If Maxwell Studio was not installed and user clicked on the "Open in Maxwell Studio" button, the plugin could crash.
In FIRE mode, some objects could lose their material and show up grey.
Maxwell Render Simulens parameters: "Aperture Map" and "Obstacle Map" were not exported.
Plugin Search Path settings (Texture Folder 1-5) were not exported to Maxwell, nor used by the plugin.
The embedding action to convert a referenced material into custom did not preserve the Material ID color.
The displayed geometries of the Referenced MXS files were sometimes at wrong world coordinates.
After the user modified a Rhino geometry in a way that changes the number of components of the geometry, FIRE could not display the new modified object correctly until Fire was restarted.
The camera Z-Clip Far value was not saved.
The camera custom Bokeh angle value was not saved correctly.
(OSX Only) Clicking into the Fire view status bar didn’t open the Maxwell settings directly (the user had to select the Maxwell Render option manually).
New general animation parameters in the Document Properties > Maxwell for Rhino page to set the default SL, time and export option.
New option for animations in the Document Properties > Maxwell for Rhino to show/hide the dialog after exporting the frames. This is meant to be able to send the animation to render directly without having to wait for the frames to be exported and then send them to render. It makes sense when sending them directly to Maxwell Render as the renders will start right after they have been exported.
New switch for the extensions assigned to objects to allow you to enable or disable them without having to delete them:
New switch for the global extensions created in the Extensions panel so you can enable or disable them globally for all the objects that have them assigned.
Now the Brightness, Contrast, Hue and Saturation parameters in the Maxwell Texture can be controlled with sliders.
Many Extensions and Material Assistants have sliders for their parameters for better comfort.
New helper buttons to add or remove the camera name, and the time and date of the exported render to the output files names of the different images.
After a Rhino 7.1 update FIRE was showing duplicated objects moving them showing both the initial and final position of the movement.
Imported Materials (from the Online Gallery or from MXM files) didn't link the textures correctly in some cases.
The materials downloaded from the Online Gallery were not stored as set in the Document Properties > Maxwell for Rhino > MXM Gallery section in some cases.
In the case there were some layers with the same name, this could cause the plugin to freeze when exporting. As a solution the exported layer names now also contain the ID of the layers to force an unique identification.
When importing a Rhino 5 file, the plugin was changing the type of the existing Maxwell Materials to Referenced type.
When using the Render Region in Maxwell or Render Blow-up in Maxwell, it was not possible to draw the rectangle if the cursor went above the horizon of the scene.
(Rhino 7 only) Maxwell animation export “OK / Cancel” buttons were not visible. (Out of the dialog area).
After exporting the scene with Rhino RecordAnimation command, the normal Rhino Render button also tried to do the render in animation mode.
Maxwell FIRE crashed when the user changed sun position.
Maxwell Render Settings > Post-Process > "Color Space" parameter was incorrectly named as "Depth".
Maxwell_AddObject command had an invalid "Extension" option. It is now removed.
(OSX only) The command Maxwell_ShowToolbars didn't work.
Maxwell didn't save the changes done in its render parameters in case those were changed from the "Tools" menu > "Options..." dialog.
Opening a scene from the plugin for Rhino 5 with Maxwell Camera data could crash Rhino.
Added custom Maxwell Extension Objects:
Added new buttons to the Maxwell Tools toolbar:
Add Maxwell Sea
Add Maxwell Volumetric
New object modifier accessible from the Maxwell Extensions panel: SubdivisionModifier (it won’t show correctly in FIRE, but will do in render).
Added “Export as .mxm” option to the right-click context menu of the Maxwell materials to export the materials individually to an MXM file. It also gives the option to turn the material as a referenced after it has been stored.
Added a new command "Maxwell_ToggleVisuals" to toggle the display of Maxwell-related visuals aids to locate in the viewport the grass blades and scattered instances.
Added a new button to the Maxwell Tools toolbar: "Toggle Visuals"
Added a new command "Maxwell_ExportMaterials" to export all the Maxwell Materials as MXM into a selected folder.
