Maxwell Render

When I use files made on other computers Maxwell can not find the "xx_Textures" folder that contains the SU textures or jpg's. When I export a file that is made with the same computer as the one I render with there is no problem. Even when I guide Studio to the folder it asks for Studio will not accept the folder and keeps asking for the _Textures folder.

I have a problem with it now using files made by another office i would like to render for them.

Can anyone help me. I assume its not possible to render SU- files made on other computers. We did not have this problem before with SU6 and previous plugins.

TX Francois

its actualy th same problem as
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=31304

For some reason it only happens on older files or files I get made on other computers.

I just lost todays job on this bug (500 euro).

Forgive me if I'm not understanding your predicament 100%. It sounds like what you need is some sort of external shared location where you can save all of your Maxwell materials. Here at work I've got a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device here on my desk that is set up as a totally separate shared drive (in my case it's the Z: drive). I locate all of my Maxwell materials there and link all of my SU textures to those materials. That way no matter what computer I render from it searches for the files in the appropriate location (Z:\Maxwell Materials\mxm files\...) and as long as it's connected to the network there aren't any issues.

It sounds like what's happening to you is that you've got your materials on your C: drive and when you go to another computer to render it's looking for those materials on it's own C: drive and not finding them. Which leads me to the workaround if you don't have a NAS or similar sort of system you could just copy all of your mxm files to an external hard drive and paste them (in the same file path) to your other computer. Or even better set up that external hard drive to have the same drive letter (say Q:) on both machines and associate all of your SU textures to the mxm files on that external hard drive (Q:\Maxwell Materials\mxm files\... for example). Then when you want to render on the other computer just bring your external hard drive over there and plug it in. As long as it's still drive Q: on that computer it should work just fine.

I've done all of these options at different points successfully.

-Brodie

Try using pack and go to the other machine as a workaround. I'd love Pavol to include the option for a pack and go straight from SU rather than the need to export > shut down MXCL > open Studio > open MXS file > export pack and go > close studio!

I generally pack and go from one machine to another so I can just keep working! Brodie's workflow seems a great option for this!

_________________
Move your arse and your mind will follow!

again, we see here one of the major flaws of MR/Su association: management of textures and lost links..

Its such a hassle to loose textures paths, i wish there was a way to lock a network path into each machine so when launching MR it would force it to look:
1. in its directory ( as autocad does with Xrefs and linked stuff) and if not found >
2. into assigned network path

etc...
I'm not fed up with the system, it is just not reliable and we are always facing issues with that paths, lost textures pb..grrr

N

_________________
http://www.playtimearchitecture.com
Architecture we make in Lyon, France
http://www.swoard.com
Extremecarving snowboards we produce in Switzerland

Hi Nils,
We are happy with Modo. Within this year we expect to drop Maxwell completely. The only major reason for it is the texture path horror with Maxwell. I still use Maxwell but will definitely not pay for any future updates.
Another problem is that the SU-Maxwell user group is very small and not expanding as far as I can see, I think the usergroup is even diminishing. I foresee NL dropping SU all together.

But look at this
http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/t ... x?id=34128
So don't despair, its easier to learn to model and render in Modo then it is to work around the bugs in Maxwell. And Modo also has a SU import plugin.

Hi Brodie,
thanks for your time to help out.

I also have worked through all the options to set texture paths in a more solid way. There always seems to be another problem floating up. One project all goes smooth and the next stalls completely due to a new bug, plugin update or SU update or who knows what problem. Best to solve this the hard way and accept the loss of time stuying MW and move on to something else.

Modo's pretty good - certainly for it's price! - but I have yet to see archviz rendered with Modo that I find convincing. If you've made your up mind about switching to another renderer, I'd check out both Vray for SU, and Indigo. The latter produces the sort of quality MW does, and comes with a gem of an SU plugin. The first has a steeper learning curve, but is capable of producing quality images at lightning speed.

Disappointing but understandable that users may turn away from SU / MR - I too have some stumblings with studio but still crank through some stuff with it! In a recent project infact I possibly rendered out about 20-30 tests of design options for two designs a day over about 8 separate days with clients by side! Not one had issues other than my forgetting to turn back to the correct camera of exporting a test with wrong layers on - all my fault!

I don't really ever have the texture link problems that aren't born from anything but my own errors! Mostly from dragging components in that have obselete MXM's.

I admit though that I don't use materials from my SU library - probably a bit sloppy that way! I model from primaries as components with an imported optimised JPG of my MXM material texture often with a link preassigned or relinked for material change - no automxm's!!!! If I create new geometry that needs a map I'll (lazy) drag in a component with the required map sample it paint and delete the imported component!

I do all testing on one machine (a dog) then pack and go finals to my laptop (another dog though 64 bit!) and I can leave that running while back to other work on the desktop! I haven't even got the darn things networked generally - I'm techno dum and can't get it sorted!

It is important to ensure those loose materials are cleaned up!

I don't know if anyone has said it but Studio has the option to set the path for where to look for textures! Not sure this may help your problem!

Plus I have to say I don't really see the reductions in user numbers from the SU/MR coupling - due to being so active on the SU forums and PPB I get a fair few and growing PM's and emails from people asking for advice! Wish sometimes I was getting paid!

I really do hope much gets sorted in or before V2!

One thing that really excites me about the future is Pavol's hope and belief he can substitute MXS file for SU placeholder on export! This will be a great tool for SU users if it happens! Fingers crossed!

_________________
Move your arse and your mind will follow!

You can make sure its all fine to render with a lot of study and preparations just to make the textures work. But these days you can get equal results without the hassle especially in Archviz.

well i also notice and increase in the SU/MR community...we are equally teaching training students at the office etc and from their reactions it seems they will go that way in the future too...

What we need as architects is ( this is why i started with MR, and still think its the best)
- quality of light ( undoubtful the best available )
- simplicity of use once parameted: the idea we have at the office is to make a texture once ( in mxm) then create its SU counterpart, then never ever touch it unless needed...we are trying to build a library of architectonic materials that can be used everytime with certain results..

I have no idea what Pavol can do to increase flow....or make it simplier, ahh yes one stuff would be great: create an automated SU library from all mxm's, with reduced reflectance jpg as image in SU ( reduced aka less than 200 k so library is not too heavy in SU interface)...Would that be possible?

Nils

_________________
http://www.playtimearchitecture.com
Architecture we make in Lyon, France
http://www.swoard.com
Extremecarving snowboards we produce in Switzerland

Well this is tricky - I can do it with "standard" MXM materials which are part of Maxwell installation but there is no way to do it with materials from mxmgallery

One more thing to mention here - I suspect very few people is using "Image Search Path" feature of the export options. The idea is that if you have MXMs with texture files located in different (and frequently not available) folders you will just copy them all to a single folder and point Image Search Path to that folder - MXCL will find all textures there and render without problems...

Pavol

_________________
Pavol Elias
Next Limit Team

Pavol
The idea would not be to do it from mxm gallery mxm's, but from mxm's the user has in its mxm folder..would be interesting to create automatically SU materials subfolders with same name as mxm folders and boom, just copy paste it into SU, keep it linked too so when making a new mxm it also exports an SU stuff etc...maybe its a bit sophisticated since you are mostly working on SU, and not on MR to SU....no idea..

as for the the export option you talk about, frankly u might be right...we'll test with a few different files to see if it works that way

thnx
Nils

_________________
http://www.playtimearchitecture.com
Architecture we make in Lyon, France
http://www.swoard.com
Extremecarving snowboards we produce in Switzerland