Cinema Scene Object
- jeremy (Unlicensed)
Exporting and rendering of MXS files with the Maxwell for Cinema 4D plugin is always accomplished through the use of a Scene object. A new Scene is created using the 'Scene' item, found in the plugin's main menu: 
A C4D document may contain as many Maxwell Scene objects as you wish. Each Scene holds a complete set of parameters, and the values for any given Scene object are used when that Scene is exported to an MXS file. The various parameters are divided into four basic tabs: 
| Tab | Description |
|---|---|
| Output | Contains parameters which affect properties of the MXS file being exported, and how that export is to be accomplished. |
| Engine | Contains parameters related various options exposed in the Maxwell rendering engine, Maxwell Render. |
| Environment | Contains parameters related to the MXS environment, i.e. whether the Scene will use the Maxwell Sky Dome, Physical Sky, or Image Based environmental lighting. |
| Cinema | Contains parameters which control how the plugin exports native C4D lights and procedural textures, as well as a global scale modifier you can use to scale the exported mesh geometry. |
At the top of the Scene object's user-interface, you will find several buttons which are used for exporting that Scene to MXS files and rendering in various ways: 
| Icon | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
  | Render (Render View & Active View) | The 'Render Render View' button exports this Scene to an MXS using the resolution defined in C4D's Render Settings > Output section. The 'Render Active View' button does the same, but uses the resolution of the active viewport. When the export is finished, the resulting MXS file is then rendered using the Maxwell Render render engine. If these buttons are disabled, it means that the plugin was unable to locate Maxwell Render on your system; in that case, you should check that Maxwell Render is properly installed. |
 | Export to Studio | This button exports this Scene to an MXS file and then opens it in Maxwell Studio. If this button is disabled, it means that the plugin was unable to locate Maxwell Studio on your system; in that case, you should check that Maxwell Render is properly installed. |
 | Export to Network | This button exports this Scene to an MXS file and then sends it to the Maxwell Network Render system. |
 | Export MXS | This button simply exports this Scene to an MXS file. |
 | Send to Maxwell Fire | This button exports and links this Scene to Maxwell Fire. |
In addition to these per-Scene MXS-export controls, the plugin also provides duplicates located in the plugin's main menu/toolbar:
These commands will act on the Scene that was last 'touched'; if no Scene has yet been created or selected, they will be disabled.
Output Tab
The Output tab contains several groups which control how MXS files are written and exported.
Name
This is the name which will be used to generate the various filenames required to write MXS files. This includes the file name of the MXS file, the image-output file, and the MXI file. This should be specified as a name with no extension; the appropriate extensions will be inserted as necessary by the plugin. The Name should therefore also not contain characters which are illegal for use in file paths. If no name is entered here, the plugin will first try to use the Output Name specified in the Preferences page, or else it will try to use the current document name. The image format (the main RGB output) which will be written may be chosen from the drop-down list
Folder
This is the root folder used for the plugin's output. MXS, image, and MXI files will be written to this location. If procedural textures need to be exported, they will be written into a 'textures' folder located inside the one specified here. If no folder is specified here, the plugin will try to use the Output Folder specified in the Preferences page, or else it will try to use the current document location. If it is unable to determine the current document location (for example, when the document has not yet been saved), it will try to use the current directory, which will likely be either the location of C4D itself, or the location it was started from. To open the current output folder, just click the folder button at the right.