Added a new button to the Maxwell Materials toolbar: "Export Materials"
Added Referenced MXS "Point Cloud" display mode type.
Added Maxwell_PathFix command and menu item. It’s a semi-automatic tool to replace missing plugin-related files:
Maxwell Textures (file paths)
Maxwell Materials (referenced mxm/emitter IES file paths)
Referenced MXS (file paths)
Light object (IES/projector image paths)
Maxwell Environment (IBL paths)
Maxwell Render Settings (extra sampling / simulens aperture and obstacle paths)
Added a new button in Maxwell Tools toolbar: "Path Fix"
Added a new Maxwell for Rhino Properties parameter in the MXM Gallery section: "To sub-folder". In case it is ON it creates a sub-folder for each downloaded MXM material file.
Added Load/Save buttons for Maxwell extensions and material assistants to easily handle user-made presets.
Added Object parameter: Recalculate normals. It allows overriding the current smoothing of the objects in render time. The numeric field represents the angle of smoothing. If the angle between adjacent polygons is smaller or equal to this angle, the faces will be smoothed.
Added Object parameter: Backface material. Now you can assign a different material to the back faces of an object.
Added the option to also assign custom alpha channels per material. This means:
Added an icon for the Maxwell Extensions Panel.
The Substance Designer and Substance Painter assistants now have three new parameters to control the displacement subdivisions, displacement height and the emitter intensity, so you don’t have to convert the material to advanced in order to control those features.
Now the plugin takes into account the transparency of the materials and shows it in the viewport (depending on your display mode settings).
The Referenced MXS now can handle scenes with other referenced MXS files inside (nested references).
Improved the Referenced MXS display performance - in case there are several Referenced MXS objects with the same MXS file, the plugin uses the same cached MXS scene data for all of these objects.
Referenced MXS picking in the viewport in Bounding Box (or Object Bounding Boxes) mode is more precise now.
The plugin starts the PathFix command automatically after opening a file if needed.
Maxwell Texture button tooltip now shows some information about its options:
Maxwell Texture button tooltip now shows the texture type in case the actual channel contains a Rhino texture.
The material preview scene list is now in alphabetical order (it was not so in the MacOS version).
Rhino animation export to Maxwell was not working correctly.
The Maxwell Referenced MXS placeholder object (shown when the MXS path does not exist) was not selectable.
Maxwell was sending error/warning messages about missing IOR path even if the BSDF was set to custom IOR mode.
The plugin didn't pass the custom command line params to Maxwell.
(Rhino 7 only) Maxwell Object Properties tab was not visible for Subdiv Surfaces.
In the case the Rhino scene was saved with a viewport in Fire mode but the active view was not the FIRE viewport, after reloading the file, the FIRE viewport was using the camera from the active viewport instead of its own camera.
Creating a Maxwell Material by importing it from an MXM or the online gallery (from the Maxwell Material toolbar) crashed Rhino in the case Maxwell Fire was running in GPU mode.
Changing Maxwell Material preset could crash Rhino.
Maxwell Texture button right-click menu (remove / copy / paste) was disabled in the case the actual channel contained a Rhino texture.
Maxwell Texture button tooltip was showing wrong information in the case the actual channel contained a Rhino texture.
New Denoiser implementation in Maxwell Render. Only one pass is needed, the denoiser information is now stored in the mxi file as another channel, better memory management for the denoising process, and more consistency in general.
New Denoiser options in the Rendering panel > Maxwell for Rhino > General tab > Denoiser section:
New Tiling option with maximum tile size option.
New fine-tuning options: Color Influence 1 and 2, Feature Influence, Final Pass, Filter Radius and Firefly Remover options. Check this link for more information: denoiser documentation page.
New Denoiser channel added in the Rendering panel > Maxwell for Rhino > Output tab > Channels section as now the Denoiser is treated as another channel. This channel activation is synced with the Denoiser enabler in the General tab.
Material’s texture and color display in the viewport has been greatly enhanced.
