Maxwell Render doesn’t have virtual light system as you have in modo, so the plugin has to convert modo lights to Maxwell emitter objects.
Directional Light
The conversion method of the Directional Light items depends on whether you checked the Physical Sun check box or not. In case you use the Directional Light object as a modo sun, plugin uses the location, time information of the modo sun to convert it to sun information for Maxwell environments. In this case the light geometry is not exported.
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Plugin can simulate the Spread Angle value of the modo Directional Light items. On the following pictures you can see some samples.
Spot Light
Plugin exports Spot Light items as a combination of an emitter sphere object and a cone geometry with reflective material. It is a very simple lamp model, but it simulates modo Spot Light items very well.
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It is better to keep this value low, otherwise it will cost in render time. |
Other light types
Photometric Light
Photometric Light export is very straightforward. Maxwell Render V2 can use IES and Eulumdat files, so the plugin simply passes the IES or Eulumdat file to the emitter material file. The exporter creates a small sphere object and assigns the previously created emitter material to it.
Point Light
Point Lights are exported as small sphere geometries with emitter material.
Dome Light
Dome Lights are exported as huge sphere geometries with emitter material.
Cylinder Light
Cylinder Lights are exported as cylindrical geometries with emitter material.
Area Light
Area Lights are exported as rectangular or elliptical geometries (it depends on the Area Light Shape control) with emitter material.
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You can overwrite the automatically converted Light Material with an “*.mxm” file the same way as you can overwrite item materials (see sub-chapter Maxwell MXM item). |
Light Properties
Radiance multiplier
Radiance intensity multiplier for the exported Maxwell light. The exporter tries to export the lamp emission material with the right radiance value, but you can further tweak it with this parameter.
Light Source Offset
(For Directional Light items) this parameter controls how far the light source is in reality from the virtual light model. If you want to simulate the effect of a virtual sun object, the light should be really far from your scene center. The default (and recommended) distance is 150 km.
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In case physical Sun parameter is turned on, this parameter has no effect, because light will be exported as Maxwell Sun Light. |
Segments
(For Spot Light items) set the polygon number of the virtual light object. More polygons = better quality, but it can dramatically increase the render time!
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