How to use emitters in Maxwell Standalone for Sketchup
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Thanks for the suggestions.
I wanted to use a sphere because I assumed that this would be closer to how a real light bulb would emit light. I even thought of modeling a light bulb and having its surface being an emitter.
How can you do a spotlight with emitters?
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Well, just be careful with those bulb emitters. It's very tempting when you first get into using an unbiased renderer to not cheat at anything - but in the end everything (even photography) is some sort of a lie mixed with a little cheating. The important thing is to get the right look. If you're going to see the light bulb that's one thing - do what you've got to do. But you certainly don't want to go around using bulb emitters where it's hidden by a lampshade or up in a can light.
Take those two examples. For the lamp shade you won't see the bulb. You could save 90% of your emitter polygons by placing a "sphere" with only 12 sides rather than 60 and never know the difference. And if all that light is going through a shade with an SSS material? Forget about it. Lighting your scene with light going through SSS is bad news. It's doable if it's not a main light source in your scene and you've got some time to burn on rendering, but be careful with it.
Using a bulb in a can light, or in a parabolic reflector sort of situation as you'd need to be able to do a physically accurate spot light? Again, very dangerous. Light is light until it bounces off of a highly reflective surface at which point it becomes reflective caustics. Those can make for a nice realistic scene in the right circumstances. But if you try to light your scene with caustics (rather than direct light), it will take FOREVER to clear up the noise. I repeat: don't try lighting your scene with a bulb that's surrounded by a highly reflective surface. So if you're doing a can light, you'd probably want to just replace the bottom part with a circular emitter, for example.
One more thing to avoid. Emitters surrounded by glass. Same deal as before but now you're talking about refractive caustics which are just as bad. I THINK you can get away with AGS here as there's no refraction but you might use the Hide from GI option on the glass just in case.
I hope those tips help. If you want to share some screen shots of a specific scenario you're going for feel free to post some screen shots and we can give you some ideas on how to achieve that sort of emitter without getting too much un-needed noise.
As for how to do the spotlight - use an IES. I'm not sure if Maxwell comes with a great spot light IES off the top of my head but you can also go to Erco's website. Dig around and you'll find that each of their fixtures has an IES file you can download. They probably have one that'll fit your needs. When you apply an IES emitter to a sphere it will by default point down. I think that if you apply a map to the sphere - let's say a checkered map, associate that map with your maxwell emitter material, and turn the sphere into a group/component, then rotate that component, you can get the direction of the IES to change as well. It's been awhile but as I recall that's the method I've used.
One thing I do sometimes is use 2 emitters for a can light, for example (same could apply to a spot light). I'll use a circular emitter where the glass lens would normally be at in the can light because that's where you'd expect to see a bright light. I'll set that emitter power quite low so it doesn't contribute much light to the scene but shows up as a white spot indicating where the light is coming from. Then I'll place an IES emitter directly below that because I light the way it distributes the light more accurately, but I'll use the Hide from Camera option in Maxwell so you don't see the source but it provides the light. I can probably post a screen shot if that doesn't make sense.
-Brodie
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Thanks for the tips Brodie. So basically to create a spotlight I need IES but as Jason wrote in his post earlier Maxwell for SU doesn't support IES, only Maxwell Render Suite does.
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Oh darn, I didn't realize that. In that case your options are fairly limited. I've tried the hyper realistic route without much luck. If you can find out how an actual spotlight is created it'll work but I couldn't find a good resource. Depending on what you're doing, you could modify my last suggestion (using 2 emitters, one hidden and one visible). You could do a hidden circular emitter just above the floor (or wall) where you wanted to see the spotlight hit so it's light will pour out just on that space. Then point your visible light in that direction. It might fool the eye.
-Brodie
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It supports IES materials, but currently cannot make them -- however you can easily download the demo of the suite and use MXED that way.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
It supports IES materials, but currently cannot make them -- however you can easily download the demo of the suite and use MXED that way.
Best,
Jason.ooo, good tip Jason.
-Brodie
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Isn't the demo of the suite a limited time trial? Is there a way to have unlimited access to MXED without buying the full product?
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The demo is unlimited. As I recall the only limitation is that there's a resolution limit and I think there's a watermark. But you could used it to create materials forever. Hadn't thought of that before. That's pretty brilliant. Perhaps eventually NL will release just an MXED download or include it with Maxwell for SU.
-Brodie
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Brodie, on the download page it says that there is a 30 day limit. Is there a legitimate way around that?
http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/maxwell_render_suite/download
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Oh, sorry about that. Either they changed it or I was just wrong. That is unfortunate.
-Brodie
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No problem Brodie. Maybe Maxwell will revise their policy on this. I understand not including IES, but the ability to create spotlights shouldn't be considered an advanced feature reserved only for the Suite. If they don't include MXED then they should at least create some other feature that would allow the creation of spotlights.
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The reality is they are always adding new features and they know that embedded IES lights were a need for the stand-alone plugin so that is likely to appear soon.
There was no need for them before the stand-alone plugin came out because anybody who had Maxwell had MXED as well and could make any material they needed at any time... this wasn't a purposeful slight to stand-alone plugin users, simply an oversight. It's still a relatively new application (a little over a month old) so there are bound to be some hiccups.
I did notice you were commenting on VRay ability with exteriors -- which Maxwell handles quite well... I am curious are we talking hypotheticals here or do you have actual projects that you need to accomplish with these tools?
Best,
Jason. -
Yes, I did notice that the Standalone app was new. If they add a few missing features then I think it will be really competitive. If they could also figure out a way for quick preliminary renders, then it would have everything I need and I would certainly buy it!
I am not a pro in 3D (neither I am planning to be - I am a Web Developer). I have one project and that is my own house which I am currently designing. I have an architect, interior designer etc, and I could also hire somebody to do the 3D for me. But I am a bit of a perfectionist and I like to evaluate many different possibilities until I find the "perfect" one. So I learned Sketchup and I used the plans to make the house in 3D. Now we moved into the phase when we have to decide about specific materials and do the lighting plans, and Sketchup by itself is not very good for this. So basically I am looking for an app that will allow me to evaluate several different possibilities for materials, lighting and other aspects of the interior design.
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Well Maxwell is the render engine for perfectionists by perfectionists -- the reason for it's reputed lack of speed (which I think is blown way out of proportion) is because they refuse to compromise in any way from their ideals... Which they say right up front on their website.
There will be no biased engine added to Maxwell, FIRE is it for previews... any speed improvements will come from upgrading to more powerful hardware and possibly some code optimization.
I respect that approach since I take a very similar one to my work -- however everyone has different priorities and it's nice that there is an option to fit just about everyone.
Best,
Jason. -
I had the same problem, but I applyed the light material on both faces, but some times it did't work, so finally I figured out that after put the material in both faces, I had to group it ( the light source, using emitter material) and the problem solved. No more black faces on emitters.
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Speed might not be such a big issue once I upgrade my computer (i7 overclocked to about 4.5GHz) but not being able to add spotlights easily is an important issue. Do you know when they are planning to change this?
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There will be an IES material character in the next build.
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@jd hill said:
There will be an IES material character in the next build.
Great news! Any estimate about when the next build will be out? Are we talking about days, weeks or months?
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I don't mean to seem evasive, but as a matter of policy, I never answer that question with any precision. I plan on putting up some pre-release bits for customers pretty soon (the plan for this is on the order of days, not weeks), but I won't make any estimate on timing for a public release.
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I don't think there's any specific plan that's been made known. If you're really interested you could email Jeremy who's the creator of the plugin and very helpful. If he has anything in the works I'm sure he'd be happy to let you know.
-Brodie
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