Maxwell Render

I'm struggling to get my rendering aligned with my backdrop.

Its a street scene and I can align my 3d model with the street scene image which has been placed into the Solidworks window ( INSERT>PICTURE).

I have created a mxi from the street scene and used this as an 'image based' illumination in Maxwell.

However each time I render, the 3d model and street scene go slightly out of alignment.

I have used both the solidworks 'Camera' and without a 'Camera' and a mis match happens in both.

Anyone have the definitive way to do it?

Jonathan

sort of worked out something.

Make your tiff image - the one that goes into the sw background the same pixel size and ratio as the Viewport in Maxwell say 1074 x791. Then resize your SW window until the 'dashed lines' of the maxwell viewport are just on the edge of the visible area in SW ( don't foget to remove any SW menus on the left side ans shrink your history tree to the left).

Then using your mouse and the usual sw rotion , enlarge, pan etc icons, reposition the model in the street scheme with the SW camera set to 'unlocked'.

This way I have manged to get things aligned with the mxi when used as a background image.

Not very elegant but it works.

JD - is this sort of thing easy to implement as an option in future plugins?

Jonathan

Could you say what version of SW you're using, because I can't get it to load any .tif that I have here; SW just gives me an 'error reading file' dialog for every one I try. What I can get it to do is to set an image as the persistent background using Options > Colors > Viewport Background > Image File, and it appears (though I have not looked into it yet) that I can do also this via the API. As you indicated, in order for that to work, you would have to make sure that the physical aspect ratio of the viewport matched that of the camera. I'll let you know if I can get anywhere with this approach, code-wise.

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Next Limit Team

x64 sw 2009 sp 3.0

I put the tiff image in the SW model window using INSERT>PICTURE.


Jonathan

Yes, that's what I was doing, also 2009 SP3.0 x64 here. Finally, I was able to create a .tif it would open by rendering with Cinema 4D's renderer. I don't really understand why the Insert > Picture function is limited to .tif, while the other method accepts several types. As I say though, I'll check into the code and see what the plugin can do to automate some of this.

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Next Limit Team

I don't normally have tiff files lying about. I usually convert jpgs in photoshop. In the tiff options I leave the compression at none and byte order as Windows not MAC.

Jonathan