You can now select any texture to be displayed in the viewport by single-clicking its texture chip. It will be marked with a blue colored border.
The plugin displays the color of the Maxwell Material additive layers inside Rhino viewport more correctly.
The plugin now shows the color and textures of the different material assistants inside the Rhino viewport.
Added a more detailed tooltip to the texture chip.
The Maxwell materials are now exported with the same active texture to be displayed in the viewport as set in Rhino (Maxwell Studio uses this active texture to decide which texture to show inside the Studio viewport).
The most important component of the Maxwell Material is automatically selected for display in the Maxwell Material UI after the following actions:
Maxwell material assistant: Convert to Advanced
Maxwell Referenced material: Embed
Command: Maxwell_MaterialReplacer
Command: Maxwell_AddMaterial
The scenes with lots of nested block instances are now exported much faster. (up to 10-100 times faster...).
The Embed option of the Referenced MXM files can now also import the Material assistants as such.
Rhino 5 scene import improvement. The plugin now creates dummy materials with the same name as the materials from the V5 scene (the Maxwell material settings are not imported, only the name and the association). This, used in conjunction with the command Maxwell_MaterialReplacer can be used to easily bring all the materials back from older scenes.
The Maxwell Render Settings > Extra Sampling > Custom Alpha “A” button opens the Custom Alpha context menu (with an extra "(open editor...)" menu item) that opens the Custom Alpha editor panel.
Maxwell Referenced MXS object.
In the case no Rhino material was applied to the Referenced MXS object, it is displayed in Rhino Viewport with a greenish Maxwell material and will use its original materials inside Maxwell.
In case the user adds Rhino material to the Referenced MXS object, it overwrites the original scene materials (inside Rhino viewport and also inside Maxwell).
LIMITATION: Maxwell MXS references instances inside Rhino blocks are not displayed correctly after reloading the scene and are taken by Rhino as normal objects, however, they will render fine.
LIMITATION: because of a Rhino API limitation, if you put the MXS reference into a block in order to instance it and then you use the “Edit in Place” command, the objects inside will be displayed as cubes of the size of the bounding boxes of the references in the viewport; they will render fine. As a workaround, you can explode the block and recreate it with the same name. The instances will be updated and displayed correctly.
"Maxwell_AddMaterial" command to add/import basic material types.
New Maxwell Material toolbar with shortcuts to add the different types of Maxwell materials with options to add many materials at the same time to the Rhino file (for example, you can now import all the mxm materials from a folder in one go).
New Maxwell Tools toolbar (currently it only has one button: "Add Referenced MXS", but it will host the extensions buttons and other tools in the near future).
New Pack and Go feature available from the rendering toolbar the Maxwell menu and the command line (Maxwell_PackAndGo).
New Override material option in the Rendering panel > Maxwell for Rhino > Global tab > Materials. It will replace all the materials of the scene except for the emitters with the material of your choice (great for clay renders).
New Default material option in the Rendering panel > Maxwell for Rhino > Global tab > Materials which defines the material used when the object doesn’t have any material applied.
The name of the exported Rhino object inside the Maxwell scene now follows these rules:
In the case the user has given a name to the object, Maxwell name = user name + the Rhino guid of the object.
Otherwise Maxwell name = short description of the object (or the name of the Block) + the Rhino guid of the object.
Exported light objects follow these rules too from now on (every name contains the guid of the original Rhino object, which adds another chance to identify the objects).
The plugin now writes its plugin id into the exported mxs file.
Maxwell Material texture button shows the Texture file path (if any) as a tooltip.
Automatic translation of Rhino environment: the intensity value of the Rhino environment texture has been fine-tuned; now it is translated to an IBL with the intensity set to 15 instead of 100, which was excessive.
Automatic translation of Rhino gradient environment: the midpoint has been changed from 0.1° to 45.0° and Zenith/Horizont colors have been switched so they match what you expect to see from a natural point of view.
New context menu when adding a custom alpha channel to an object (less clicking for the users).
