form•Z | Version History

v2.7.2.2

v 2.7.2.2

Changes

• Materials
  
  • New system for updating 'Shaded' Renderer texture maps to match MXMs.
  • Autotranslated materials can now map the alpha channel of the color map to MXM roughness or bump.
  • Autotranslated materials can now be exported as MXMs for further editing
  • Material ID color for auto-translated materials can now be explicitly set.
  • Resource Manager now heals referenced MXM paths as soon as material is selected in Material Parameters palette.
  • Resource Manager can now automatically search for missing bitmaps referenced by autotranslated materials, instead of relying on project-embedded bitmap export
  • Scene Material Overide option.
  • New Autotranslate Material Hints:
    
    • Anodized Aluminum
    • Industrial Coating (automotive paint; powder coat)
    • Rubber
    • Simple Subsurface Scattering
  • Ability to set all preview render thumbnails to the MXED embedded thumbnail. Useful when opening formZ 6 files (which do not store thumbnails) for the first time.
• Scene
  
  • Normals and Position channel support
• Interactive Preview
  
  • New FIRE Preview window options: fixed sized 1:1 ratio, and fixed sized 2:1 ratio

Fixes

• Rare formZ 6 files with custom Maxwell attributes no longer crash on open.
• Certain error messages reported to plugin from formZ no longer lead to crash.
• Displacement MXMs applied at the face-level of objects no longer leads to crash in Maxwell.
• Including an unnamed (0-character) project view no longer leads to unreadable MXS.
• Occasional glitched Fire display fixed.
• Image Scale parameter in Maxwell Options / Image now works correctly again.
• 'Realistic Match' material hint, when used with embedded textures, no longer leads to crash.
• Project-relative 'Resources' folder no longer created automatically.
  
  

v 2.7.0.4

Changes (from Maxwell for form•Z 2.0.6.2):

• Interactive Preview
  
  • Added Maxwell Fire support for real-time previewing views, lights, materials and objects.
  • Possible to store image ‘snapshots’ of the preview as it is rendering.
• File handling
  
  • Dramatically faster export from formZ to Maxwell Scene.
  • Added Resource Manager which automatically detects and filepath-corrects any missing dependencies (IES, MXMs, HDRs, images, etc.). Makes moving projects between workstations and using resource servers easy.
  • New Workstation Transfer and Package for Renderfarm commands replace the legacy pack-and-go functionality.
  • Added file autoname options to enable/disable the inclusion of project name, scene name, and/or view name.
  • Added file autoname option to include time stamp. (Enabling this option avoids a situation where network rendered images could be overwritten.)
• Interface
  
  • Improved Render Options dialog/palette organized into five new tabs.
  • Growl support (OSX only).
  • Added console Log to diagnose problems and evaluate scene performance.
  • New Forum command takes you to the user support forum, and provides vital system information for including with your post.
  • New Maxwell Documentation and Plugin Documentation commands take you directly to the online documentation.
• Materials
  
  • Completely new translator to convert the native 'Shaded' display materials to MXMs.
  • Converting to MXMs uses a new material 'hint' to guide the translation process. Hints include: Closest Match, Realistic Match, Emitter, several varieties of glass, metals, and water.
  • Added texture map adjustments (saturation, contrast, interpolation, etc.) for auto-translated formZ materials.
  • Maxwell materials can now be previewed in the Materials Parameters palette, rendered on the standard cube, sphere, cylinder, or plane. Option remains to use the MXM preview embedded by MXED, if preferred.
• Lights
  
  • Point and Cone light type support completely rewritten. These light types will now match those in Shaded Full view (and RenderZone) much more closely.
  • New Softbox light type. This new light works much as it's real-world photographic namesake, and is faster than Point or Cone lights. Parameters include width, height, intensity, temperature, and many others.
  • New IES light type. Load the IES or EULUMDAT file into the light, set the intensity, aim it like any native light type, and adjust the 'spin' parameter if required. Light emanation pattern is shown in the modeling space as a collection of points.
  • New IBL light type. Multiple IBL environments can be included in your project for different times of day, etc. Unused channels use the shining Physical Sky or Sky Dome light (if any).
  • New Sky Dome light type. Multiple Sky Domes can be included in your project for different times of day, etc.
  • 2-color gradient Sky Dome now supported.
  • New Physical Sky light type. Multiple Physical Skies can be included in your project for different times of day, etc.
  • When creating a new project, a Physical Sky may be automatically added if there are no Maxwell light types in your template file. (Avoids ‘no light sources, render will be black’ error)
  • Added ability to load and save Physical Sky definitions. (Known Issue: gmt offset value is not read correctly.)
  • Added ability to set longitude and latitude via list of cities (for Physical Sky and Sky Dome).
  • Sun day-of-year now indicated by month and day. Date can be entered in many formats (December 20, dec 20, d 20, and 12/20 all work).
• Extensions
  
  • Added Maxwell Grass support.
• Scene
  
  • Added pop-up menu for commonly used maximum time values
  • Added global enabling/disabling of Dispersion and Displacement
• Animation
  
  • New animation system uses a "delta" scheme, where only changed entities are exported for each frame, resulting in dramatically faster export and much smaller mxs files.
• Cameras
  
  • New Focus Camera command focuses the camera on the plane of selected entities, without changing the view cropping.
  • Added EV (Exposure Value) Lock.
  • Added Simulens support.
  • Added Devignetting support.
• Channels
  
  • Added option to save channels as separate files, or embedded within one image file (where supported by image format and bit depth).
  • Alpha Channel now supports 'transparencies as opaque' option. When enabled, transparent materials will appear as solid white in the alpha channel.
  • Minimum and maximum depth values can now be defined for the Z (Depth) Buffer channel.
  • Added support for Motion, Roughness, and Fresnel render channels.
• General
  
  • Separate Maxwell Attributes plugin eliminated; functionality now included in the main Maxwell plugin.

Fixes:

• Scaling IBL to less than 1 (and negative values) now possible.