Maxwell Render for Maya: Plug-in Help 1/34 doc v.1.1 - iam

Maxwell Render for Maya: Plug-in Help 1/34 

doc v.1.1

MAXWELL RENDER FOR MAYA : PLUG-IN HELP ................................................................................ 4 

INSTALLATION .................................................................................................................................. 4 

INSTALLATION ON WINDOWS .................................................................................................................. 4 

INSTALLATION ON MAC.......................................................................................................................... 5 

INSTALLATION ON LINUX:........................................................................................................................ 6 

USER INTERFACE HELP ...................................................................................................................... 7 

MAXWELL PREFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 7 

GENERAL : ........................................................................................................................................... 7 

SWATCH RENDERING:............................................................................................................................. 8 

VIEWPORT REPRESENTATION:.................................................................................................................. 8 

MAXWELL OBJECTS PROPERTIES....................................................................................................... 8 

MAXWELL CAMERA PROPERTIES ...................................................................................................... 9 

HOW CAMERAS WORK .......................................................................................................................... 9 

CAMERA PROPERTIES ........................................................................................................................... 10 

SHUTTER SPEED, ISO AND SHUTTER ANGLE.............................................................................................. 13 

SHIFT LENS......................................................................................................................................... 13 

MAXWELL RENDER GLOBALS .......................................................................................................... 14 

GENERAL SETTINGS.............................................................................................................................. 14 

TONE MAPPING.................................................................................................................................. 15 

ENVIRONMENT ................................................................................................................................... 16 

SKY OPTIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 16 

PHYSICAL SKY..................................................................................................................................... 17 

ATMOSPHERE..................................................................................................................................... 18 

SUN.................................................................................................................................................. 19 

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION.................................................................................................................... 20 

SKY DOME......................................................................................................................................... 20 

IMAGE BASED..................................................................................................................................... 20 

BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................... 21 

REFLECTION, REFRACTION AND ILLUMINATION.......................................................................................... 21 

RENDER CHANNELS ............................................................................................................................. 21 



LAYERS SETTINGS ................................................................................................................................ 22 

SIMULENS ......................................................................................................................................... 23 

SUPPORT FOR MAYA NATIVE MATERIALS ................................................................................................. 24 

HOW NATIVE MAYA MATERIALS ARE TRANSLATED TO MAXWELL RENDER?..................................................... 24 

MAXWELL RENDER MATERIAL NODE....................................................................................................... 27 

MAXWELL LAYERED MATERIAL ATTRIBUTE EDITOR.................................................................................... 28 

MATERIAL ATTRIBUTES ........................................................................................................................ 29 

BUILDING MATERIALS..................................................................................................................... 31 

BUTTONS BAR: ................................................................................................................................... 31 

MAXWELL MATERIAL LAYER.................................................................................................................. 31 

ADDING DISPLACEMENTS...................................................................................................................... 31 

ADDING LAYERS.................................................................................................................................. 32 

ADDING EMITTERS .............................................................................................................................. 32 

COLOUR AND LUMINANCE .................................................................................................................... 33 

TEMPERATURE.................................................................................................................................... 33 

MXI TEXTURE .................................................................................................................................... 33 

BSDF PROPERTIES .............................................................................................................................. 34 

SURFACES PROPERTIES ......................................................................................................................... 35 

COATING ........................................................................................................................................... 36 

RENDERING..................................................................................................................................... 37 

RENDERING STILLS AND ANIMATIONS ...................................................................................................... 37 

GEOMETRY EXPORT ............................................................................................................................. 39 

FAQ INDEX ...................................................................................................................................... 40 



Maxwell Render for Maya : Plug-in Help 

The Maxwell Render for Maya plugin has been created with the intention of providing an optimum 

integration of Maxwell Render with the versions 8.0, 8.5, 2008, 2009 and 2010 of Maya for Windows 

32 and 64, Mac systems and Linux. 

Here you will find an assortment of topics relating to the use of the plugin, as well as descriptions of 

the parameters and interfaces. 

Installation 

The installation of Maya plugin is a very easy and straightforward process. 

Installation on Windows 

Once you download and decompress the zip file, you have to double-click on the exe file. This will 

lead you to the plugin installation program and a new window will appear, as shown in the figure 

below. 

Click on Next and the installation program will automatically choose the path where Maya is 

installed, detecting the installed version as well. 



By clicking Next button the installation progress continues and lets you choose which features of the 

Maxwell Render Maya plug-in you want to install. 

Complete the Maxwell Render Maya plug-in installation by clicking the Install button. 

Installation on Mac 

This will lead you to the plugin installation program and a new window will appear, as shown in the 

figure below. 

The installer detects all Maya versions in your system 



Installation on Linux: 

Assuming MAYA_DIR is the directory where Maya is installed, do the following: 

- extract the plug-in archive to any location. 