Export Options
This group holds parameters which affect how the exported MXS file will be written.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Disable Maxwell Instances | This option simply disables the export of Maxwell Instance objects on a global basis. |
| Auto-generate instances | This option is not related to the Maxwell Instance Object provided by the plugin. Rather, what it does is to automatically identify objects which are candidates for instancing during export. For example, if there are two cubes in the scene, both with the same name and mesh-topology, then only the first will be exported as a mesh – the second will automatically be exported as an instance in the MXS. This is suitable for use with things like emitters, which generate a great number of similarly-named objects, the topology of which is identical between instances, with the only difference being each object's transformation. Note that use of this option has the potential for producing confusing results. This can happen when geometry is created by a generator, where that geometry effectively has no local transformation. This could include situations such as those where a spline is swept or extruded, with the resulting polygons simply being created in global space. A quick way to check whether this is going to be a problem is to run Current State to Object on the generator; if the generated polygons have no local transformation, they will not work well with instance auto-generation. |
| Protect MXS | This option determines whether or not Maxwell Studio will allow the meshes in the MXS being written to be exported or not. If this is enabled, the MXS will be 'locked'; that is, third-parties will not be allowed to extract meshes from the MXS via Maxwell Studio, thereby providing a way of providing third-parties with actual MXS files for various purposes while still offering some protection of the intellectual property they contain. |
| Pack and Go | When this option is activated, the plugin will scan through all files referenced in the scene (i.e. texture, ior, hdr, etc.) and copy them to the output directory during export. The paths contained in the exported mxs will point to the new copies, rather than the original files. This makes it much easier to transport an entire scene to another location. |
| Strict Mode | When this is enabled, while writing an MXS file, the plugin will enable textures which are not able to be found. This will result in error messages being reported by the render engine. |
| Check Paths | This button brings up a dialog containing a report which shows all external files referenced by Maxwell materials and objects, indicating which were able to be found, which were not, and which missing files were able to be found using search paths. |
Motion Blur & Animation
This group is only shown when the 'Export Animation' option is enabled. When a Scene is exported with Animation enabled, the plugin will cause the C4D document to be animated, exporting a sequentially-named MXS file for each frame. There are a few parameters which control how the animation export is done.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Pre-roll Timeline | When this option is enabled, the plugin will animate the document through all frames prior to the one being exported. This can be helpful, as it makes sure that all generators and expressions have been properly run, ensuring a consistent result at the current frame. This is not free (that is, it can take some time to run the document through its frames) so only enable this option when necessary. |
| Shutter-based Blur | When enabled, the amount that objects and cameras will be moved along the timeline is figured based on the shutter value of the camera being exported. So for example, given FPS (specified in Cinema Render Settings, not the camera) of 24 and a shutter speed of 1/24, each object will appear to move one frames-worth of movement along the Cinema timeline. Given a shutter of 1 second, the object will appear to move 24 frames, with the movement being centered on the frame being exported. |
| Export Animation | This option determines whether or not the plugin will export in single- or multiple-frame mode. The Animation group is not shown in the Scene user-interface unless this option is enabled. |
| Camera Motion Blur | Similar to the Object Motion Blur option, this controls whether or not to export Motion Blur information for the camera. |
| Object Motion Blur | When this is enabled, the plugin will move objects backward and forward along the timeline in order to figure Motion Blur. When Shutter-based blur is enabled, the amount that objects are moved will be dependent on the shutter value of the camera being used. Otherwise, objects will be moved half of a frame forward and backward, in reference to the frame currently being exported. |
| Motion Blur Steps | This number determines how many times the plugin will sample the exposure range for object positions when calculating object motion blur. If, for example, this value is set to 2, then only the starting and ending positions of objects will be written. More positions will cause the motion blur to more closely follow objects which move arbitrarily during the exposure. |
| Animation Frame Range | This group is only shown when the 'Export Animation' option is enabled. When a Scene is exported with Animation enabled, the plugin will cause the C4D document to be animated, exporting a sequentially-named MXS file for each frame. There are a few parameters which control how the animation export is done. |
| Use Render Settings | This determines whether to use the frame-range and step count set in the active C4D Render Settings, or to use a custom range. |
| Step | This parameter controls how many (if any) frames to skip between MXS exports. If this is set to one, all frames will be exported, whereas if it were set to two, one frame on the timeline would be skipped for each one that was exported. If the animation frame range was ten, and the Step size was also set to ten, then only one frame would be exported. |
| Render from…to | When the 'Use Cinema Range' option is disabled, these inputs control the range of frames which will be exported. If the 'to' value is less than the 'from' value, the animation will be done in reverse – under these circumstances, Motion Blur will also be figured in reverse, if it is enabled. |
Default Exposure
Most of the parameters for the camera which appears in the exported MXS are taken directly from the C4D camera's physical properties, and certain aspects of C4D's Render Settings. Even so, a C4D camera lacks some features which are integral to the way that Maxwell works; for the most part, these are related to exposure. This group contains parameters which will be used to control the exposure when no actual Maxwell Camera Tag is found at export time. For information on these parameters, please see the Camera Tag.
Render Channels
Options in this group control the various different image outputs which may be rendered by Maxwell Render. 'Render' is the main output image. The other channels are used for compositing in a third-party application like Photoshop – see the main Maxwell Render manual for more details on the various channels.
