form•Z | Materials | Translate Shaded

Translate Shaded Preview: 6” sphere, 6” cylinder, 6” cube, or 6” plane

Translate Shaded

Selecting this option will instruct the plugin to automatically translate the selected Shaded material into a Maxwell material. The resulting MXM will be embedded into the MXS scene file (i.e., it will not be saved separately) upon rendering.

To understand how the translation is performed, it is useful to first understand how Maxwell materials are defined. We recommend reading the chapter Maxwell Materials before continuing with the section below.

If the Shaded material contains any embedded textures that do not have a valid reference on disk they will be automatically saved as PNG images. (This will be the case if the texture is a swatch generated by another renderer, or if an image file was been moved since it was first linked to the form•Z material.)

By design, the Translate Shaded option is as simple as possible; it intentionally hides the complex details of MXM creation from the end user. It has been designed to provide good materials quickly and easily, to meet a demanding production schedule. Translate shaded offers a single control: Material hint, which controls how the Shaded material will be interpreted.

• Material Hint [Realistic Match, Water, Rubber, Anodized Aluminum, etc.]: Guides the plugin when interpreting the simple 'Shaded' material representation.
• Color Map:
  
  • Brightness, etc.: Image controls for the color 'texture' bitmap used in the shaded renderer. For images with RGB values greater that 220, we recommend setting Clamp Max to 220, or reducing brightness by 10%.
  • Image Map Interpolation: When enabled, the bitmap will be interpolated, resulting in reduced texture aliasing.
  • Map Alpha Channel [Off, Bump, Roughness]: When enabled, will use the color map's alpha channel (if any) to control bump or roughness in the resulting MXM. The slider controls the maximum strength.
• Transparency Map:
  
  • Brightness, etc.: Image controls for the transparency 'texture' bitmap used in the shaded renderer.
• ID Color: The color the material will display as in the ID Material channel.
• Preview: Generates a preview of the material of on the selected formZ preview object (6” sphere, 6” cylinder, 6” cube, or 6” plane).
• Export MXM: Saves the auto-translated MXM to disk, with the option to re-link as a referenced MXM, and continue editing the material in MXED.

Material Hint: Closest Match

The Closest Match material hint attempts to match the Shaded material as closely as possible, while still allowing enough flexibility to emulate a variety of materials. The description below provides a starting point for thinking about how to use Closest Match. Details have been omitted in the interest of clarity.

Closest Match creates a Maxwell material whose roughness is controlled by the Specular Roughness parameter. If Specular Roughness is set to 0, the material will be perfectly smooth, like a mirror. If set to 100, it will be perfectly rough, like a piece of uncoated paper.

Additionally, a clear gloss coat is applied over the base layer. The strength of this coating is controlled by the Specular Factor parameter. A value of 0 will result in no glossy reflection, while a value of 100 will result in a very glossy reflection.

To make a surface completely matte, set the Specular Factor to 0 (the Specular Roughness does not matter in this special case). This type of material (lambertian) renders very quickly.

If the Shaded material uses transparency, the material will become transparent as if it were made of a thin membrane, not a solid. (Specifically, Maxwell’s transmittance parameter is not used, so materials will render quickly, but not refract light or generate caustics).

In the images below, the Shaded render representation is on the left and the Maxwell translation on the right.

Closest Match Technical Summary

• 2 layers
• 1 BDSF per layer
• ND 3.0 both BDSFS
• Transmittance not mapped

Material Hint: Architectural Glass - Normal; Architectural Glass - Clear

These material hints are used for fast-rendering architectural glass. In most cases, they will work well without adjustment. These materials will reflect, but not refract, light. This allows solid volumes to appear as if they were composed of a thin glass shell.

The color parameter controls the tint of the glass. The transparency parameter controls the layer weight.

The Clear variant applies an additional top coat to the glass which may be useful for some applications. Experiment with both types to see which works better for your application.

Architectural Glass, Normal Technical Summary

• 1 layer
• 1 BDSF

Material Hint: Aluminum, Copper, Cobalt, Gold, Silver

The metals series creates efficient-rendering metals with minimal effort. The only parameters that need to be adjusted are the color and roughness.

For highly realistic metal materials, referenced MXM files with complex IOR files and bump or roughness maps are recommended.

Hint: Aluminum Color: 195, 196, 197 Ambient Factor: 100 Diffuse Factor: 75 Specular Factor: N/A Specular Roughness: 41 Specular Color: N/A Transparency: 0	Hint: Gold Color: 231, 136, 0 Ambient Factor: 100 Diffuse Factor: 75 Specular Factor: N/A Specular Roughness: 0 Specular Color: N/A Transparency: 0

Metals Technical Summary

• 1 layer
• 2 BDSFs weighted 60:40
• ND, K, and Reflectance 90° set appropriately for each metal type

Material Hint: Water

The water hint will work well without adjustment in most cases. Only the color and transparency parameters affect the material.

The color parameter controls the tint of the water. Note that the attenuation of light (transparency parameter) must be set to a relatively low value for the tint to be apparent.

The transparency parameter controls the attenuation of light though the water. At 1% transparency, half the light will be attenuated after 1 meter;  at 100% half the light will be attenuated after 10 meters. If transparency is set to none (or 0) a default attenuation of 10 meters will be used.

Hint: Water Color: 255, 255, 255 Ambient Factor: N/A Diffuse Factor: N/A Specular Factor: N/A Specular Roughness: N/A Specular Color: N/A Transparency: 80

Hint: Water Color: 140, 220, 224 Ambient Factor: N/A Diffuse Factor: N/A Specular Factor: N/A Specular Roughness: N/A Specular Color: N/A Transparency: 10

Water Technical Summary

• 1 layer
• 1 BDSF
• ND and K set appropriately for water
• Reflectance 0° and Reflectance 90° set to 0,0,0
• Roughness set to 0

Material Hint: Emitter

See Emitter Materials.