- copy the contents of the "icons" and "scripts" directories to MAYA_DIR/icons and 

MAYA_DIR/scripts, respectively. 

- copy the contents of the "bin/rendererDesc" directory to MAYA_DIR/bin/rendererDesc 

- inside the bin directory you will see one "Plug-ins" subdirectory for each Maya version supported 

by the plug-in. The directory has the Maya version number appended to its name, e.g. "plugins_2008", 

"plug-ins_2009" etc. Copy the contents of the plug-ins directory corresponding to your 

Maya version to MAYA_DIR/bin/plug-ins. 

- start Maya and use the plug-in manager to load the Maxwell Render plug-in. 

Finally open Maya and load the plugin from Plugin Manager Panel. 



User Interface Help 

The user interface for the Maxwell Render for Maya plugin consists of several panels and buttons: 

• Maxwell Preferences 

• Maxwell Object Properties Tab 

• Maxwell Camera Properties Tab 

• Maxwell Plug-in Options 

• Maxwell Export 

• Maxwell Material Shading Group 

• Maxwell Render Globals 

The plugin has been designed to offer a comfortable workflow for Maya users, including tabs that 

follow the logical way to work with Maxwell Render (environment, camera, materials, etc.). 

Maxwell Preferences 

You can find this panel in Windows > Rendering Editors > Maxwell Render> Maxwell settings. 

General : 

Verbose export: When this is on, the plug-in will issue a warning in the Script Editor window for 

every non-fatal problem it encounters in the scene. These problems include missing textures, 

degenerate triangles, objects without materials etc. Printing the warnings can take a long time, so 

they can be turned off by un-checking this option. If "verbose export" is off and the plug-in 

encounters problems it will print a single warning at the end of the export process: "Warnings were 



issued during the scene export process. Turn on verbose export and check the script editor window 

for details, or run render diagnostics." 

Bring rendered image: Check this to bring the rendered image into the Render view window, 

then you could save into the buffer to compare with others renders. 

Update Notification: The plugin includes an automatic update notification that will pop up once 

before rendering if you are connected to the internet and there is a new version of the plugin. 

This pop up also allows you to see the list of changes or to download the latest version by clicking on 

the corresponding area. 

There is also a tick box to avoid the notification from popping up for the new version. 

Swatch rendering: 

Sampling level: controls the quality of the preview render. 

Render time: the maximum time (in seconds) the user wishes to allow for rendering material 

previews. 

Resolution: the size of the preview image. 

Preview Scene: Select the scene used for rendering material previews. 

Viewport Representation: 

Default High Quality: Activates the high quality shaded for textures in the openGL viewport. 

Bake Texture Resolution: Select the resolution for textures in the viewport. 

Maxwell Objects Properties 

Maxwell plugin accepts all type of geometry coming from Maya and will take into account 

transformations and deformations as well. 

Maxwell Object Properties are located in tab Maxwell Render tab when you open the Attribute 

editor. 



Hidden From Camera: The object will not appear in the image rendered but the shadows will. 

Hidden to Secondary Rays: Reflected or refracted objects are hidden (seen in enough 

specular materials or with low roughness, like a vampire in a mirror). 

Hidden to GI: Means the object will render but will not affect lighting. 

Unaffected by Z Clip: If this option is selected, the object won't be cut by zClip planes. 

Object ID Color: Choose the color to identify in the ID Channel pass. 

Maxwell Camera Properties 

How Cameras Work 

Maxwell Render uses a camera model that differs from Maya's camera model. Maxwell Render 

simulates a real camera with the associated lens set, diaphragm, etc. The Maxwell Render camera 

has specific parameters that are reached through the plugin, however there is still some information 



from the Maya camera model that is useful to fully define the way the camera will behave in 

Maxwell Render. 

Camera properties 

Find the Maxwell Render Camera Properties tab opening the Attribute Editor from any camera. 

As we said, these parameters are specific to Maxwell Render, but there are other camera 

parameters that must be taken into account and that belongs to the Maya Camera Properties panel. 

Focal Length: distance from the lens to the film. 

Z-Clip Planes: Define the Z-Clip by the Far Clipping Plane and Near Clipping Plane. 

Auto Render Clip Planes: Disable clip planes when it's on. 

Near Clipping Plane: The near-plane ZClipping distance (must be less than Far Clipping Plane) 

Far Clipping Plane: The far-plane ZClipping distance (must be greater than Near Clipping Plane) 



Exposure Mode: 

• Manual: The shutter speed and fstop are passed to Maxwell Render exactly as entered by 

the user. 

• Shutter priority: The shutter speed is used as-is, and the fstop is computed to arrive at 

the provided EV number. This allows the user to vary the shutter speed without changing 

the exposure, e.g. when adjusting the amount of motion blur. 