Engine
The Engine tab contains several sub-groups which control parameters used by the Maxwell Render render engine.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Render time | This is the maximum time Maxwell Render will render before stopping. As it is possible to stop Maxwell Render at any time, it is generally best to leave this set to a higher number of minutes than will be necessary to obtain a clear image. |
| Sampling level | Maxwell Render will stop when it reaches this SL (Sampling Level), or the Render time value, if the specified SL is not reached before the Render time has elapsed. |
| CPU Threads | This parameter specifies how many threads will be spawned by the Maxwell Render render process. Setting this to zero will cause Maxwell Render to auto-detect and render using all available CPU resources. Setting the number of threads to [CPU count – 1] represents a trade-off between rendering speed and machine responsiveness, in case the machine must be used for other purposes while rendering. |
| Command line | The plugin itself is not intended for rendering final images; rather, it is really more an MXS file exporter. To render the MXS files it produces, it uses the Maxwell Render rendering application. Maxwell Render runs from a command line, and different command-line flags are supplied by the plugin to start it rendering on an exported MXS file. In addition to the flags passed by the plugin, you can also enter any other Maxwell Render command-line flags you wish in this text box, and they will be added to the flags that the plugin gives Maxwell Render. |
| Quality | Determines whether to use Maxwell Render's production or draft (i.e. the same engine used in Maxwell Fire) engine. |
| Priority | Determines whether or not Maxwell Render will be started as a low-priority process. This is the same as adding –p:low to the command-line. |
| Multilight | Maxwell's Multilight feature allows you to control the intensity of your lights while you render, or after you have finished rendering. Two modes are provided: Intensity and Color. Note that it takes a great deal more memory to use this feature, so do not enable it if you do not intend to use it. |
| MXI Output | Determines whether Maxwell Render will write a single MXI file, one for each light, or none at all. |
Fire Options
Sampling Level and Threads directly control their parameters in the Fire render engine, while the Quality parameter determines the actual size of the image being rendered (the image is interpolated to fit the current size of the Fire window).
Tone Mapping
These parameters correspond to those of the same name as seen in the Maxwell Render user-interface. For technical details on the meaning of these parameters, see the main Maxwell Render manual.
SimuLens
Maxwell Render provides access to the image-enhancing features known as SimuLens.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Aperture & Obstacle Maps | These maps are used by the SimuLens Diffraction feature, if they are specified. Several example maps may be found in the 'Simulens maps' folder inside the Maxwell folder on your machine |
| Diffraction | SimuLens is able to simulate camera lens-diffraction effects. it is not recommended to enable Diffraction from the plugin, since Maxwell Render will apply it at each image update – rather, wait until the image is finished and apply Diffraction using Maxwell Render. |
| Scattering | This parameter simulates light-scattering caused by the camera's lens. Since this scattering is figured by Maxwell Render at each image update, it is recommended (in the interest of reducing render-time) to leave this disabled, then apply it to the final image via Maxwell Render's user-interface when the image has finished rendering. |
Devignetting | By default, Maxwell Render simulates realistic vignetting (i.e. the darkening around edges of images); to disable this, check the Devignetting option and set the reduction value between zero and one-hundred percent to vary the amount of vignetting seen in the final output image. |
Materials
Setting the path to an MXM file in the Override material field will cause all non-emitter objects to be rendered using this MXM rather than whatever they may have explicitly assigned. The Default path can be used to set which MXM should be used for objects which have no explicit material assigned. If it is blank, a standard 153,153,153 diffuse MXM will be created under your user folder and the path to it will be given to Maxwell Render to use as default for non-assigned objects.
Render Layers
Though Maxwell naturally calculates all possible light interactions in a scene, it is possible to inhibit certain types of calculation using the toggles found in this section. The specific light-interactions which each of these options affect should be fairly self-explanatory, for more details, see the regular Maxwell Render manual.
Environment Tab
The Environment tab controls the environment which will be used in the exported MXS, and contains all of the parameters necessary to control each Environment Type. There are four types of environment available; Sky Dome, Physical Sky, Image Based, and None. The environment for a Scene is set by using the drop-down list contained in the main Environment group. The Sun may be enabled regardless of which environment type is chosen. When the Sun is enabled, the Sun Indicator group will be shown:
When the Sun Indicator is enabled, the direction of the Sun will be shown in the viewport, using a yellow line and sphere. As date, time, location, or Scene Rotation is changed, the indicator will be updated in real-time, allowing for an intuitive prediction of where shadows will appear in the rendered image:
Use the Sun Indicator's Scale Factor to adjust how far away from the Scene Object's origin the sphere will be drawn. The indicator may be moved to a convenient location by changing the position of the Scene Object; the indicator is drawn relative to this location.Additionally, if a light with a Sun Expression tag is found during export, then the position of the object controlled by the expression (when the expression is enabled) will be used to set the Sun's direction in Maxwell, rather than what is specified in the Scene Object being rendered.
Sky Dome
When Sky Dome is chosen as the Environment Type, the scene will be lit by a sphere of light. The intensity, zenith, and horizon colors are individually controlled using the parameters of the same names. The Mid Point parameter determines the angle from the horizon at which the horizon and zenith colors are evenly mixed. For more information, see here.
