Maxwell Plug-in for form5.5.3•Z！

インストール

重要：Maxwell Plug-in for form•Zをインストールする前に、Maxwell Renderを正しくインストールしておく必要があります。 以前のプラグインを削除しておく必要もあります。 以下手順： formZを終了して、MaxwellZ.zip（MaxwellZ.sit）を formZ pluginsフォルダー内に解凍してください。 このファイルの中身は "MaxwellZ" という名前のフォルダーになってます。 再起動すればプラグインが使えるようになります。

MAXWELL PLUG-IN　クイックガイド：

Maxwellは2つのプラグインで構成されています。 ひとつ目は "MaxwellZ" 。formZ上の "Maxwell Menu" というパレットです。 このパレットは主にシーンのセットアップに使います。 もう一つのプラグインは "Maxwell Attributes" といい、プラグインフォルダのMaxwellZの中に入ってます。 このプラグインは "Maxwell materials" の設定に使います。

MaxwellZ パレット:

"Render Scene" ボタンを押すとMaxwellは、追加マテリアルを設定してあるもの以外のすべてのオブジェクトにディフューズ（拡散）を割り当てます。 デフォルトでMaxwellは、ユーザーが質感パレットで各オブジェクトに与えた色を取得します。

1. General タブ

"Render Scene" ボタンで、Maxwell Renderを起動して.mxsファイルを生成します。そして画像を出力します。 ※レンダリング自体はformZ上で行われるのではなく、mxcl.exeという専用アプリケーションが起動して実行します。 これが起動したらformZ本体は閉じても大丈夫です。 一般的には、このあとすぐにmxcl.exeを終了して、Maxwell Studio（mxst.exe）を起動。 今書き出した.mxsファイルを開いてさらに細かい設定をしてからレンダリングし直します。 Maximum Render Time: この値でレンダリングのクオリティを決定します。 ※長くすれば長くするほどキレイな絵になります。 ノイズがいつまでたっても消えないというときは、さらに1日、さらに1日とどんどん時間を増やしてみてください。 エミッターが多く重いシーンでは、十分クリアな画像になるのに "何十時間" もかかることはめずらしくないです...。 ただし、オブジェクト数が少なく、フィジカル・スカイだけなら、1時間から数時間で十分なクオリティになります。 This value is useful when you want to render a sequence of frames using different hardware configurations. If the quality level is reached before the “maximum render time”, then the render ends. In the other case, if the maximum render time is reached before the sampling level, the renderer also stops the calculus. Each increment of the sampling level value is an increment of 50% in the overall quality of the image. To have an idea of the image quality during the render process you can take a look to the command line window, where the sampling level is being actualized during the render process. Maxwell rendering is both time-based as well as sample-based. You enter a target time and Maxwell will try to achieve a rendering result as good as possible within that time frame. The more time you reserve for a Maxwell render, the less noise the resulting imagery will contain and the better the image quality will be. Speedier processors yield better results within a given amount of time than slower processors (CPU speed x Time = Quality). The time value does not affect the end result at the end of a given time. In other words: setting the render time to 240 minutes yields the same result as setting the rendertime to 2400 minutes and stopping the render after 240 minutes. An effective way of determining the final light exposure in your rendered scene is to render a quick preview at a low resolution, ideally turning on the "Low Quality" function. Image Size: Width: 横幅をピクセルで指定します。 Height: 高さをピクセルで指定します。 Pixel Aspect: width/height pixel ratio. Render control: Output MXS path: Mxs (Maxwell scene file) ファイルの出力パス。 すべてのシーン情報をmxsファイルに含めることができます。 mxsファイルはマルチプラットフォームです。 (Windows,Mac OS X, Linux) Output Image path: 画像ファイルの保存場所とフォーマットを指定します。 Scene Scale: シーンのスケールを指定します。 デフォルトの0.01でOK。 It only affects to the way the light travels in the space. If this value is modified, the render will be more or less dark. Sampling Level: この値は目標とするレンダリング品質を示します。デフォでOK。 Maxwell will try to reach the entered quality level, but whether the renderer achieves that within the given time frame depends on several circumstances in your 3D scene. When a higher quality level is reached this will result in a more complete lighting solution and less noise in the rendered image. Speedier processors reach higher sampling values (better quality) within a given amount of time than slower processors. Lower the sampling value for earlier render termination when this value is reached, but also less quality in the result. The image file that is being rendered is regularly updated during rendering, showing the result of new subsamples between whole sampling levels. You can terminate a Maxwell render at any desired point in time and can then use the resulting image at the time of render termination. For single image renders it's generally better to keep the sampling level limit high (the default of 25 is fine). You can then always stop the render if you're already satisfied with a lower sampling level. Num Threads: シングルプロセッサなら1。ハイパースレッドONなら2。DualXeonでハイパースレッドONなら4です。 ただし、他のタスクのためにCPUの負荷を軽くしたい場合は少ない数を指定します。 よくわからない場合は、下のコマンドラインオプションに、 -th:0 と書けば、そのコンピューターで使える最高数が自動的に設定されます。 Export scene: 通常は "Layer" でいいでしょう。 ( by layers/ by groups ). Specifies if the current FormZ scene hierarchy is kept by layers or groups. It is useful when importing the mxs file inside Maxwell Studio to keep the organization of the original FormZ scene. Command Line Options: mxcl.exeのコマンドオプションを指定します。 たとえば、-hd　とすればハードディスクオプション。-ml とすればマルチライトが有効になります。 細かいことはmxcl.exeのマニュアルをみてください。 Tone Mapping, Burn, Monitor Gamma: デフォでよいです。 The Maxwell renderer's tone mapping section offers some optional image processing for the rendering. Decrease the Burn value and increase the gamma value in order to brighten dark areas in your image.