• Aperture priority: the fstop number is used as-is, and the shutter speed is computed to 

arrive at the EV number. This allows you to change the depth of field without affecting the 

exposure. 

Exposure Value (EV): The EV (Exposure Value) is a common way of combining shutter speed 

and fstop into a single number to obtain a measure of the exposure. 

Exposure values for ISO 100 for various lighting conditions 

Lighting Condition EV100 Aurora borealis and australis 

Daylight Bright −4 to −3 

Light sand or snow in full or slightly hazy 

16 

−6 to −5 

sunlight (distinct shadows) 

Medium 

Typical scene in full or slightly hazy sunlight 15 Outdoor, Artificial Light 

Typical scene in hazy sunlight (soft shadows) 14 Neon and other bright signs 9–10 

Typical scene, cloudy bright (no shadows) 13 Night sports 9 

Typical scene, heavily overcast 12 Fires and burning buildings 9 

Areas in open shade, bright sunlight 12 Bright street scenes 8 

Outdoor, Natural light Night street scenes and window displays 7–8 

Rainbows Night vehicle traffic 5 

Clear sky background 15 Fairs and amusement parks 7 

Cloudy sky background 14 Christmas tree lights 4–5 

Sunsets and skylines Buildings, monuments, and fountains 3–5 

Just before sunset 12–14 Distant views of lit buildings 2 

At sunset 12 Indoor, Artificial Light 

Just after sunset 9–11 Galleries 8–11 

The Moon,c altitude > 40° Sports events, stage shows, etc. 8–9 

Full 15 Circuses, floodlit 8 

Gibbous 14 Ice shows, floodlit 9 

Quarter 13 Offices and work areas 7–8 

Crescent 12 Home interiors 5–7 

Moonlight, Moon altitude > 40° Christmas tree lights 4–5 

Full −3 to −2 

Gibbous −4 

Quarter −6 

F-Stop: controls the aperture of the lens. 

Film ISO: the film's light- sensitivity. A higher ISO is more sensitive. 

Note: With normal day light and Film ISO 100 the values would be: 

F-Stop 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22 

Shutter Speed 1000 500 250 125 50 25 10 

F-Stop 

Shutter speeds with ISO 100 

Sun 

Partially cloudy 

Cloudy 

4 

2,8 

5,6 

4 

2,8 

8 

5,6 

4 

11 

8 

5,6 

16 

11 

8 

22 

16 

11 

22 

16 22 



Clouds 

Snowy landscape 

Beach 

Mountain 

Open view 

Horizon view 

Landscape with first plane 

Light colored buildings 

Landscape with dark first plane 

Lit streets and squares 

People in the light 

Dark streets and squares 

Dark buildings 

People in the shade 

Thin forestation 

People under thin foliage 

Thick forestation 

People under thick foliage 

Shutter Speed: specified 1/n of a second. 

Use Rotary Shutter: Rotary shutter simulation for movie camera motion blur. The plug-in 

replaces the camera shutter speed with a value derived from the rotary shutter angle and then 

adjusts the ISO film speed to arrive back to the same exposure as with the initial shutter speed / ISO 

settings. This is far more intuitive for users than to let them compute the shutter speed from the 

shutter angle and then adjust the film speed to weird values. To calculate the shutter speed when 

the rotary is activated, use the following formulas: 

• Maxwell Shutter (exposure) = FPS (frames per second) * 360 / Shutter Angle. 

• Shutter Angle = FPS * 360 / Maxwell Shutter (exposure). 

• % of motion blur = Shutter Angle * 100 / 360. 

1/4000 1/2000 1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/100 1/50 1/25 

1/2000 1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/100 1/50 1/25 1/10 

1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/100 1/50 1/25 1/10 1/5 

1/500 1/250 1/100 1/50 1/25 1/10 1/5 1/2 

1/250 1/100 1/50 1/25 1/10 1/5 1/2 1 

1/100 1/50 1/25 1/10 1/5 1/2 1 2 

1/50 1/25 1/10 1/5 1/2 1 2 4 

People in a room next to a bright window 1/25 1/10 1/5 1/2 1 2 4 8 

People in a room next to a dark window 1/10 1/5 1/2 1 2 4 8 16 

Light interiors 1/5 1/2 1 2 4 8 16 32 

Dark Interiors 

Churches 

4 8 16 32 60 120 240 480 


doc v.1.1 

Shutter Speed

Manual Focus Distance: Change Focus Distance manually. 

Focus Distance: Distance from the camera location to the camera target. 

Diaphragm Type: Controls the shape of the 'bokeh' effect seen in out-of-focus highlights. 

Diaphragm Angle: The angle of blades in 'Polygonal' cameras. 

Diaphragm Type: The number of blades of 'Polygonal' cameras. 

