LuxmaxScript - Feature request and bugs.

[hedphelym]

Today I wrote a quick "preview material" feature.
It was made as a test to see how easy it was without rewriting the whole exporter.

This is what it does:

Writes out a lxs file that has the geometry etc in scripts folder.
writes out a lxm that contains the material
includes the lxm in the lxs file.
spawns luxconsole, renders image, then opens image in preview box.

It preview the current selected material in material editor..
This might be a bit different from other suggestions (preview in the material itself..).

At least this is how it is right now.

It needs a bit more work before I release (just some basic stuff that needs to be in place).
also all preview settings is hardcoded right now.. this will be exposed in the material preview rollout.

here's some samples:

[Abel]

As LuxMax has seen some nice progress lately, it would be nice to complement it with some basic usage instructions. As I don't use 3ds Max myself, I can't be of much help except for proof reading, so this is why I'm asking for some contributions here.

The current level of documentation is zero, so it shouldn't be too hard to improve things. So whoever feels like they know more than a clueless new user, please have a go at editing http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxMax_Manual.

[patro]

well.. isn't that bad

well now take my words just as always as thinking loud. it's just an idea.

other exporter that use the console renderer to preview the mat... store the image from the mat preview in a temp or selected folder..
so to have it each time you reopen max or change scene.

you can render the preview like you did... but could it be possible to mirror all in the material editor?
I mean that the preview still works from inside luxmaxscript window.... but you manage all from material editor.
anyway looks good!

[moure]

"for all newbies about repositories like myself"

If you are on windows you can download tortoiseHg and install
Then right click on windows explorer inside the directory you want to clone the Luxmax respository
-->tortoisehg->clone
then enter the address "https://bitbucket.org/luxrender/luxmax" and after a while you have the latest LuxMax directories in your hard drive.

Everytime you want to update just right click on the same directory and -->tortoiseHg-->Update and it updates automatically all the changed files.


Stig great work with the preview,Luxmax is looking more and more like luxblend (which is a good thing)
About the preview,wouldnt it be possible to add the preview not in the exporter but as a tab inside each material?im not into maxscript but i dont think it would be much of a work considering what have you done here.
Anyway i cant wait to check it out.

[hedphelym]

About the preview,wouldnt it be possible to add the preview not in the exporter but as a tab inside each material?im not into maxscript but i dont think it would be much of a work considering what have you done here.

I also thought about this yesterday, this first version is "just to make it work".
I think it can be easily included into the material rollouts, but I need to do some research \ testing on this before I can confirm.

[moure]

Ok stig, whatever else you need regarding testing and reporting you can ask.
When will this version be ready for downloading?

[hedphelym]

As soon as it's robust and failsafe.
I will upload it withing a couple of days (maybe tonight if my GF allows me to sit for a couple of hours ).
This first will be like shown above, then we can work on improving. At least it's much better then having no preview at all.

It also speeds up my shader development because I can easily test new shaders while developing without exporting large scenes and so on all the time.

[patro]

what about to only mirror the preview stuff in the material editor?

[moure]

hey everybody!
As i had a couple of hours free this morning i looked a bit at your code stig and i managed to figure out the general idea of how you have implemented everything.
by playing with it a bit i managed to fix the emission texture so as to work with blackbody map in the matte material.
I think i did a good start as that was the first time i looked at maxscript.ill emplement it also to other materials.when its complete ill send you the code to check it out as with your experiense you can check it easily for flaws and release it.
Also stig your code is amazingly sorted and very straight forward.Even for me who i havent programmed anything for 5 years was easy to undertand.Great Job!
take a look!render straight from luxmax:

[patro]

by playing with it a bit i managed to fix the emission texture so as to work with blackbody map in the matte material.

great news moure
by the way could you try to render the same material.... with an image in emission slot..... cause in luxblend the emissive texture has as base the blackbody texture. or an texturizable blackbody texture... I don't remember right and I can't look in to it at moment.