Maxwell Render

I've recently noticed that there is a problem with the override material, but as far as I can tell, the problem is in the render engine. Just let me know if you confirm the following or not:

1. exporting with override specified and enabled works
2. enabling has no effect, if it was disabled at export
3. switching it on/off or changing the MXM has no effect

I haven't heard the suggestion for skipping glass materials (where do you draw the line?), but emitters should automatically be excluded (that is, not overridden) inside the engine. I confirm that it works that way here, anyway.


Seems like a bug to me -- I assume that override should override.


This is changing; it (Hide-from-x and UV Override, too) will operate by inheritance in the future.

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Next Limit Team

I can confirm all of those.

Lights, indeed, aren't affected by material override - I'm not sure why I thought otherwise.

I see what you're saying about the glass. It would be difficult to implement. The best way I could think of would be a material override override (o.O) that would happen on the material level where you could check a box as you would with Matte or Shadow. But that's dealing with the engine of course and not the plugin.

-Brodie

Thanks for confirming. I understand what you mean with Material override override; how about a flag something along the lines of 'Ignore Material Override'?

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Next Limit Team

Precisely! That would be much better wording

-Brodie

Well, it's off to the Wish List with you, then.

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Next Limit Team

Exactly!

This might be too much, but I will throw it out there:
There could also be a check box that if enabled, the new mxm would have the su texture as a base (0 deg). The reason I suggest this, is because I often just paint my su materials on, but then if they require more fine running, I "carry them" to mxm mode.

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-Gui

[ http://www.gtalarico.com ]

How about, instead of that, there were a 'convert to mxm' button in the embedded side of the material, which would ask you for a file path, write the material to mxm, and switch it to mxm mode?

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Next Limit Team

Oh yes, please!
This wish goes way back.

/Stefan

this would be nice!

Perfect!

You are awesome JD.

By the way, I have to complement you. Small bugs aside, the 2.5.15 is amazing.
Imho it is very stable and well designed. Thanks to the new plugin (remember the very first one?) My SU <> Maxwell workflow is almost seamless.

Cheers to you!

Gui

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-Gui

[ http://www.gtalarico.com ]

Ok, maybe I have already exceeded my plugin request quota, but let's see if anyone else would like this:

I often work on my SU models on two different computers (I keep model, mxm, and textures on my dropbox),
unfortunately, everytime I switch computers, MXM links get broken because the absolute path it's not the same.

Here some thoughts on this:
1. Is there a way to force the mxm path to be relative to .skp instead of absolute?
2. I often have to click on each material to make sure the mxm link is ok. Would it be possible to add an Option where warning pops up at export or fire time saying "missing mxm file".
(sometimes links is broken and mxm gets replaced by default and I only realize that when renderings starts to clear up).

What do you think?

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-Gui

[ http://www.gtalarico.com ]

Not relative going upwards, but the plugin currently does search for missing .mxms in both the folder where the .skp is located, and a /textures folder at that location, if one exists. If you do not wish to locate .mxms with the .skps which use them, then you could use Options > Search Paths to let the plugin know of places where it should search for missing files.


Possible, but annoying, imho. Let me see what I can do here...check back later...

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Next Limit Team

Tks for the info.
I guess one of my problems is because I keep my textures and mxms in a folder called mxm; the "textures" folder gets filled with many variations of the same textures (cause by UV manipulation in SU).

If the "depth" of the search could be set, I could just choose my project folder inside dropbox and I would be all set.
(I think the Rhino plugin lets you choose the depth for the search path....)

I agree the warnings could be annoying.
Maybe it could be a non-default option next to search paths: Show Warning if MXM is missing?

Thanks!

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-Gui

[ http://www.gtalarico.com ]

The search path functionality has been entirely rewritten for the next version, and will include a search depth parameter. So, it will not matter if you put your files in /mxm, /textures, or /resources/mxm/whatever, provided that the directory can be found using the search depth you've specified.

On the second suggestion, I'm leery of adding options unless there is absolutely no way around doing so; the Rhino plugin, for example, has ended up with far too many options by now, in my opinion. So I try to think about it a bit and see if there is another approach. Just as a test of that, try unzipping the following ruby file into your /plugins directory:


It should give you a new toolbar with a single button, which writes a little web page and shows it in a web dialog. The web page shows a list of your materials, and the names & directories where their MXM files are located, if they're using MXM mode. You should be able to click on hyperlinks in the page to either edit the MXM files, or open the containing directories. If either the MXM file, or its directory are missing, that will be indicated. I can see expanding on this in the future, for example, adding a function for changing the MXM paths.

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Next Limit Team

I am loving this!
Most definitely a great tool (I personally don't mind having as a separate tool).
One of the strengths of the SU environment, is the "add as you need" concept.

The edit path would be great. It would be essentially the same call as clicking the folder/browse icon for the that material in the mxm mode right?
(Open a dialog to chose an mxm)

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-Gui

[ http://www.gtalarico.com ]