SECTION: PLUGINS - GENERAL

What does 'There is no MAXWELL_ROOT environment variable on this machine' mean?

 If you encounter this error when attempting to load the plugin, it means that either:

  • Maxwell Render is not installed on the machine. Download and install Maxwell Render to fix the problem.
  • Maxwell Render is incorrectly installed on the machine. Uninstall/re-install Maxwell Render to fix the problem.

    • A System Environment Variable is a value that is available to every application on your machine. As such, the MAXWELL_ROOT variable points to Maxwell's home directory, and provides the ability for any application that wishes to locate Maxwell to be able to do so. So, it is very important that it is correctly set when you install Maxwell. Usually this is no problem, but there are always cases where installation is not completely successful, and it is possible that you may need to manually create the variable. Note that you should proceed with caution when accessing Environment Variables. If you alter Environment Variables without having very specific reasons, you may encounter problems with the applications that rely on them.

    To view your System's Environment Variables, go to: Start > right-click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Environment variables:

    If Maxwell Render is installed correctly, there should be a MAXWELL_ROOT variable present, similar to the one shown. Note that the actual path may differ, depending on where Maxwell is installed on your machine.

    When I hit render from my application, Mxcl crashes.

    Make sure you don’t have any negative values applied to Maxwell parameters, such as color lights, intensities, etc. This is very common when you have animated parameters in a scene, and the animation curves take negative values.