2. Environment タブ

シーン内の環境を設定します。 The Maxwell renderer's Environment section is dedicated to accurately simulating physical skylight with or without sunlight, based upon real-world coordinates, date and time. Use Maxwell's physical sky in exteriors and interiors with a lot of outside light penetration. Use Sky Dome in interiors with less exterior light penetration. The skydome generally renders faster, resulting in less noise when the render is finished. Sky Dome: Enable Sky Dome: このオプションを使うときはフィジカル・スカイは使えません。 Intensity: ライトの強さ Set Sky Color: 空の色 By clicking this button a whole range of colors can be chosen for the sky. Colors can be selected form a ‘Basic colors’ panel, a ‘Custom colors’ panel, by a Color Picker Control panel. It can also be selected by entering number values: in the RGB Mode (the mode used by the screen), in which values vary from 0 (black) and 255 (white); in the HSL there can be specified hue, saturation and luminosity percentages between 0 and 240. Physical Sky: フィジカル・スカイ Maxwell incorporates a physically-based sky simulator: the user simply specifies the geographical location and the time of day for a scene and Maxwell will automatically handle the rest. This physically-based sky model will also include and extension to simulate special lighting conditions such as moon light or various atmospheric phenomena. Enable Physical Sky: このチェックボックスをONにすると、Maxwellフィジカル・スカイが使えます。建築系なら、通常はこれが多いでしょう。 Use Sun Light: 太陽光を使う Turbidity, Ozone, Water: 大気を通して入ってくる光の透過具合を調整するパラメータです。通常はデフォでOKです。 User can select air parameters which affect to transmission of the light through the atmosphere. Coordinates: 座標 Longitude： 経度 東京なら139度くらい Latitude： 緯度 東京なら35度くらい Date and Time: デフォルトの109は春分のころってこと。 日本の時差は9時間 時刻は、夕方5時半なら17.5 Hour, Gmt (Greenwich +12/-12), Julian Day. ※北の方角は固定らしい...。

