Maxwell Render

Hi,

am I too stupid or is there a (new?) bug? Haven't really used Maxwell with C4D until now and I just want to drag a material from the MXED MXM Browser into my existing scene/over an existing material. I can't for the life of me figure out how to do that...

Here's what I do (I read the manual coming with the C4D plugin). I'm using C4D R13 Broadcast on a Mac, latest 2.7 plugin, Maxwell Studio 2.7 installed, too)

- I create a new Maxwell Material and assign it to some geometry.
- In the Material's attributes tab I click on "Material Editor", it opens.
- In the Material Editor I click the menu "MXM Options"->"Open MXED Browser"
- Browser opens. In the browser tab I select a material and drag it over the Material Editor's Material Preview image (as stated in the manual)
- Instead of "overwriting" the existing material a new empty C4D projects opens with the new material as single material.

Am I totally stupid or is this a bug? What's the usual way to apply different existing materials from the Material Browser to an existing geometry to see how they look like on your own geometry?

Thanks a lot!
Marco

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Mac Pro Nehalem 8 core | Lion 10.7.4 | Cinema4d R13 Broadcast | Maya 2011 | ZBrush 4 | Mudbox 2011 | Maxwell 2.6 | modo 601 | 3DCoat

It sounds like you are dropping the MXM onto a material thumbnail in Cinema's Material Manager window -- that won't work, because Cinema decides what happens there, and what it decides is to try to open the dropped MXM as a new "model", the same as if you had use File > Open and chosen that MXM file.

When the plugin docs say "material preview image" they are referring to one of two things: a) the preview image inside of the plugin's material editor, or b) the preview image in the Attribute Manager UI of the material. When you drop MXMs (or folders possibly containing MXMs) there, the MXMs are imported into the model as new Maxwell materials. The reason it works this way is that the plugin "owns" those parts of the UI, and can decide what to do when you drag/drop things there.

As to what you are trying to do, the best way of altering an existing material would be:

1. Open the plugin's material editor.
2. Select the desired material.
3. Click Options > Import MXM Data.

Alternatively, in step 3, you could click the browse button in the material's "Link to:" path, to import and link to an MXM file.

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Next Limit Team

Thanks a lot! This behaviour is pretty confusing but I guess you are restricted here by C4D's way of handling that stuff

Anyway - your 3 steps work

Thanks again
Marco

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Mac Pro Nehalem 8 core | Lion 10.7.4 | Cinema4d R13 Broadcast | Maya 2011 | ZBrush 4 | Mudbox 2011 | Maxwell 2.6 | modo 601 | 3DCoat

Thanks for asking this! I have had the same confusion for a long time.