Menu bar

This bar gives you access to all the functionalities of Studio. All the tools in Studio are organized in nine different tabs.

Open

File

Open a scene, save, create a new scene, import and export files, import objects and scenes from the built-in library, access the Preferences window, or use the Pack and Go function to quickly organize your scene, making sure you have gathered everything that is needed. The Pack and Go export option gathers all the dependencies used in the scene (textures, HDR, IOR files) as well as the scene file itself and copies them all together into a folder of your choice. This is the best way to share a project between users or computers.

Edit

Undo, redo, move, rotate, scale objects, edit pivot point, use a world or local coordinates system, preview the environment in the viewport, scale or rotate the whole scene or purge the application history. Some of these functions are also available as buttons in the toolbar.

Object

Clone geometry, create instances, create triangle groups, create UV sets, group/ungroup objects, load procedural objects (like MaxwellSea, Maxwell Volumetric, Maxwell Particles, Alembic Object, or RFMeshes and RWMeshes from RealFlow) or apply a modifier to an existing object (like MaxwellGrass, MaxwellScatter, MaxwellCloner or Subdivision). See the Attributes Panel: Object page for a deeper description.

Camera

Create a new camera, clone the selected one or delete it. Set a camera as Active, and hide/unhide, block/unblock a camera to prevent accidental editing.See the Attributes Panel: Camera page for a deeper description.

Material

Create, Import, Edit or assign a material. See the Materials List Panel page for a deeper description.

Selection

Choose between different selection modes such as by object, triangle, materials or UV sets. You can also select/ unselect items, hide/unhide objects, choose a shading mode in the viewport, or perform some selection operations like expand or contract (when using the triangle selection mode). The Isolate Selection checkbox allows you to display only the currently selected object in the OpenGL viewport, useful for getting a faster feedback in dense geometry scenes. Some of these options are also available as buttons in the toolbar or by right-clicking in a viewport.

Render

There are various ways to launch your renders:

• Render: Your scene will be exported to MXS format, and Maxwell will be automatically launched and the render will start there. 

• Render via Network: Your scene is exported to MXS format, and a Network Wizard is opened to allow you to submit your render job to your farm. It is needed to set up a Network Rendering first. Check the Network Rendering page for more info about this subject. 

• Render Viewport: Your scene will be rendered in the Studio viewport, at your viewport size. This is helpful for quick test during the scene setup.

• Start/Stop Fire: This option starts or stops the render in the Interactive viewport (Maxwell Fire). 

• Render Scripts: this option allows you to create scripts to be executed to the mxs file when launching the render. It will show the .py files (so they should be Python scripts) that you put in the Maxwell installation folder > scripts > studio. When you select the script, Maxwell exports the scene to a folder of your choice and applies the script to it.

Window

Load and save your layout, use a layout from a list of pre-set layouts, launch a new viewport, or open any of the panels available in Maxwell Studio. If you want to create your own default layout, save your desired layout with the name defaultlayout.stlay and store it in the Maxwell Render layouts folder. Maxwell Studio will open your layout the next time it is launched.

Help

This menu allows you to access information about the version of the software, and access the documentation and tutorials website.