3. Camera タブ

※現実世界のカメラとほぼ同じです。カメラの知識のあるひとには簡単なことです。 Camera: Maxwell gets most of the necessary info of the view from the FormZ view parameters dialog. Maxwel renders with the current FormZ view. As Maxwell needs a perspective view to render, so if the view is not in perspective mode Maxwell will transform it and the render will not be exactly as the FormZ viewport. Thus, it is suggested to set the view to Perspective to get accurate results. The view will be exactly the same as in the FromZ viewport if the resolution of the image is the same in the Maxwell palette than in the properties of the FormZ current view. Maxwell needs some additional parameters (fStop, Shutter, ISO, Diaphram) to set the Maxwell camera. The Maxwell camera simulates the most important properties of a real-life physical camera. Always use a Maxwell camera for your Maxwell scenes. You can choose between a target-oriented camera or a free camera. A diaphragm is a dilating mechanism in a camera that exists of a number of blades arranged in a circular fashion. By shifting the blades a diaphragm can widen or narrow a circular opening (aperture) between the camera lens and the camera sensor, resulting in more or less light to reach the sensor. The diaphragm should not be confused with the shutter (see above), as these are separate mechanisms, each with their own function. A camera's focal length divided by the diaphragm's aperture results in an fStop value (see above). The blades of a diaphragm can be of a polygonal or circular structure. The difference becomes apparent when there is Depth Of Field (DOF, see further on) in your imagery. When you focus on a centric element in your image, areas that are closer and further away from the focus area get a characteristic out of focus blur. The best-known characteristic of these out-of-focus areas is the shape of the blurred light, also known as bokeh. The bokeh effect is particularly visible in highlight areas. A diaphragm with six blades results in typical hexagonally shaped bokeh light aberrations. A higher number of blades and a circular diaphragm type will result in a more circular bokeh effect, but will require more rendertime in Maxwell. Rotating the angle of the blades will result in the polygonal bokeh shapes changing their general orientation. Adjust it as desired in the Maxwell camera. Focal length of lens: this value is got from the FormZ view properties dialog of the current view. fStop: An fStop (often notated as "f/stop") is the focal length of a camera lens (F) divided by the diameter of the lens opening (D). The lens opening is also referred to as "aperture" and the focal length is the distance between the camera lens and the camera sensor (you can find both of these elements in Illustration 1). The lens opening diameter is determined by a blades-based mechanism called the diaphragm (discussed later on in this article). The fStop system was conceived to establish a consistent exposure to light, regardless of the focal length of the lens being used. With this system an fStop of 16 on a 1000 mm lens lens will expose the same amount of light as an fStop of 16 on a 28 mm lens. Example: if you've got a lens with a Focal length of 30 and a lens Diameter of 60, then F/D = 30/60 = an fStop of 0.5. Higher fStop values allow less light to enter through the lens. Lower values allow more light to pass through the lens. An fStop that is too low will cause the resulting image to be over-exposed to light, resulting in areas becoming flattened because of too much brightness (see Illustration 2). An fStop that is too high will cause the opposite effect. Shutter Speed:The shutterspeed determines how long the camera sensor is exposed to light. In real-life cameras this is achieved by a mechanical shutter between the lens and the sensor which opens and closes for the amount of time indicated by the shutterspeed. The shutter should not be confused with the diaphragm (see below), as these are separate mechanisms, each with their own function. A shutter's speed usually indicates a fraction of a second. Example: a shutterspeed value of 1/100 will expose light to the camera sensor for 1/100th of a second. Longer shutterspeeds will expose a scene to the camera sensor for a longer time. This results in blurriness of moving objects and/or blurriness of the whole scene caused by movement of the camera itself. But longer shutterspeeds also make the camera sensor detect more light from a scene and thus you will get better images of dimly lit scenes. For sharper imagery increase the shutterspeed. A picture taken at a shutterspeed of 1/1000th of a second will enable you to freeze relatively fast motion, while the same motion shot at 1/10th of a second will probably cause a blurry result. You will need more light in a scene that's shot at a higher shutter speed though, with daylight on a bright sunny day being ideal. If you follow a moving object with your camera and keep the shutterspeed relatively low, the object you're following will remain sharp and the background will show motion blur. fStop versus shutterspeed: In order to provide some generalized support what fStop usually corresponds to what shutterspeed under common lighting conditions you can find a table below. Please keep in mind that this is only a guideline. Each individual lighting and motion condition requires customized settings. Fstopの一覧 OUTDOOR LIGHT INDOOR LIGHT FSTOP SHUTTERSPEED FSTOP SHUTTERSPEED 1.0 1/8000 1.0 1/1000 1.4 1/4000 1.4 1/500 2.0 1/2000 2.0 1/250 2.8 1/1000 2.8 1/125 4.0 1/500 4.0 1/60 5.6 1/250 5.6 1/30 8.0 1/125 8.0 1/15 11.0 1/60 11.0 1/8 16.0 1/30 16.0 1/4 22.0 1/15 22.0 1/2 32.0 1/8 32.0 1 Each incremental fStop value in the fStop-shutterspeed table allows half as much light to enter the camera and each lower shutterspeed value allows double as much light to enter the camera, in order to more or less compensate each other and achieve a relatively stable light brightness. Type of opening obturador (circular/polygonal). If polygonal is selected Num. of Blades, Blades Angle are enabled. Channels Layers: This option establishes the different channels and layers that Maxwell can export. By default all the layers are enabled. User can disable any of them to get faster renders with less quality.

