A cry for help

[rafaelsrocha]

Hey all,

 

I am currently working ona deadline on some experimental rendering work for a client that is due on monday.

 

i am having serious issues with texturing and mapping with Maxwell.

 

i am not 100% familiar with mapping and texturing in general and am on a fast track to learn it in order to get more approval do experiment with renderings in the office.

 

attached is a test render of the model i am working on.

 

i need to create a brick texture for the extrior walls and low wall by the stair way and a 12"x12" granite paver texture for the entry way.

 

as u can tell, the texture is not exactly aligned or to scale. and i am having a hard time solving this problem. does anyone have any insight on this matter that could help.

 

the second image is a wireframe of the revit model that show steh correct orientation and scale of the granite pavers.

 

the original model was created with Revit, brought into Viz06 and exported to render in studio at the moment. maxwell materials if VIZ just appear blacked out, so i found it easier to bring it into studio to render. is this the best idea?

 

materials in maxwell are a bit of a pain.

 

when i try to scale the jpg image mapped to the material i get the "not enough material" error.

 

if anyone has any quick tutorials on this issue. i would greatly appreciate it.

 

also, does anyone have a good grass metrial texture they woudl be willing to share, or give insight as how to create it?

 

cheers,

Rafael

[AJLynn]

Try doing the material mapping in Viz using UVW Map modifiers and turn on Display Map In Viewport for the color maps in your materials (set up as Maxwell Diffuse or something) then later you can edit the materials in Studio.

 

Or, since you have Viz, save youself the Maxwell related hassles by downloading Vray Free or using mental ray or Scanline.

[kippu]

point to note : deadlines and maxwell are not a healthy combination

[Devin Johnston]

I'm sure this is to late now but Maxwell materials won't show up in the viewport you must use a Max standard material to see your map. Once you can see it use UVW mapping to get it looking right and then apply the Maxwell material. As Kippu noted, don't ever start a project with a tight deadline with a new half functioning buggy piece of software, your bound to get burned.

[AJLynn]

Wait - I thought you could see the color map if you turned it on in the dialog for the bitmap. Is that broken now?

[Devin Johnston]

V1 can't display any maps if you’re using the MXM material, if you want to see your maps in the display you have to use a standard max material. It's a ridiculous bug that shouldn’t even exist, imagine thinking that it's totally ok to have an external material editor that can't display any textures in the display. I really don't know what they were thinking.

[rafaelsrocha]

a point noted indeed Kippu. after much turmoil, i have at least managed to give myslef a crash course on texturing with maxwell and managed to get a product. it wasn't as bad as i had made it sound.

 

that was the good news.

 

so i managed to get a few extra days. which worked out well. but earlier this afternoon, i attempted to set up a network farm. not sure why i figured it'd be fairly easy

 

but yes, i heart maxwell

 

not sure what the hell is going on. really buggy connections, some servers would disconnect at will, some woudl re-appear, some would crash out. (this is on 4 machines) sadly i threw in the towel after a few wasted hours and returned to a single machine.

 

only to find that MXLC crashes on me every time before the render begin. moved to machine 1, same thing, machine 2, same thing, machine 3...

 

none of of them will render. i assumed it must have been some licensing issues hung up due to the network render bit... power cycled all machines at once. nothing. i have no idea.

 

i emailed tech support a bit ago. hopefully they'll have a solution.

 

does this sound semi-nostalgic to anyone? i'm at a loss for words.

 

so much for the extra couple days. seriously, great output, but what good is it if you can't count on it.

 

i'm returning to MAX, and am very content with pulling an all nighter in the hopes of finishing on time.

 

thanks NextLimit,

xoxo

happy customer

[Bongo51]

next limit is quickly becoming the hyundai of the 3D software world. No disrespect to Hyundai, which after a horrible start in the north american market with such noteable duds as the 'pony' have finally found respect after TEN YEARS of improvements to their cars. These experiences like yours rafaelrocha will create a whole crop of anti-next limit users which will tell two friends, and so on until the fact that maxwell is buggy "bad", "stay away" become what maxwell is known for.

 

It may already be too late.... If next limit takes control and responsibility NOW and we get a version 1.1 with stability, complete functionality and tweaks to the interface enabling a bit of functionality for mere mortals... well, it may be ok. I have lost track of the number of BRILLIANT artists who have walked away from this product in utter disgust. It's hard too, since it's like an abusive relationship... you know it's bad, but when it's good... you forget.

 

So maxwell stays on everyone's mind and we all get going about Next Limit's mind boggling mishandling of this product. Perhaps it's not that we hate the product, or anything more complex then it's physically painful to watch something valueable being ground under the heel of corporate apathy.

 

It is very unfortunate you tried to do anything 'real' with maxwell, since it's really clear to those who bought it way back when... it's STILL a beta. So most of us still use it in the same way one might own an austin mini. You get a lot of attention driving around in a mini, but anyone buying a mini and being surprised when something falls off and strands you in the middle of nowhere, or something catches fire, or the hood goes on vacation while driving on the highway... well, it's not the mini's fault... don't get mad at the mini. Blame the guy who sold you the mini. Dude, if he told you they would start in the winter time or if you were in a hurry... well, he's the lair.

 

[Devin Johnston]

Rafael I sympathize with you about network rendering. I've been working with it since they released V1 and after much headache we have been able to get it up and running but it has serious limitations. Since were running it as a service which it isn't designed to do I can only render one cooperative scene at a time, then I have to restart the service on each machine. The manager will always crash on me after it finishes rendering and as a result it never merges the MXI's together, I have to do that manually. Forget about even trying to do animations, I think you would have to sell your sole to the devil before that would work.

[rafaelsrocha]

Thanks Maxer. i prefer keeping my soul for that matter. i ended up having to surgically remove maxwell from all machines and re-installing it to get it to work.

 

since i had one mishap, i didn't even bother trying a network job again. i just singled out one machine for 24 hours, and hope the output is decent.

 

in fact, a 10 hour test over night was rather pleasing, but it wasn't worth the headache for one bit. i am happy all in all with the final shot, but i've concluded that i'm gonna stick to MAX. maybe consider Brazil.

 

it sucks to have to admit you were wrong in the office. final output is nice, but i def ran over the budgeted hours by far. i'm in a small office, so i had to eat the hours i wasted and didn't even mention how late (early) i was up to get a result.

 

i find it sad. for the intensity NextLimit is marketing Maxwell, it should be a solid app. rather disappointing really, but maybe at Version 80 i'll reconsider it.