Maxwell Render

I've mentioned this a few times elsewhere but I thought it was time to make it official.

I would like to see Maxwell support Substances in MXED/Studio.

These are already supported by 3DSMax and Maya and will be expanding to other packages soon.

This could be a very simple way to get many powerful procedural diffuse/specular/bump/normal/displacement/opacity map generating effects into Maxwell materials with very low development overhead.

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

Good wish, but I think it's not possible within near future.
Maxwell doesn't support current old Max shaders like tile, smoke, noise, ...
I'm not selfish, I just wish quick dirt only. That's all.

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many limits team
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+1000

Hi Jason, maybe this is a tool for you?

viewtopic.php?f=49&t=36614&p=341348#p341348

That would certainly be the tool for me if I used Max -- and the temptation just became a bit stronger thanks to you

You are so incredibly generous Aji, thank-you -- and I will make a point of linking your tool when I begin to post my free Substances here

I'm very envious of your scripting/coding skills

Best,
Jason.

_________________
My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

The pleasure is all mine Sir I really enjoy scripting these kind of tools because one, I use them myself!, two I enjoy the new challenges that takes my mind off the other "real" work. We all need a break once in a while

Anyway...
If you want, you can use Maxwell Studio, Maya or even Photoshop and just have this script (along with 3dsmax) in the background for only editing and exporting the procedural maps.
When this script along with 3dsmax exports the maps, you can actually use these exported maps with whatever app you like.

If you choose Photoshop you would prefer to use the maps as a smart object layers and use the "replace content" action each time the "Maxwell Procedurals" script exports from 3dsmax.

And if you know me you take this Photoshop script instead of using Photoshop Actions:

You can update a layer automatically in Photoshop by running the script after an "edit & export" from 3dsMax Maxwell Procedurals script
To install the "Maxwell Procedurals for Photoshop" script, just copy the "Maxwell Procedurals.jsx" into your "[photoshop root directory]\Presets\Scripts" folder.

Usage example:
*Open the exampleSetup.psd (included in the zip file)
*Select the "Empty Smart Object Layer"
*Run the script from: File->Scripts->Maxwell Procedurals
*Pick the mySubstanceImg......png file (included also in the zip file)
*Done!

Next time you run the script in Photoshop (after an edit & export in 3dsmax), you won't be asked to pick the updated file anymore.

As you see, you need to select a "Smart Object" layer type in order to update.
It is actually easy to create one, just create a simple empty layer, then chose under the menu Layer->Smart Objects->Convert to smart object and your done.

Now the fun is over, back to real work....

+111111

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Claudio 'Naxos' gallego, CG artist and teacher...
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"Circle is the fastest way from a point to itself"

After watching this video i have to add my vote for support of Substances in Maxwell with some sort of similar implementation and visual feedback using Fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmWFZiQUees

/ Magnus

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+1

and thanks for the video Magnus

-1 for me.

Substance Designer is a Game Pipeline Tool which helps cheating rich appearance onto LowRes Geometry for maximum Realtime Performance.
What's the point of tightly integrating this into Maxwell when we Producers of non Realtime Content can actually work with bitmap-based Data-Volume
that would make all Game Guys envious? And which Appearance-Wise kicks all Procedurals Asses?
I've seriously looked into that Product but I could not see how they revolutionized Procedural Texture Creation.
Cool for effective Game-Texturing maybe. But as an Alternative to Bitmaps for anything else that say Ceramic Tiles or Bricks?
And also their Bitmap-Based Tool "cooks with water" (Offset or Splat Method).

I guess some people will differ. But could you please point out what exactly makes the huge difference?

numerobis: Anytime

Polyxo: I can understand what you are saying, it makes sense. However.. the reason why this would be a good thing for Maxwell is because you can cut down on the amount of highresolution bitmaps required for a lot of scenes by using textures produced by this application. Having that range of powerful procedurals at your disposal will help us produce just about anything from brickwalls to alienskins and much more. This will leave much more memory for other important tasks to either the user or to Maxwell itself. It's mainly about flexibility for the user and application, it gives us more artistic power and freedom.

/ Magnus

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I am teaching this software right now and I promise I have had a much longer look than you... I fought very hard for the right to teach this software because I believe in it so much.

This is a tremendously useful software for Maxwell users and developers in so many ways it would be hard to list them all but here are a few options it opens up:

• Much stronger bitmap customization options than are currently provided by MXED (full Levels, HSL, Blur, etc. adjustments)
  
• Native support for vector graphics (in the form of SVG) which offers signifigant memory savings and highest quality graphics for things like lables (cans, boxes, bottles, etc.)
  
• Animateable textures which opens up new possibilities for animation in Maxwell
  
• Procedural textures which can allow for a high degree of variability from a single Maxwell material -- for instance if you are rendering a complex city scene you may be able to texture the whole city in 20 textures instead of 200

There will always be a place for highly customized hand-painted textures from apps like ZBrush and 3DCoat -- but this fills the gap for everything that isn't worth that attention while also giving the user alot of unique looking variability in a short timeframe.

It's true this was made for games, but it can be made to work very nicely for Maxwell to create materials that would be among the very best you can find on the Maxwell resources website.

If built into Maxwell directly accessing FIRE it would significantly reduce the time and effort to create Maxwell specific Substances... these would very likely not work well for game engines because of the very different engine properties at play. Don't judge it's possibilities based on what you've seen as it is not a good indicator of what is possible in Maxwell.

On the developer side it offers a tremendous boost to Maxwells capabilities that can save development time and energy which can be spent on more important things.

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

Thanks for your input guys. To me this is really more of a philosophical question:
Why should we Non Realtime-People use Crouches Game People are forced to use?
(Of course the makers of these "Crouches" as any good Businessmen would also sell the product to anyone else)

And if: What exactly makes this hightly expensive Procedural Generator so much more attractive than all (non-supported) Alternatives?
To me the greatest strength of the allegorithmic Toolset seem to be its Asset-Management Functionality which may
make brilliant sense in a great Game Production but will very likely be way over the top in a typical Visualization-Context.

I'd rather like to see an intelligent solution which offers HighEnd-Output geared towards Customers who output Stills.
Something which works based on subtle variation of large Bitmaps and offers a cool solution for currently hardly avoidable
pattern-repetion.

Maxwell isn't for stills anymore -- if you haven't noticed they have made big advancements towards the animation market... and the animation market and videos games are getting closer and closer every day.

Best,
Jason.

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My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1

BTW have you not noticed this?

http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/smart_tiles/overview

or this:

http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/stt/overview

Best,
Jason.

_________________
My Tutorial Video Series: Maxwell Render 2 - SketchUp to Maxwell Workflow - ZBrush 4 - Corel Painter 12 Advanced - Substance Designer 2.1