Modo - User Interface

Quick export (Export as...)

In case the installation was successful modo can save your scene to a Maxwell scene file “*.mxs”.

Click on the File menu > Export As… menu item and set Save As Type: to Maxwell MXS (.mxs). Type the name of the Maxwell scene file and click on the Save button.

Maxwell menu

The plugin integrates its own menu item into the modo menu bar.

The menu provides quick access to important plugin commands (you can read more about these in the next section) and you can toggle the state of the Maxwell plugin window.

 

Maxwell plugin window

Maxwell plugin window has two main areas (viewports): Render/Export and   Maxwell Properties

Render/Export

In the Render/Export viewport you can find the main options to render your modo scene with Next Limit Maxwell Render.

Preferences

Open the plugin Preferences window. See sub-chapter Preferences window.

Info

Open the plugin About box or the help pages (Plugin Manual and Maxwell Render Manual) inside you internet browser.

Start Render

Export the scene and start render with Maxwell Render.

Open in Studio

Export the scene and open it in Maxwell Studio for further tweaking.

Send Job to Network

Export the scene and start render with Maxwell Network module.

Render Animation…

Open Render Animation window. See sub-chapter Animation window.

Maxwell FIRE…

Open FIRE window (Fast Interactive Rendering) See sub-chapter Maxwell FIRE.

open export directory

Open the scene export directory. During the scene export process plugin places the automatically generated “.mxs” materials, environment maps, procedural textures and other things into this folder.

open log file

Open the export log file which contains important information about the scene export process. This information can help you to eliminate scene errors and incorrect settings.

Load MXM material

Load an “*.mxm” material and add the material item to the top of the Shader Tree. You can read more about MXM materials in sub-chapter Maxwell MXM item.

Add Environment

Add Maxwell Environment item to the scene. (It is active only if there is no Maxwell Environment in the scene yet.) You can read more about Maxwell Environment item in chapter Environment.

Add/Remove/Reset

Add, remove or reset Maxwell property packages to (or from) the selected items. Property packages are collections of Maxwell parameters. You can adjust these Maxwell parameters inside the Maxwell Properties viewport.

By default the plugin adds these property packages automatically to every item! You can turn off automatic package handling by switching off the Auto add Maxwell packages check box in the plugin Preferences window Workflow tab.

Maxwell Properties

In the Maxwell Properties viewport you can set the Maxwell specific item parameters.

You can think about Maxwell parameters as complementary parameters to the standard modo parameters. You can adjust the normal modo parameters in the modo Properties viewport and in the same way you can adjust the Maxwell parameters in the Maxwell Properties viewport.