4. HDR/MXI environment タブ

Maxwell 1.0はHDR（High Dynamic Range Image Rendering）をサポートします。 Maxwell 1.0 provides hdr/ mxi environment support. A hdr of mxi (Maxwell image format) can be loaded to set the illumination of the scene quickly. There are four different channels to set the environment: Background, Reflection, Refraction and Illumination. All of them have the same controls, a button to set the path of the map, an intensity (or multiplier) and scale/offset controls: The background channel also has a control to specify if the mapping is spherical or plane. Below the environment field there is a checkbox that specifies if the background channel is used in all the channels to make a quick setup.

Maxwell Attributes Plugin:

Maxwell materialsはオブジェクトにカスタムアトリビュートプラグインとして与えられます。 formZの "属性を見る" ツールを使うと、追加の属性一覧から "Maxwell Materials" という名前のダイアログを起動することができます。 6つのタイプの maxwell materialsがあります。: Diffuses,Emitters, Dielectrics, Metals, Plastics and custom MXM presets (*.mxm, Maxwell material files) それぞれのタイプの物理特性についての詳しいことは後の説明を見てください。 ディフューズ、ディエレクトリック、プラスティック、そしてカスタムエミッターでは、 Maxwellはオブジェクトに設定されたformZの質感の "RGB値" を使用します。 "mxm presets" では、 マテリアルエディターを起動してプリセットファイルを編集することができます。

オブジェクトに手っ取り早くMaxwell属性を設定する方法

Maxwell Menuパレット下部の "2つのボタン" が役に立ちます。 Maxwell属性を付けたひとつのオブジェクトの属性をコピーして、他の多くのオブジェクトに一括で与えることができます。 To make faster the assignment of maxwell attributes to objects there are two buttons in the main MaxwellZ palette that allows to copy Maxwell attributes from one object to a selection. To make this, just select an object with a maxwell attribute applied and press “Assign this object as source” then select all the desired objects and press “Apply source attributes to selection”. The maxwell attributes of the source object are applied to the entire selection. このプロセスでは、formZの質感はコピーされません。 ひとつ選択してMaxwell Materialsを設定します。 選択状態で "Assign this object as source" ボタンを押して、一時的に属性をコピーします。 同じ属性を与えたいオブジェクトを全部選択して、 "Apply source attributes to selection" ボタンを押せば一括で設定できます。

