install luxmax in 3dsmax 2012

[klipanos]

Hello everybody!!!!

I'm trying to install luxmax unsuccessfully i tried everything , the manual way and the semi automate way still nothing. I copied the scripts in the directory mentioned, the exporter appears also i putted the lux camera, sun and materials and still nothing. I would like someone to link me a right tutorial to install it.

Thank you in advance!!!

[klipanos]

ok the luxmax appeared at the menu.... now how i render it or how i export it?

[patro]

you need to add lux materials... you need to add a lux light or one that is supported... you need to add camera max or lux... iirc it works also vith the perspective view.
open the exporter and set your setting for the scene.
give a look in the wiki there is the installation and first start manual.

[moure]

Hi Klipanos Τί κάνεις?
Are you sure you followed the steps correctly from the documentation here? http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6258
Also if you want you can come by our irc channel and tell me there whats your issue is so as to solve it quickly.

[klipanos]

I tried a few things... as how i understand it first you must add ONLY lux materials then you must press the icon image... then i must open the luxrender and the render starts?

About the lighting i only had to add a lux light and sun without changing any values?

[moure]

You can check the "Run Renderer" checkbox and if you have set the luxrender.exe directory correctly it will auto-launch the rendering. If you dont you have to run luxrender and open the scenename.lxs file which was created during export in the directory specified in the output tab of the exporter window. By default is C:/tmp

[klipanos]

Thank's Moure!!!!

I made my first render with some test materials the quality was good enough but the time worried me.... An exterior simple house scene had to take 2 hours and i rendered the same scene with Mental Ray and it just took 3 minutes.... Are you having that kind of time to finish a scene?..... or i have to read a lot of tutorials????

[patro]

sorry but this is a must
here we go again....
Luxrender is an unbiased render... as max user for sure you know fryrender, maxwell render.... well Luxrender is from the same class...
it's not like mentalray, vray etc.... all biased renders.
Luxrender is full spectral, real caustics and much more... you can't compare it with mentalray.... iirc you can compare it with iray.

[moure]

Klipanos as patro said above you cant compare Luxrender with mental ray or vray
Though if you start digging into luxrender settings and become a bit familiar with them im sure you can have better results much faster, for example in an exterior scene i would use as surface integrator --> path , if i had an opencl compatible gpu i would use hybrid too (to use cpu and gpu at the same time) and also depending on the complexity of the scene i would tweak the light depth, etc.

Also there are a lot of "tricks" about not using extreme material values (which take much longer to calculate) , etc.
You can check in the wiki some of the tutorials which though they are made for blender, im sure you will be able to apply them on 3ds max since all properties have the same names.

Finally pls be one of the few 3dsmax users that posts his work on the WIP thread where we can give you more specific advice, since we will be able to take a look at your scene

[klipanos]

Thank's moure!!!

I'll make the scene and i'll post it it's a chance to see what luxrender can do...