Topics

16

[Max] I need help! / Should triplanar and UVW Randomiser be last in the chain?

« on: 2023-01-04, 14:19:32 »

When im playing around with lookdev i often end up with really long and complex material graphs in the SME and sometimes they feature the triplanar or the uvw randomiser nodes. When i go back and try to optimise them i often wonder what to do with those nodes.

It got me thinking if theres any 'order of operations' logic that says they should be the final node in a graph or whether its fine to have multiples in one graph?
Are there any internal calculations that would affect render efficiency when the nodes are further up the graph?

Thanks

17

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Max completely freezing when using the copy button in the VFB when running IR

« on: 2022-12-09, 14:23:28 »

Ive had this a few times recently whereby ill go to copy the vfb to send someone a render during an IR working session and max completely freezes up and never drops to the error reporter.

Im using Corona 8, Max 2022 and Windows 10.
The render isnt anything huge. This time its barely over 720p.

The steps i took before the crash were

1. Start IR
2. Leave IR running for a brief period to clean up the image (IR Window is .
4. Click the copy button. (The button does highlight)
5. Freeze, the Ctrl+C button stays highlighted. The interface for all windows in that max session are frozen including all window controls, title bars and maximise/minimise/close buttons. The smiley face stops spinning. The max windows do not show as 'not responding' but the windows spinning blue circle is displayed across all windows relating to that max session.

It looks like bloom and glare was being calculated at the time of copying but so far the session has been frozen for around 60 minutes and hasn't come back.

I have a minidump but given the size i cant upload it here. I'm not sure where you are taking uploads now for these?


Thanks

18

[Max] Resolved Bugs / [solved] CIE lightmix requires light mix toggle to display correct settings

« on: 2022-11-24, 10:36:27 »

Im certain this was reported years ago but im not sure its ever been dealt with.
When opening a CXR with CIE, The lightmix settings, whilst displayed in the UI correctly, arent displayed on the image correctly.
i.e. if the environment is disabled in the saved cxr, when opened it will display as disabled in the lighmix tab, but will display as enabled in the image.

The solution is to toggle any of the lightmix checkboxes and itll display correctly.
However a problem arises when you go to use the command line CIE to export layers to files. Theres no opportunity to toggle the lightmix settings so everything gets saved out with all of the lightmix layers enabled and at 1.0.


Not a huge problem but it would be good to see it fixed in a later version. Im sure the number of people using command line CIE is minimal.

19

[Max] I need help! / Weird adaptivity issues

« on: 2022-11-22, 16:03:57 »

Ive been running a render locally for about 3-4 hours. Some areas are completely clean. Others look like Theyve had single digit render passes. Theres a really obvious hard edge between these areas.
There doesnt appear to be a rhyme or reason for the specific areas within the noisy areas that are completely clean. Ive attached some snips of the render to show areas where the same object is both clean and extremely noisy.

The rest of the scene is fine and has had good low-noise renders after the same timeframe.

Any help would be appreciated.




EDIT: Apologies mods i put this in completely the wrong area. This should be in the standard Max Help section.

20

[Max] Feature Requests / UVW Randomizer requests

« on: 2022-11-16, 12:02:19 »

Could we get a decal mode for the UVW Randomizer?
Id also love to see a X/Y Flip option on there too.

Use cases are many but the one i have currently is randomising opacity maps over torn posters and being able to vary them with an X/Y Flip would be great.

21

[Max] Resolved Bugs / OSL 3D Noise in volume Mtl yields unexpected results

« on: 2022-10-23, 01:05:01 »

Ive been trying to get a slightly modulating density to the global volume material and ive plugged the 3d noise OSL map into the Absorption and Scatter inputs of a Volume Mtl.
Ive decreased the Lacunarity to demonstrate the issue more intensely.

Im getting a strange effect where the ground plane behind the cone of light is displaying mapped with the OSL map despite the plane actually just having a default grey material applied.You can also see that the 2 lighting rig poles in the top right (which is behind the light) is also showing an odd effect.
You can see there is a difference in noise size too.

I cant imagine this is the intended behaviour? It doesnt seem to get any better with more passes.
This seems to be isolated to the global volume material. If the Volume Mtl is applied to a box the effect is as intended.

Max 2022 & Corona 8

22

[Max] Feature Requests / Replace base diffuse checkbox for CoronaDecal

« on: 2022-08-17, 14:29:53 »

Ive ran across a couple of instances where i want to add displacement or bump to a surface with a decal but i dont want it to affect the diffuse.
Is it possible to get some further checkboxes to filter out various elements, similar to the "replace base bump" button.

23

[Max] Feature Requests / Decal modifier?

« on: 2022-05-26, 13:23:15 »

I don't know how big the use case would be but it would be useful in some situations to have a decal placement modifier to dictate where in the stack any decals applied to the object take place.

Ive ran across a couple of situations where ive wanted to apply decals to the object prior to animation or geometry-altering modifiers and had to revert to using layered materials because the decal is only applied to the top of the stack.

One example could be applying decals to objects prior to applying physics simulations like cloth sims or destruction.

Thanks!

24

[Max] Feature Requests / Adjust target noise level, total passes or render time limits during a render.

« on: 2022-03-30, 00:59:12 »

Sometimes ive found a situation where ive started a render and want to adjust the noise limit. Usually when a scene cleans up faster than expected but dont want to stop the render.
Is there any reason why we couldnt adjust the limits on the fly during the rendering process in the VFB?

25

[Max] Bug Reporting / Multimap not randomising on some objects

« on: 2022-02-07, 18:32:56 »

In corona 7 im experiencing some issue with Multimap whereby it is set to randomise by instance across 20 different objects with ten different bitmaps but after manually changing the seed around 40 times without being able to find a single iteration where a bank of six objects next to each other, werent having the same map applied, i gave up and ended up manually assigning material IDs.

Ive not noticed this before in previous versions. Has anyone else seen similar behaviour?

26

[Max] I need help! / Iridescent/Metallic glass shader

« on: 2021-11-22, 18:16:39 »

Has anyone got any thoughts on how to make a glass shader similar to the attached image?
Im thinking theres some mix of glass, thinfilm and maybe a metal shader but im struggling to find the right balance or create something physically plausible.
I believe its glass but its been coated inside with a metal of some sort.

27

[Max] I need help! / Does motion blur work ith UV coordinates?

« on: 2021-11-10, 10:39:29 »

Im trying to achieve some motion blur on an object with animated texture coordinates but so far im not able to get it working. Does corona's motion blur work with changes in uv coordinate or does it have to be either geometry motion or camera motion?

28

[Max] Feature Requests / Merging lightmix elements from file should maintain object references

« on: 2021-10-20, 22:29:03 »

When merging lightmix layers from a file, if the lights exist in the new file, the lightmix layers should pick them up.
Ive just merged a large file to a new file when trying to troubleshoot some corona specific issues and having to set up 20+ lightmix layers again from scratch is a major annoyance when all of the objects associated with the merged render elements are still in the scene.

29

[Max] Feature Requests / Generate lightmix by layer

« on: 2021-09-22, 09:42:40 »

It would be great if there was an option to generate lightmix layers by scene layer. I'm sure many of us use layers to organise our scenes and being able to auto-generate this way would save me alot of time in larger projects.

30

[Max] I need help! / Any way to randomise gamma within texture tiling?

« on: 2021-09-14, 11:23:31 »

I want to add a bit pf patchy variation across a fabric surface to simulate panels stitched together. Im looking for a way either with corona or some OSL shaders that would let me randomise the gamma of a single tiling bitmap so every time it tiles its slightly different. Has anyone got any ideas on how this might be achieved?