The Remove Custom Alpha button is disabled (Custom Alphas list in Object settings) in the case none of the custom alpha channels are selected.
Custom Alphas Dialog > add object to custom alpha channel button opens now a context menu. It allows the user to add an object via pick selecting, add the already selected objects or by name (only named objects).
While pick-adding objects to a Custom Alpha channel, the plugin allows the selection only for Maxwell-renderable objects/lights.
Custom Alphas Dialog -> new tooltips for the +/- buttons.
Maxwell Object properties are visible only for Maxwell-renderable objects/lights.
FIRE view didn't follow the change when the user changed the visibility flag(s) for a lights object (for example hide flags, opacity, etc.).
Converting a Maxwell material (assistant type) to Custom could break the Rhino undo mechanism.
After a Maxwell material (assistant type) was converted to Custom, the used texture ids were wrong.
When adding texture to a Maxwell material assistant, the plugin was not activating the texture checkbox automatically.
The plugin allowed activating Denoise shadow with AutoConfigure mode "Fast", which is not a possible combination as in fast mode there’s no shadow channel.
Maxwell referenced materials were exported to the mxs file as embedded.
Switching between different material assistants on the same material could cause weird UI behavior. For example, the Substance assistant doesn't show any parameter.
(Rhino 7) The plugin doesn't refresh the Maxwell toolbar properly.
The command "Maxwell_ToggleFIRE" and "Maxwell_NewFIREView" could not switch to FIRE mode in the case the user had renamed the display mode to something different than "Maxwell FIRE".
The plugin didn't load on some systems.
The AboutBox build date was wrong.
(Rhino 7) Maxwell object/camera property icon was in low resolution.
Undoing Maxwell Material Add Texture didn't work correctly.
(OSX only) Editing Maxwell Texture opened from Maxwell Material could crash Rhino.
Removed unnecessary warnings (the Material Preview sent warning messages if the texture was created on a material feature but the texture path was not set).
The plugin didn't create the mxs file (so it could not export the scene) if the scene contained geometry without texture coordinates.
Camera auto-focus didn't work correctly with block instances.
Camera PickCameraFocusDistance command didn't work in perspective view if the mouse was close and above the horizon line.
Drag and dropping color from the Rhino to the Maxwell color box resulted in the wrong color.
Drag and Dropping Texture to an already occupied Maxwell Texture slot was not undoable.
Rhino crashed while drag and dropping Maxwell component texture if the mouse was out of the Maxwell Material editor area.
Bsdf Bump value control was always greyed out.
Re-written Maxwell Material with an integrated material editor (in the previous version it was called "Maxwell Referenced"). This new material works similarly to Maxwell’s Mxed materials, and it is fully integrated into the Rhino UI. You can now choose from a full-fledged Maxwell material editor or the referenced materials; as in Mxed, you can change from one to the other from the Material’s Global Properties > Type dropdown. The Maxwell Material is fully compatible with the Rhino undo/redo mechanism.
New Maxwell Texture. The Maxwell Material by default uses this texture to provide a similar interface as we have under the Mxed texture editor. But the Maxwell Texture is a normal Rhino texture too, so the user can use it for other Rhino materials too.
New command "Maxwell_MaterialReplacer" (intended to help Rhino 5 Mac users to load all the materials from older scenes). After the user calls this command and selects the folder with all the mxm files, the plugin replaces the Rhino materials if it finds an mxm file with the same filename as the material name. (For example material "BlackPlastic" is replaced with an existing "BlackPlastic.mxm" file from the selected folder).
New UI control in File menu > Properties > Maxwell for Rhino > "Displayed Texture Size". The users can now control the resolution of the Maxwell Material textures displayed inside the Rhino viewport.
New UI control in File menu > Properties > Maxwell for Rhino > FIRE Settings > "Baked Texture Size". The users can control the resolution of the baked Rhino textures under the FIRE view (for Rhino procedural textures).
New UI control in Rendering tab > Maxwell for Rhino settings > Global tab > "Baked Texture size". The user can control the resolution of the baked Rhino textures under normal Maxwell Render.
