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    How to use emitters in Maxwell Standalone for Sketchup

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    • brodieB Offline
      brodie
      last edited by

      @markewi said:

      mmh, I still have trouble getting emitters to work. I turned the enviroment settings to none and either changed sketchup materials in the maxwell scene manager to have max watts etc. or used mxm files that suppose to have emitter lights but none of them will glow! The scene will render dark and you see the material but it will not be a light source. What am I doing wrong?

      What are your camera settings (what's the EV) and what are your emitter settings and what size is the emitter?

      If you have realistic emitter settings and the emitter isn't too big and you've got a realistic EV (for interior scenes with emitters you're usually looking at 7ish) you should be good.

      -Brodie

      steelblue http://www.steelbluellc.com

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      • jason_marantoJ Offline
        jason_maranto
        last edited by

        Also, Emitters are only going to emit in the direction of the normals -- which means the "front" of the polygon.

        So to recap, the short checklist for emitters working right is:

        1. Is the geometry to real-world scale?
        2. Is the camera exposure value realistic?
        3. Are the surface normals pointing in the direction you want light to emit?

        In addition to that there are also some limits to emitters as far as their use in components -- However, there are a number of emitter related changes availible in the the latest pre-release preview (2.6.3) on the Maxwell forums and I do recommend you download that and see if that fixes the issue.

        Best,
        Jason.

        I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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        • M Offline
          markewi
          last edited by

          Thanks to all! I'll give it a try.....

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          • CarlohC Offline
            Carloh
            last edited by

            are there MXM files with IES in the maxwell material gallery? this far i haven't figuered out how to create a spot light with the maxwell standalone sketchup plugin 😒

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            • jason_marantoJ Offline
              jason_maranto
              last edited by

              @carloh said:

              are there MXM files with IES in the maxwell material gallery? this far i haven't figuered out how to create a spot light with the maxwell standalone sketchup plugin 😒

              The newest version of the plugin supports creating IES materials directly within SketchUp (as an embedded character type material) -- I would re-download the plugin (from the Maxwell website) to get the new features. Also, I would check the Maxwell forum regularly for the latest pre-release version (which right now is 2.6.11) because often they will be newer than what is available from the Maxwell website: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=107

              Best,
              Jason.

              I create video tutorial series about several 2D & 3D graphics programs.

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              • CarlohC Offline
                Carloh
                last edited by

                thank you very much jason! wooohooo finally the possibility to put IES in my scenes!

                and i was this close to buying the full render suite just for IES lights πŸ˜‰

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                • D Offline
                  duVriez
                  last edited by

                  I'v been reading all the previous, but I'm still having problems with my lights. I'm using Sketchup pro 8 an the Maxwell plugin only. I added a test-render (attachment: test 7), in which I used no artificial light. Obviously, it needs some artificial light, but I've been trying emitters (on a rectangle) and an IES (on as spere) but it keeps on turning black. I've tried reversing the material, but nothing worked so far.

                  Stupid thing though: in a test-setup I made (attachment: test 2), the lighst do work (although I'm still struggling with the settings)

                  Please help!!!


                  Not fully rendered, because it was just a test.


                  Same here

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                  • N Offline
                    numerobis
                    last edited by

                    intensity too low? Maybe try with multilight.

                    Did you try bouth face orientations? Some time ago a had the problem that emitter faces got reversed on export.

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                    • S Offline
                      Sketchfield
                      last edited by

                      Hi, I am a newbie to Maxwell - I have the free Maxwell render plug-in for SU.

                      I have read all the above posts and I appear to have the same problem as many.

                      I am working in an outdoor scene.

                      I read the whole of the manual that is relevant to the above and followed the guidelines, but I'm not getting any light emission from geometrical objects created. I applied light emitters to each face of planar emitters and then made them a group but still no light. I tried various means: such as IES lights, customised emitters, daylight and 1000W lighting.

                      I have HDRI loaded as background and also in associated channels, reflectance, etc. Can this affect the light emitters? But I did disable the HDR at one point.

                      Many thanks in anticipation for help with this.

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                      • novenaN Offline
                        novena
                        last edited by

                        Sketchfield, check units and scale of the objects in your 3d model, make sure that you are working with real scale and the size of objects correspond with units used...
                        best
                        V

                        http://hdzarkitektur.wordpress.com/

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                        • S Offline
                          Sketchfield
                          last edited by

                          Thanks for the prompt response novena - the objects scales certainly need to be reviewed and revised. I will give it a go ... here's hoping!

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                          • S Offline
                            Sketchfield
                            last edited by

                            Interesting one - under materials texture I clicked 'Link to Application' instead of 'Texture' and hey presto! we have light. Link to application seems to give a more exact fit with the selected material, emitter, etc, but correct me if I'm wrong.

                            I also had to review a range of things like the exposure values, scale of objects and so on. Trial and error the order of the day! Thanks again.

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                            • novenaN Offline
                              novena
                              last edited by

                              good to hear that it's solved!!! πŸ˜„
                              interesting the issue with 'link to application' and 'texture' will give it a try myself
                              best
                              V

                              http://hdzarkitektur.wordpress.com/

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                              • S Offline
                                skippy_28
                                last edited by

                                Just wondering is anyone knows how to hide Emitters from the camera so you get the light but not the geometry that it is coming from.

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                                • neetsN Offline
                                  neets
                                  last edited by

                                  @skippy_28 said:

                                  Just wondering is anyone knows how to hide Emitters from the camera so you get the light but not the geometry that it is coming from.

                                  Hey, right click the component, you'll see a sub menu, go to Maxwell, another sub menu will appear, select 'from camera', there's a few other options in there too for invisibility, for example, if you want to illuminate an area and there are windows/mirrors and you don't want the actual source of light to be visible in the reflections, then you'd need to enable 'from reflections/refractions' too.

                                  Anita

                                  Interested to know more about me and my 3D Visualisation work? Then you want to click right here: http://anitabrowndesignstudio.com/

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