Daniel

The first computer I used probably was an robotron KC 85 or 87 in school. But the first family computer was actually an ATARI 130 XE (it had 128 kB RAM) with a Datasette (so software was loaded/saved sloooooow from/to normal audio tapes) in the late 80s. Image copyright: Multicherry [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL ("]www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons I played with that thing a lot but it was also the one I wrote my first lines of software on using BASIC. It was followed years later by a real PC with an i386 DX-40 processor and I still remember buying that math co-processor from a classmate when I got into rendering with POVRay. Then there was this copy of 3D-Studio DOS R4 ... and here I am writing plug-ins for 3ds max 2013 and need to get a new PC once again because 3 GB of RAM aren't cutting it anymore to write PSB files above 2 GB :-) Daniel Schmidt, Developer of psd-manager

I would like to have a look at the scene that shows that error if possible. Please send it to: mail(at)daniel-schmidt.biz if you still have it around. (You can delete all objects if it still produces the error then.) Thank you, Daniel Schmidt

Is this an error message from 3ds max or psd-manager (check the error message window title bar)? Please post the complete message. Tip: You can usually use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C to copy the contents of an error mesage dialog. Could it be that one of your render output filenames is not setup properly? Try setting your main 3ds max render output path to something else, so that all your render elements paths are also updated automatically in turn. If psd-manager is not used in the scene, then psd-manager has nothing to do with it. If psd-manager is used in the scene try deavtivating the effect and see if you still get the error message. Best Regards, Daniel Schmidt - psd-manager Developer

You can do this in the new psd-manager 3.0 now without any scripting. http://www.cebas.com/index.php?pid=news_next&nid=460

There is a "Don't anti-alias gainst background" option in the Customize > Preferences dialog of 3ds Max (Rendering Tab). What exactly do you need this for, if I may ask ? Rendering against a black background is just fine for compositing usually. (You only need to understand what pre-multiplied Alpha means)

Here is what the psd-manager help file says about this: So this is a general 3ds-max limitation that you are experiencing that shows up in Matte render elements and also in psd-manager. A workaround is to achieve the desired result is to modify the materials in the scene (apply a total black material to all objects, a white self-illuminated material to objects that should be visible, and a 100% reflective material to the miror) and then render the scene wih all lights turned off. Daniel

This file belongs to 3ds max. It is a core plug-in. Daniel

I don't think there is anything wrong with your installation. Both screenshots of the shadow render element look wrong to me (could be a VIZ bug or limitation). I would recommend to start with a fresh scene to get yourself familiar with the way render elements work in VIZ. Just start with an empty scene and put a simple sphere in it. Apply a material that produces a strong highlight. Add a plane and a shadowcasting spotlight. Then experiment a bit with the shadow render element (Diffuse and Specular too). If that works you can start to figure out what is different in your original scene and makes the shadow render element fail. Possible problem sources: - high render resolution (try a much smaller resolution, just in case you are running out of memory) - exposure control (try disabling if used) - lights used in the scene (try using another light type, shadow type) - material type used (some materials don't support render elements properly, try a standard material instead) Render Elements and Plugins: There are very few plug-ins that come with their own additional render element types that are specific to the prodcuts features(e.g. Liquid+, finalToon, finalRender). For general assistance with render elements the commercial plug-in psd-manager allows to output the render elemnts as a PSD file. It takes out a bit of the hassle to get all the render elements into Photoshop, order them, applying the correct blending modes, taking care of premultiplied alpha... Another usefull part of psd-manager is that it can produce a lot of selections for the objects and materials in one go too. The videos on the site may be even interesting if you don' care about the plug-in itself. Daniel

The psd-manager license is not a problem if you have both PCs in a network. You can just install psd-manager on the new machine and tell it to get its license from your old machine (This way psd-manager will get your psd-manager license from the old machine when it needs it.). You don't even have to install the licensing software on the new machine in this case. Network rendering of PSD files doesn't require a psd-manager license anyway. Daniel

About 2 or 3 weeks ago and there was no demo version planned, but because of the many requests like yours and the fact that the same demo will also work with 3ds max 7 we decided to put a new demo together last week. Of course there should always be enough time for a thank you, even if customer support is bussy answering emails from all around the world - so take it from me, Thank you Tim. Please come over to the cebas forums and let's share some techniques and ideas for the next version, or tell me about a bug if you find one. Thanks again Tim and see you there, Daniel

Hi Elliot. You get free support on the Cebas forums from the developers and other users. So, why haven't I seen you on the psd-manger support forums ? Come over there Elliot and let me help you get up to speed with your psd-manager. You can register for the public cebas forums here (use your full name as user name): http://www.cebas.com/forums/cebas/profile.php?mode=register The authorization system Cebas uses now allows you to modify your system except the network card as often as you want without requiring a new license each time. You seem to change your system fairly often so it might be a good idea to use a specific machine that changes less frequently as a license server. Your psd-manager developer, Daniel

The layers psd-manager produces are perfect antialiased ! There is no antialiasing problem. The reason why you can look a little bit through the layers where they touch is just that there is no way to create two Photoshop layers that touch each other (so they don't overlap) and still have a clean antialiased edge. Put a layer on another background and the edges are still clean and sharp. So the antialiasing is perfect. Once you modify the edges of the layer (e.g. Layer > Matting > Defringe) this isn't possible anymore. So depending on what you want to achieve with psd-manager, you may want to apply this Photoshop command afterwards or not. The layers AF Export channels produces are not antialiased. So it is no wonder that there are no gaps. Using psd-manager and putting the "render" layer below all other layers will still give you better results if you make changes to individual objects. psd-manager 1.1.1 demo version for 3ds max 6/ VIZ 4 / 2005 Daniel

Hehe sometimes things are fixed that easy. Daniel

Maybe Brazil is using it's own framebuffer to show the image and somehow the 3ds max one got turned off. Make sure you have enabled the option for the "Rendered Image Window" (or Show in VFB like it is called in older 3ds max and VIZ versions). The little option should be somewhere below the filename setting for your rendered image. Daniel

If you really want to get an overview which plugins are out there than look there. http://www.maxplugins.de Daniel