New Maxwell "Document Properties" page (Maxwell for Rhino > Material Preview) with material preview controls.
New UI control in File menu > Properties > Maxwell for Rhino > Decimal Precision.
4-5x faster export in the case the scene contains lots of block instances.
Maxwell Render parameters undo/redo handling is faster now.
Rhino texture export is faster and FIRE more interactive.
The plugin now exports the meshes with all of its UV maps (Multi-UV).
Maxwell Undo text is more informative now (it shows the name of the changed parameter).
In the case Maxwell sends multiple errors or warning messages, the plugin shows all the received messages (not just the last one) after the user clicks on the FIRE view bottom area "* ERROR: CLICK here to see message *".
Objects are now exported with their name (if any) plus the id of the object.
Block geometries are now exported in block groups.
The Document Properties Maxwell pages now have the "Restore Defaults" button.
Maxwell for Rhino Document Properties parameters now have default values.
(WIN only) The labels of Document Properties Maxwell pages now change to blue if any value has been changed (to show there is a new value to Accept or Cancel).
(WIN only) The Maxwell UI controller steppers are now draggable (similar to normal Rhino steppers).
(WIN only) When dragging or changing steppers, it doesn't fill the undo stack with in-between data (otherwise, the undo content would be filled with useless data).
(WIN only) While changing the color value in the color dialog, it doesn't fill the undo stack with in-between data (otherwise, the undo content would be filled with useless data).
The plugin now uses the Eto color button for color properties.
Drag and drop between color controls. (Under Windows it is now possible to drag and drop also Rhino colors into Maxwell color buttons).
Added warning for the two-point perspective camera (Maxwell doesn't support it).
On the command log panel, the plugin writes out the time required to export the scene.
Rhino to Maxwell material Texture coordinate export (Known Limitation: rotation works but rotation+scale only in 0/90/180/270 degrees).
Maxwell to Rhino material Texture coordinate export (Known Limitation: rotation works but rotation+scale doesn't work - only rotation or scale).
(OSX only) The installer couldn’t install the plugin in the case the /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/McNeel/Rhinoceros/MacPlugins folder didn't exist.
Rhino slowed down when a Maxwell material was applied to many objects.
Some scenes could freeze Rhino on Maxwell export. It seems it is an issue with Rhino baking; as a workaround, some baking flags are disabled now to avoid this issue.
When Custom Alpha was applied to a block, only the first object of the block was exported with the Custom Alpha applied.
After changing the object parameter of a block object, FIRE only refreshed the first sub-object of the block.
In the case the scene contained several copies of the same instance block, when the user deleted the original block from the scene, all the blocks disappeared from the FIRE view (the copies are handled as instances under Maxwell).
Rhino crashed when creating block definitions while FIRE ran.
Block inserted from an embedded file (or block with sub-blocks) didn't follow the Maxwell Object settings.
The parameters in the Document Properties page were not reverted when clicking the Cancel button.
After undoing the Maxwell Environment Path channel change the value was a text "NULL" instead of an empty string.
Camera exposure EV value was wrong if Iso value was not 100.
The camera didn't keep exposure correctly in the "Lock Exposure" mode if Iso value was not 100.
In some cases, the Maxwell UI panels didn't fit correctly into the parent UI container.
Mouse scroll wheeling could cause panning the whole container control instead of spinning the value of the control.
After the Rhino view was changed to named view the Maxwell camera showed the saved camera position instead of the active camera position.
Rhino’s Gem materials were exported as Rhino’s Custom materials (this was a bug in the Rhino API, but found a workaround).
New command Maxwell_PickCameraFocalDistance (in V6 this command sets the focus to the intersected surface or Mesh point and it is interactive in FIRE views)
New button for Maxwell_PickCameraFocalDistance on the Maxwell camera panel.
Camera Focus mode (Target/Manual/Auto) and Manual Focus Distance parameters.
Extra controls (FOV/Azimuth/Angle) for FishEye, Spherical and Cylindrical lenses.