Physical Sky
When Physical Sky is chosen as the Environment Type, the scene will be lit by an all-encompassing dome of light generated by Maxwell to simulate the appearance of a natural sky. For more information, see here. The Physical Sky may also be exported to an HDR file. Clicking 'Export' will export an HDR using the resolution set in C4D's Render Settings, while clicking 'Export Viewport' will export using the active viewport's resolution. Enable the 'Use custom resolution' option to export an HDR using a custom size.
Location & Time
The Location & Time group will be shown whenever it is applicable. The Latitude and Longitude parameters may be set manually, or automatically, by choosing a city from the drop-down list. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) will be figured automatically by the plugin regardless of how the location is specified. The Ground Rotation parameter rotates the environment in a range from 0 to 360 degrees, allowing you to change which direction is North without physically changing the C4D scene.
Image Based
The Image Based Environment Type allows you to light the scene using HDR images. There are four Image Based Channels provided; each channel may be disabled, or set to reference an HDR image, the Background channel, or it may use the sky type indicated in the Image Based Sky Type drop-down.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Use Interpolation | This option turns on render-time pixel-interpolation for environment HDR images. |
| Intensity Multiplier | The Intensity parameter of all image-based channels will be multiplied by this value. |
| Viewport Display | Determines which channel, if any, to display in the C4D viewport. |
| Viewport Resolution | Sets the size of bitmap to use for displaying IBL channels in the C4D viewport. |
| Image Based Sky Type | This drop-down is only shown when necessary; it determines the type of environment to use for channels which are either disabled, or are explicitly set to use the active sky. |
Cinema Tab
The Cinema tab contains parameters which tell the plugin how to deal with native C4D objects that have no correlation in Maxwell Render itself, and therefore require some sort of translation.
| Parameter | Function |
|---|---|
| Export Units | The output of the Scene will be scaled using this value. If it is set to 'Cinema Basic Units', objects will be exported at the size they are drawn in Cinema, according to the Basic Units setting in Cinema's Units preference page. There are several other scale presets available as well. If any of the named presets are chosen, then the document will be exported such that a unit specified in the Cinema UI, no matter what the Cinema Basic Units setting, will be treated as the unit chosen here. So, though the Cinema UI may be showing the width of an object as 200mm, choosing Inch here will result in the object being exported at 200 inches wide. Similarly, if you choose Custom here, a numeric input will be shown:  In this case, the values specified in the Cinema UI will be interpreted as meters, and will then multiplied by the given value; so as shown above, the exported size of the 200-unit wide object will be 200 meters X 0.01, or two meters. |
| Create Physical Lights | Enables or disables the translation of native C4D lights into meshes and emitter materials during export. |
| Hide from Camera | This determines whether or not the meshes generated will have the Maxwell object-flags of the same names set. This is useful for when you have C4D lights which would be visible to the camera, either directly or indirectly, and you wish them not to be. |
| Hide from Refl. & Refr. | |
| Omni-light segments | Determines the number of radial segments which will generated omni-light meshes will have. Do not use more detail here than necessary, since Maxwell render-time is adversely affected by emitter-geometry with large numbers of individual mesh-faces. |
| Omni-light radius | This determines the radius given to the sphere generated for an omni-light. |
| Round spot-light segments | Similar to the 'Omni-light segments' parameter, this controls how many radial segments will be used when generating spot-lights. Spot-lights are slightly more efficient in this regard than omni-lights, since the plugin can generate a simple disc for the spot-light's emitter mesh, rather than an entire sphere. |
| Procedurals | Maxwell always uses textures which are specified as a path to an on-disk image file. As such, the plugin must render any C4D procedural textures out to disk when it performs automatic conversion of C4D materials to Maxwell materials during export. The parameters in this group are used to control how those procedural textures are rendered. |
| Render to disk | Enables or disables the export of C4D procedural textures. When enabled, procedural textures found in native C4D materials during export will be rendered out and saved to files placed in a 'textures' directory, under the location specified in Scene > Output > Folder. |
| Render all textures | When enabled, textures which are specified by disk path will be rendered by their shaders, instead of simply passing their disk paths to Maxwell. The purpose of this is to enable animation of parameters for such textures. |
| Use Interpolation | Enables or disables the Maxwell texture's 'interpolation' option for all generated textures. |
| Sampling Size/Width/Height | This sets the resolution that native C4D procedurals will be saved to during export. Choose one of the pre-defined sizes from the drop-down, or choose 'Custom' and set the desired size using the Width and Height parameters |