Maxwell Render

Hi there,

I noticed a few bugs in this new version :
-Drag and drop of materials on layers seems to be broken again.
Trying to assign the material from the layer panel does not work properly because all the Maxwell materials are not listed in Rhino's material browser...
-Real-time update of materials does not work
But is it supposed to work ? What's the point in an "update" button if it's supposed to update automatically ? I don't understand the logic here.
-"An error occured while reading the image file" when choosing heavy .PNG images for a material
Yet, the material preview shows that the texture has been used. What's wrong ?

That's all for now.

Cheers,

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Olivier

Thanks, going point-by-point:

1) Drag & drop: is the camera heads-up display disabled?
2) Layers assignment: is the plugin the current renderer? It sounds like it's not.
3) Real-time materials: works fine here, so I'll need more details, if you have any.
4) PNG problem: Microsoft .NET can't read your PNG; apparently Maxwell can.

The point of having an update button is that I cannot universally guarantee that things will stay in perfect synchronization.

_________________
Next Limit Team

Well :

1) Yes
2) It is
3) Well, the material does not update when I make changes to the parameters (values, new bitmap, etc...). The only way to refresh is... to press "Refresh preview"
"The point of having an update button is that I cannot universally guarantee that things will stay in perfect synchronization." Well you were right.
As a matter of fact, nothing is EVER synchronized automatically here.
4) Well... what should I do then ? It seems to work with smaller Png's... Should I start stomping on Bill Gate's door ?

Cheers,

--
Olivier

Firstly, what is your Rhino build date? If you're on V5 x64, I am on a dev-only build which is different from yours.

1. Don't know what to tell you at this point, since it's working fine here. As I say though, I think I'm on a different build.
2. Please provide the exact steps you are using. The material must have 'Plug-In' checked in Rhino's material-picking dialog; when that's the case, you would then click the 'Browse' button.
3. Ah, so we are talking about the material editor. I thought you were referring to Rhino viewport representation of materials. The purpose of having a refresh button in the material editor is that you can disable real-time update and refresh the preview manually. Since I can't reproduce this here, I have to ask a really dumb question: is real-time update enabled? The little button will be red instead of dark gray.
4. Sorry, it's outside of my realm. I can load some huge PNGs here, so I'd look at the possibility that there's something peculiar about the ones you're using.

_________________
Next Limit Team

Hi Jeremy,

1) Well, it works... until it doesn't work anymore.
2) Aha, got it, the tiny little "Plug-in" button hidden on the lower left corner of Rhino's material browser... great.
I tend to use the "drag-and-drop" workflow, so the subtleties of Rhino's material browser escape me.
3) I see. Well, I do have the shiny red button, so I suppose it should be auto-updating, right ?
If I understand the logic, the "Refresh Preview" button should be grayed out when "Real time preview" is active.
But again, since "Real time preview" doesn't seem to work properly, I'm happy I can use "Refresh Preview".
4) Ok, I'll tell Arroway that their Png's stink...

Cheers,

--
Olivier

I also notice render preview bugs like in this case where the material renders fine, but in the preview, looks like there is a bad path.
The material itself has no bad paths...



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Olivier

Hi Olivier,

1) Sorry, but I don't know what you mean here. Can you identify a particular point at which it ceases to work? Once I can reproduce an issue, it is generally no problem to get it solved.
2) Cool, so there is really no problem here, correct?
3) Yes, it should be auto-updating. Similar to point (1), if I can figure a way to get it to stop working here, it would probably be trivial to fix.
4) You could try sending me one of these files. So you know, I did change something here -- previously, the plugin probably would have crashed when the image failed to read.

On the screenshot, you are saying that the grass texture can be found by the plugin and by Maxwell, but not by Rhino, correct? You see there where Rhino is literally printing the path it can't find directly on the geometry -- where does it point to, and does the path exist?

_________________
Next Limit Team

1) At some point, I wanted to change the material of a layer, so dragged'n'dropped a new one, except it would not be taken into account.
Can't reproduce this right now.

2) Well there was a problem to begin with because I should never have to fiddle with Rhino's material editor, right ?

3) I guess you'd have to buy a plane ticket and come over here.
I mean, it just does not work at all. I can't think of anything funky that I am doing that can make this happen.

4) Sure

5) In fact, the path written all over the object is not the path defined in the material. Somehow, selecting the map in the material straightened things up.

Cheers,

--
Olivier

_________________
Next Limit Team

1) Yep
2) Yup
3) Seems to work OK at the office (Win 7 64) . At home (where it fails) , I have XP pro 32.
4) It's at home ; don't hesitate to send me a reminder if it takes too long
5) Something like that , yes, I suppose.

Cheers,

--
Olivier

_________________
Next Limit Team

drag'n'drop on layers:
is it possible that drag'n'drop does only work for the first layer you drag a material onto? if you want to use the same material for several layers, you have to select another material first ...

Not as far as I can tell; so far I have been unable to find a case in which it does not work.

_________________
Next Limit Team

Hi Jeremy,

I'm not too sure if I understand which hour is used in the "Location and Time" Panel.
From the help file, it looks like it's Greenwitch Mean Time, so one needs to convert it to local time, right ?
Anyway, the "PM" does not seem to appear anymore, making it quite confusing to set the proper time.
Wouldn't it be better to use the 24h format ?

Cheers,

--
Olivier

I can't seem to render anymore the majority of my scenes : I get a message stating "...<Path>.mxs cannot be read".

EDIT : silly me : I wasn't using the 2.5.1 Maxwell but the 2.5.0, and the Maxwell plugin was 2.5.12
Yet, it would be nice to have a specific error message in this particular case.

Cheers,

--
Olivier