Custom Alpha option for Extra Sampling (custom alpha options are still not complete).
Automatic light export for Rhino lights: point, spot, linear, rectangular (directional lights are not exported).
Maxwell specific parameters in Rhino lights in the Maxwell Object Property tab: IES and Projector light types (only for spotlights) and emission multiplier.
Maxwell light parameter "Rotation around dir." for IES and projector types to add an extra control over the orientation of the projected image or IES pattern around the axis of the light (it seems normal Rhino spotlights don't have it).
Global render switch for "Displacement"
Global render switch for "Dispersion"
Animation export mode. In case the actual Rhino renderer is Maxwell and user runs the "Record Animation" command the plugin exports the frames in animation mode. (After all the frames have been exported the user can control how animation runs in the new "Maxwell Animation Controls" dialog). Limitation: in the case of sun study Maxwell always uses the Rhino sun data even if the Maxwell Environment was set for a specific location and date.
The plugin opens Overwrite warning dialog in case the output mxs file already exists.
The Font for Maxwell controls has been changed to match better the default Rhino UI and also because it has better readability.
If the current environment is a Rhino environment, it is also exported to Maxwell. It translates the color but if a texture exists it is translated as IBL.
Rhino sun change updates the displayed Maxwell Environment (under the Rhino Render view too).
Rhino sun automatically converted even if the actual Environment is not Maxwell Environment.
Render Wallpaper environment mode is exported to Maxwell as IBL environment with a planar background (in Maxwell it is always stretched to fit the render frame).
In the case of a FIRE error or warning, the viewport status shows that we have Error/Warning message from FIRE. By clicking on it a message dialog appears with the FIRE message.
In case of a FIRE error the displayed FIRE screen is black.
Better warning or error messages.
"Maxwell Referenced" material has its own type icon.
The create NEW mxm material button opens now the newly created material automatically in Mxed.
You will be able to set all the general settings (previous output tab) in Rhino’s Rendering tab. Here you will be able to set Maxwell as render engine, set engine and render settings, Multilight, Extra Sampling, Denoiser, Output options, Channels (without custom alpha), Globals, Tone Mapping, Simulens and Overlay Text options.
In Rhino’s Environment tab you will be able to create as many Maxwell Environments as you want. All the environment options are implemented and Rhino options like Solid color or Gradient are translated to Maxwell if used and you will be able to preview Maxwell Environment in the viewport if it is set to Rendered, Raytraced or Maxwell FIRE modes. Rhino’s sun can also be used to set the time and date as well as location; if so, you will also be able to preview the sun in Rendered and Raytraced modes; if you don’t use Rhino’s sun you will only be able to preview the sun in FIRE.
You can currently launch FIRE only in a viewport like any other visualization mode, although you can have it in a floating Rhino’s viewport. The bottom bar at the Fire window is active and you can start/stop, change quality settings and SL from there.
At Rhino’s Materials tab you can add Rhino materials (which will be translated to Maxwell at render time) as well as referenced Maxwell materials. Currently, there’s no integrated material editor yet, but you can access MXED from within Rhino to edit the materials. The materials will show their preview in the list and the geometry in the viewport will show the main texture of the material projected onto it if the viewport is set to Rendered, Raytraced (Cycles) or Maxwell FIRE modes. Regarding Rhino materials, all of them are translated as well as Rhino procedural textures.
At Rhino’s Properties tab you can check both camera’s and object’s properties depending on if there’s none or any object selected. The camera properties section is complete except for the parameters of the special lenses (which have not yet been added): fisheye, spherical, cylindrical or stereo ones.
Additional settings like search paths, mxm gallery download folder or Fire settings can be tuned in Rhino’s Document Properties window
What you won’t find yet in the plugin: extensions, like grass, scatter, sea or volumetrics. Custom alphas have not yet been implemented, as well as the material assistants or an integrated material editor. Some secondary features like blocked emitters, material override, etc. are still pending. Also, Fire still feels a bit sluggish, but we will try to find the cause for that.