マテリアルエディターの詳しい説明は以下。

Maxwell materials accurately simulate the most important real-life surface properties. Use the U Roughness and V Roughness values that are present in several Maxwell material types to simulate a glossy reflection / refraction appearance (blurry reflections / refractions, see Illustration 4). Use differing U Roughness and V Roughness values to achieve an anisotropic effect (unequal reflection / refraction blurring along different axes). Useful for simulating surfaces with miniscule directional grooves, such as brushed metal. If present in a Maxwell material, the Scattering section properties determine the way light is absorbed by a surface and reflected from a surface, using the so-called Bi-directional Scattering Distribution Function (BSDF) technique. In practice this is usually referred to as surface shaders, such as Phong, Blinn and Ward. One of the key features of the Maxwell renderer is its ability to simulate realistic materials and defining materials is one of the most critical tasks to perform. The following function is used to create a material: Diffuse（拡散）: Maxwell's diffuse material is a general purpose material simulating nonshiny surfaces that catch light in a diffuse manner and optionally absorb a given amount of light. The higher a diffuse color value and saturation, the more light will reflect from the surface, resulting in more color bleeding, but it will also require more render time. In general, try to avoid very high surface color values and saturation. Another advantage of this advice is that less saturated colors increase realism. Dielectric（誘電体　ガラスみたいな物質）: A dielectric material is essentially a substance that is a poor conductor of electricity, but an efficient supporter of electrostatic fields. Most dielectric materials are solid and a second common characteristic is transparency. Examples include glass and plastics. Some liquids and gases can be good dielectric materials. Dry air is an excellent dielectric, distilled water is a fair dielectric and a vacuum is an exceptionally efficient dielectric. A higher Absorbance value causes more light to be absorbed by the dielectric volume, resulting in the material becoming darker. Please note that the Absorbance parameter depends on the scale of the scene. For example: if you have an absorbance value of 0.1 for a window that's 0.01 meters thick, and use the same absorbance value for a window with a thickness of 10 meters (something unrealistic because of a wrong scene scale) then in the last example you will get a very dark window. A dielectric material's "Abbe" value indicates its amount of dispersion (also known as diffraction: the prismatic separation of a light's spectral color components). A material with a high Abbe number means that the different light wavelengths will have nearly the same index of refraction, resulting in less separation between the light's spectral colors. The dielectric material's Nd number indicates the index of refraction (IOR). Set the Abbe value in a Maxwell dielectric material to a value higher than 150 to decrease dispersion, but also to decrease noise and increase render speed. For plastic dielectric types a general rule of thumb is that polyurethane is mostly used for more solid, durable plastic applications and polycarbonate is generally used for common household plastic applications such as plastic milk bottles. Emitter（エミッター　光を放射するもの）: A Maxwell emitter material can turn any scene object into a light source. There are different types of indicating light energy distribution. W equals power indicated in Watts, W/m^2 indicates watts of power per square meter, W/sr is intensity, and and W/(m^2*sr) stands for radiance. See the "Light" section in this article for more theoretical light knowledge. When applying a Maxwell light emitter material to a scene object, bear in mind that more polygons in a light emitting object cause the render time to increase. In other words: using a simple box as a light emitter is more advantageous than a sphere with many faces. Light intensity is usually expressed in Watt (W). When using W the size of your light emitting object does not influence the amount of emitted light energy. If you work with W/m^2, then the emitter object emits one unit of Watt power per square meter, so if you resize your emitting object, the amount of light it emits into the scene will change. The W/m^2sr units variation is very suitable for a distant sun object. Studio lighting equipment usually ranges from 1000 Watt to 2000 Watt. With indoor photography you will have to use a lower fStop value and/or lower shutterspeed than with outdoor photography to get the right amount of light into the camera. See the "Light" section in this article for more practical light knowledge. In Maxwell the light emission is always considered a characteristic of the material. There are two different sets of parameters which can be used to define this material. Below we show the appropriate last 3 entries for the “setMaterialParameter” calls. Prior to defining the material emission two parameters : “INTENSITY” and “UNITS” must be set (this order dependency is a known issue). IMPORTANT NOTE: In the current version of Maxwell all the types of emitters are internally converted to “Custom emitter” which gets the color applied to the object in the FormZ surface style panel. The rest of the emitter types will be available in next updates. Metal（金属）: The metal material allows you to simulate realistic metal surfaces. You can choose several metal types: Aluminium, Cobalt, Cooper, Gold and Silver. Roughness U and V: surface roughness along U and V texture coordinates directions. Plastic(プラスティック): A Maxwell Plastic material accurately simulates a shiny plastic surface. The Plastic material is a general purpose material for creating shiny surfaces. Next to plastic you can also use it to give a varnished look to a wooden floor and many other shiny applications. Use the Specular color to control the intensity of reflections on your plastic surface. 注）2006/7/4バージョンには、いくつかのパラメータにバグがあるようです。 Roghnessパラメータは100倍して出すとうまくいったりします...。 細かいことはmxmファイルを作って、Material Editorを呼び出すといいです。 MXM presets（mxmプリセット）: MXM files are the most advanced material type of Maxwell and it will be the best choice in most of the cases. Using mxm files it is possible to launch the Maxwell material editor and edit the materials a a separate process. There can be launched as many editors as needed to edit several materials at the same time. Since the new materials are separate files it is easy to reuse them in other scenes. In the mxm preset tab there it is shown the current path of the mxm material and also there are three buttons: - Choose: It launches an “open file” dialog to set the mxm path. - Edit: It launches mxed application with the current mxm loaded. - Create: It creates a mxm file in the specified folder and then opens the material editor in wizard mode. 詳しいことはMaxwell本体のマニュアルのマテリアルエディターの使い方を参照してください。 将来のformZ6.0用のMaxwellプラグインでは、残りのタイプのマテリアルを削除するつもりですので、mxm プリセットを使うことを強く推奨します。 Hide to camera: この属性はマテリアルではありません。カメラに対して不可視になります。 This attribute has nothing to do with the materials. If sets if an object is not visible to the camera but contributes to the global illumination with shadows, reflections…

