Love Maxwell and pretty much everything it stands for, but if I cant use it as a real tool... I'll use something else. And as a software developer I'd be concerned about sticking to any ideological principle if it was going to cost me users.

And like it was mentioned... if you are a purist... then don't click "hide light"

and for some... please, this is not an angry post. I happen to be one of those photographers who has spent hundreds of hours hiding lights... or finding out my 'perfect' shot had the reflection of a light somewhere inappropriate... or not been able to light something correctly due to physical space constraints. Keep in mind... in the real world lights are not glowing objects and do not float in space... so in that respect it's already far from a real world simulator.
Ian.

[DELETED]

DELETED

[Hervé]

sweet Andrew, I was not talking bout emitters , but normal polys.... at least if we could choose single sided... or double sided as it is now... that would be wonder...

Try to picture this...

I am doing cutaway house (aka no roof houses)... so If I remove the roof, the illumination from let say the Maxwell sun will light like in normal life... that is like a house without its roof... but I want to be able to stop illumination to come from above.. (I just want it to come through the windows, like if the roof was still there...


and there is no other way... I don't think so...

BTW, my prime job was (is) camera operator... he he...

[mverta]

Hey guys -

As with most wisdom, I think we need to take a position of moderation.

As CG artists, up to this point for us it's all been about tricks. Maxwell allows us to work more in a real-world environnment, but many of us don't have any experience actually working with lights, C-Stands, problematic reflections, etc.

I think we should take the opportunity to really learn about, and use our "Accurate CG lights" in a real-world way (visible, for example), but we should also have the option to do physically impossible things (like make light sources invisible) for those times when it's appropriate or necessary. We just don't have a very good threshold for when "appropriate" is yet, because we don't have much real-world-like experience.

If you're used to having all sorts of invisible light-emitters in your scenes, you're going to have to relearn a bit about how the real world works - but your scenes will be the better for it, photorealisitically.

But we have the option, virtually, of being able to bend the rules of nature and physics, and there's no reason not to take advantage of it.

As always, I say, "Make it a checkbox."

_Mike

[tom]

herve, this is great! you're also allright when upside down

i think you want to tell us that you're in bat mode...

[Mihai]

or he's moved down unda', the land of agressive kangaroos