Maxwell Render

Hi

1.
I've been trying to add a quicktime movie as a material through C4D plugin for maxwell.
I haven't found out how, although adding it to a C4D standard material and then rendering it through Maxwell seems to work - is there a better way anyone know of?

2.
Once the animated texture is applied to the surface it seems to be working as when FIRE is used to preview the frame is rolls through to the correct frame of the animated texture to correspond to the C4D timeline. However when the full animation is exported to render, it doesn't select the corresponding frame, the angle is all wrong and looks weird. It seems the projection is wrong and doesn't remember the settings i just gave it

Hope this makes sense, it anyone can help, it would be most appreciated.

Incase it helps i want to render in some 3d text to a piece of live footage that has been motion-matched.
Thanks
Hammondchips

1. Yes, this is currently the only way to use a QT movie. We ask the Cinema shader to write a .tga for the frame, and Maxwell renders using that .tga.

2. Sorry, but I don't quite understand the description of the problem. Testing here, everything appears to be working as expected. You say it "doesn't select the corresponding frame" -- do you mean that at frame X on the Cinema timeline, Maxwell renders using a different frame in the .mov than Cinema does?

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Next Limit Team

Hi
Thanks for the reply

1. fine this is as expected
2. Yes as you described. Weirdly when scrubbing through the timeline and updating FIRE it updates to the correct frame, but when i send the 100 frame animation to render it does look right.

When i've rendered out the whole sequence and play it back, the quicktime footage does move frame by frame but not as it should do?
I'm sure it's something that just needs ticking but i can't work it out!
Thanks in advance for your help.
Hamondchips

Probably best to first confirm that it can be made to work correctly, as that may help figure out why it's not working here. So, you might download the sample_sorenson.mov test file from Apple, drop it into a material in a fresh model, and see if you can perform a successful export. Starting from scratch may help show us where things are going wrong.

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Next Limit Team

Hi
So i think i'm getting a better idea of what is happening.

Maxwell plugin is correctly converting my quicktime movie into the TGA material files for each frame. What is seems to be not doing is updating the
'projection' 'FRONTAL' mode each time.

Using FIRE as a test bed

Render frame1 - all fine
Scroll to frame 50 - FIRE auto-updates the image but the background image is wrong
Click UPDATE in FIRE
FIRE renders the correct frame with the correct projection.

I've used the movie you gave me to try a test and the same occurred.
Does this shed any light
Many thanks
Hammondchips

Yes, that helps; it sounds like it's really not a .mov problem, and is more about mapping. Could you send me (jeremy at nextlimit dotcom) the relevant portion of your Cinema file, so I can check where the UVs for the object are supposed to be coming from, and what is preventing them from being calculated correctly? Also, which version of Cinema and the plugin are you using, and on which OS?

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Next Limit Team

Email coming over now
thanks
Hammondchips

Thanks for sending. I see the problem, but I am not sure yet what causes it. Could you confirm that it works more as you are expecting if you use a Camera mapping, rather than a Frontal one? Not sure if that would work for you.

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Next Limit Team

Hi
Unfortunately using the Camera mapping results in no images at all. The only one that works is 'Frontal'!!
Anything else i can try?
Thanks
Hammondchips

Did you link your camera to the texture tag?

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Next Limit Team

Erm, no
Can you give me a tip on how i can do that?
thanks

If you look a couple of rows below the Texture Tag's Projection dropdown, you should find a 'Camera' link. This is only shown when the Texture Tag is using the Camera Mapping Projection -- you just need to drag your Camera and drop it on this link.

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Next Limit Team

Hi
So that seem to have worked - running a final test now, but things are looking good!

So linking the camera to the Camera Mapping of the texture cracked it. I had to merge the file with a new scene a couple of times as it seemed to get in a muddle with the settings and the mapping started to get mis-aligned. Anyway sorted now.

Thank you everso much - I hope this post helps others too!