Object Parameters panel

When a group or a set of objects are selected in the Object list panel, or an instance is selected in the Instances panel, the Object parameters panel will show the list of parameters that can be changed for that selection. The panel is divided into several sections which can be expanded/ collapsed by clicking on the section title.

Coordinates

• Position: X, Y, Z world position of the object and its pivot.
• Rotation: Euler angles of the object and its pivot.
• Scale: X, Y, Z scale of the object.
• Shear: shears the object on the X, Y, Z axis.
• Center: Set the pivot point to the geometric center of each object.
• Reset: Reset the pivot of the object to the scene center (0,0,0).

The Coordinates section on the Object Parameters panel

Appearance

• Hidden from Camera: Hide the object from the render view but allow it to contribute to the render calculation (cast shadows, refract etc).
• Hidden from Reflections/Refractions: Reflected or refracted objects are hidden.
• Hidden from Global Illumination: The object will render but it will not affect lighting.
• Hidden from Z-clip Planes: The object will not be cut by Z-clip planes.
• Normals: Show the normals of the object in the viewport. You can also set their length in the numeric field.

• Flip: This will change the “renderable” side of the polygon by changing the direction of the normal vector. This is relevant for objects that have emitter or dielectric materials applied to them. An emitter object will always emit light in the direction of its surface normals, so if you find your emitters are emitting light in the wrong direction, flip the normals. For dielectric materials Maxwell Render uses the normals direction of an object to know when a ray has entered and exited the object. If the normals are reversed, flip the normals.

• Smoothing: Smooth objects at render time or do not smooth the object(s) (Flat). The numeric field represents the angle of smoothing. If the angle between adjacent polygons is smaller or equal to this angle, they will be smoothed.
• Recalc: Recalculate the objects’ normals. This parameter can be used to remove rendering artifacts due to corrupt normals of an imported object.

• Shading Mode: Set the shading mode for the selected object(s). Please note that you can also set the shading mode in the viewport. The shading mode that will be displayed in the viewport will always be the most “basic” mode chosen. For example, if you set “Bounding Box” (lowest shading mode) as the shading mode for an object in the Object parameter panel, but set the viewport to Shaded mode, the object will be displayed in Bounding Box in the viewport. On the other hand, if you set the viewport to Wireframe but set the object shading mode to Textured, the object will be shown in Wireframe because it is a lower shading mode than Textured mode.

• Object Id: A color chip to select a custom Id color for the selected object.

The Appearance section on the Object Parameters panel

UV Sets

Create a new UV set for the selected object, rename it or remove it. It is also possible to edit the parameters of the currently selected UV set.
To edit a UV set, you should set it to something other than Locked mode. You can select several UV sets at the same time and edit their properties. You can also select several objects at once and all the UV sets of all the selected objects will be listed here.

• Type: Choose the type of UV set needed for the object. There are four types of UV sets available: Planar, Spherical, Cylindrical and Cubic. Imported objects that already have UV sets will have their UV’s imported as “Locked”. This UV type does not allow for editing. It is also possible to set the current UV set to Locked to avoid editing it by mistake.
• Channel: Specify the UV channel that this UV set will represent. The UV channel is used when applying textures to a material in the material editor, by specifying the UV channel that texture should use. For example, an object may have two UV sets, one spherical (channel 0) and one flat (channel 1). A material applied to this object can use both the spherical UV set and the flat UV set. In the material editor, you can set one texture to use channel 0 and another texture to use channel 1.

Right-clicking in this panel provides the following options:

• New UV Set: Create a new UV set for the selected object.
• Normalize: This function will force the UV set to have a size of 1m, regardless of the size of the object it is applied to. It is similar to checking the “Real Scale” box in the Material Editor Texture Picker, and it is useful to normalize the projectors directly, for example if you already applied a material to the object and you do not want to check Real Scale in the material.
• Adjust to Object: Adjust the position, rotation and scale of the current UV set to the global position, rotation and scale of the object it is attached to.
• Operator: This option allows you to apply the same transformation to all the selected UV’s at the same time, for example if you wish to scale all the selected UV sets by 10%.
• Rename: Rename the current UV set.
• Remove: Remove the current UV set.

The UV Sets section on the Object Parameters panel

Triangle Groups

This section displays all triangle groups belonging to the selected object. Note that only one object has to be selected for the list to display the triangle groups.
To view the triangles associated with a triangle group in the viewport, make sure you are in Triangle Selection mode and select a triangle group. The triangles will be highlighted in the viewport.

You can drag and drop a material from the material list onto a triangle group to assign that material to just that triangle group. It is also possible to select a triangle group in the list, and drag and drop a material directly in the viewport. To remove a triangle group, select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Additionally, if you right-click on a triangle group a menu will pop up:

• Merge: Merge two selected groups. The material of the first selected group will also be used for the new merged group of triangles.
• Rename: Rename a group.
• Remove: Remove the triangle groups but not the triangles themselves. Same as the Delete key.

Right-clicking on this panel allows you to merge, recalculate, rename and remove the current triangle group.

The Triangle Groups section on the Object Parameters panel

RealFlow RenderKit

Maxwell Render is compatible with RealFlow through the RealFlow RenderKit; the system that allows you to import bin particles from RealFlow and mesh them “on-the-fly” during the render process. This is a smooth and efficient process, enabling you to customize the meshing of the particles and Maxwell Render will create the mesh only when rendering, saving lots of time when loading a scene and taking up much less space on disk.

You can create a reference to a RealFlow object from the menu Geometry> RealFlow particles and load a particle bin file in the RealFlow RenderKit section, or you can attach a RealFlow particle bin to an existing object, in the same way. 

For an in depth description of the usage of the RealFlow Renderkit in Maxwell, see the RealFlow integration chapter.