Textures:テクスチャ

Maxwellは、formZの質感パレットでオブジェクトに与えたテクスチャをレンダリングします。 Maxwellはいくつかの画像フォーマットをサポートしています。（ jpg, tga, bmp, tiff, png） Note: テクスチャ付きのマテリアルを与えたオブジェクトをレンダリングするには、 そのオブジェクトには テクスチャマッピングツールで設定した "テクスチャ座標" がなければなりません。 そうでないとエラーになります。 レンダリング時にコンソールに "UVW map" がどうたらいうエラーメッセージがでてレンダリングが失敗する場合は、 一度、formZに戻って、テクスチャマッピング設定をしてください。 ※formZの "質感" ひとつに対して、テクスチャマッピングを "ひとつ" にするのがいいようです。 つまり、同じ質感で600角と500角を作るとエラーになるようです。 Note for Mac users: 現在、Macでは .tiff と .png はサポートしていません。 それと、Maxwellではテクスチャのパスとして、アルファベットのみサポートしています。 日本語とか変な記号はダメです...。 以下のタイプのマップはMaxwellに引き継ぐことができます。（変換はオブジェクトに "エミッター" が割り当てられていない場合のみ実行されます。） - formZのカラーマッピングは、 ディフューズ（拡散）マップとしてマッピングされます。 - formZのバンプマップは、 バンプマップとしてマッピングされます。 - formZのスペキュラーマップは、 ラフネスマップとしてマッピングされます。 より複雑なマテリアル設定（クリップマップ、異方性鏡面反射、法線マップ...）には、 "Maxwell Material editor"を使って でmxmファイルで作業する必要があります。

Triangulation issues:三角形分割

Maxwellは三角メッシュをレンダリングします。その他のジオメトリタイプは内部的に変換されます。 When using smoothed geometries whether the smooth angle (Max. Normal Deviation) is too big; there may appear undesired artifacts in the image. Whether there are rounded dielectrics or metals in the scene it is strongly recommended to increase the resolution and also limit the Maximum Normal Deviation in the FormZ display resolution attributes. 2006/09/17 Takeharu Yabe ※この日本語訳版を作るのにあたって、誰の許可も取っていませんが勘弁してね。NextLimitさん...。 Lo sient, NextLimit Team.