Bonzai3d | Quickstart

This Maxwell Render plugin has been created with the intention of providing an optimum integration of Maxwell Render with Bonzai3d .

Maxwell Render is integrated in Bonzai3d by means of two plugins. The principal plugin, MaxwellZ.fzp, controls Maxwell Render options and handles the integration of Maxwell materials inside the Bonzai3d materials palette.

If you can see “Maxwell Render” as an option in the Bonzai3d Display menu, the plugins are properly installed and enabled.

The First Step: Making a Rendering

At it’s most basic, rendering a Maxwell image in Bonzai3d a ‘one button’ process:

1. Open Bonzai3d and create a new project. The plugin will ask if you want to create a default Physical Sky light. Click ‘OK.’

2. Create a few simple objects with different materials on a ground plane.

3. Select Display > Maxwell Render. Maxwell will launch as a separate process and render the current Bonzai3d view

What Happened

When you selected Maxwell Render, the Maxwell plugin produced a Maxwell Scene File (MXS) based on your Bonzai3d project, and saved it in the location you specified.

• All visible geometry was translated and embedded in the MXS.
• All your Bonzai3d views were converted into Maxwell Cameras and included in the MXS file. The current view will be rendered; the other views can be accessed if you open the MXS in Studio, Maxwell’s standalone scene editor.
• The scene was set up to be illuminated by the Physical Sky that you created.
• All your active materials were automatically translated into Maxwell Materials and embedded in the MXS file. If your project used embedded image maps from Bonzai3d's predefined materials library, or RenderZone procedural textures, they were converted to bitmap images and saved in a folder called 'Resources' alongside the MXS file.