Shutter Speed, ISO and Shutter Angle 

Shutter Speed and ISO of the Maxwell Render Camera Properties panel are used if Motion Blur is off 

on the Maxwell Render Globals, otherwise Maya's shutter angle is used. 

The ISO is then adjusted to obtain the same exposure as you would get with the Maxwell Render 

shutter speed and ISO values. This means that you can play around with the shutter angle to get the 

motion blur to look right without affecting your exposure. 

Shift Lens 



The aspect ratio and film offset settings are in the "Film Back" rollup in the camera attribute editor. 

Maya has two more attributes that influence framing when the resolution aspect ratio doesn't 

match the film aspect ratio: "Fit Resolution Gate" and "Film Fit Offset". Maxwell Render doesn't 

support these attributes so users should always match the film aspect to the resolution. For 

instance, if you are rendering in CCIR PAL/Quantel PAL you will get a “Device aspect Ratio” of 1.333. 

Revising the Film Back camera parameters we can see that “Film Aspect Ratio” is 1.50 or other 

(depending on the “Film Gate” used), so you must adjust your “Film Aspect Ratio” to 1.333 manually. 

Maxwell Render Globals 

The General Settings tab provides control over the various parameters available to control the 

rendering process: 

General Settings 

Render Time: Sets the minimum time to be reached before the render stops - the maximum 

number of minutes the render will be allowed to continue. When rendering a single frame, it is 

advisable to set this value much higher than necessary, to ensure that the render does not stop prior 

to being perceived as completed. 

Sampling Level: Sets the minimum sampling level to be reached before stopping the render. 

When the render attains the Sampling Level specified here, processing will stop. Setting the 



Sampling Level to very high values (>25) when rendering single frames ensures that the render will 

not be terminated before an acceptable quality level has been reached. 

Output Image Depth: Bit depth can be chosen for the formats which can support it, like TIFF or 

TGA. 16 and 32-bit color images are brought into the render view (downsampled) to 8-bit. 

Number of Threads: The number of threads to allocate for the mxcl.exe process. Setting this 

value to 0 will cause mxcl.exe to auto-detect the available number of processors, and use them all 

for the rendering process. 

Global Scale: Multiplier for the scene scale. 

Attenuation Scale: The attenuation values for all the materials in the scene will be multiplied by 

this number when they are exported. 

This is useful if you have a scene that's not modeled to scale, but the transparent materials are 

already set up so that they look right. If you use the global scale to fix DOF issues (for example) you 

will break the transparent materials; the attenuation scale can then be used to fix those materials by 

setting it to the same value as the global scale. 

Enable motion blur: Enables/disables motion blur - controlled by Maya's camera Shutter 

Angle. 

Use Instancing: When this option is off, the instances are exported as cloned objects. When it is 

on, they are exported as Maxwell Render instances – this is a good way to save memory. Particle 

instanced objects can now be exported as independent objects or as instances. 

Multilight®: Three available options: 

Off: Deactivated 

Intensity: Renders an image with independent light intensity information. 

Color+Intensity: Renders an image with independent light intensity and color. 

Multilight is a unique and highly useful feature that allows you to interactively adjust the intensity 

of the emitters in the scene and to alter the ISO and shutter speed during rendering or after the 

render has finished. The adjustments can be keyframed and animated over time, and a sequence of 

images can be saved. Users can save different images of the same scene under different lighting 

conditions or make lighting animations from only a single render. 

Color Space: Choose your desired color space for the rendered image. 

Export Static Fly-By: "Export static fly-by" only processes the geometry once in an animation 

and only updates the camera position for subsequent frames. This speeds up the export process if 

you have an animated camera navigating around completely static geometry. It of course doesn't 

affect rendering times in any way. 

Low priority: Enable this if you want to work at your computer during rendering. 

Use Fast Exporter: Uses some features in the API of Maya 8 and above that allow geometry to 

be processed much faster. This can lower export times as much as 5 times, but it consumes more 

memory per object, so it could cause problems if you have an object with millions of polygons. In 

those cases, the export will fail, so unchecking this box can fix the failure. Many objects with 

relatively few polygons are not an issue - only very large individual objects affect this. 

Additional MXCL Flags: Adds extra flags in this text box i.e. –vignetting: 0 or -v:0 to get rid of 

the vignetting. 

Tone Mapping 



Gamma: Controls the output gamma of the rendered image. 

Burn: Controls how quickly the image is over-exposed. 

Environment 

The Environment Settings tab provides access to settings related to the type of lighting used in the 

scene. 

Active Viewport Preview: This button is a new feature that allows you to visualize the environment 

settings in the viewport. Just set your viewport to Shade mode and you will see the final color of the 

Physical Sky environment. 

Sky Options 

The General Settings page provides control over the various parameters available to control the 

rendering process: 



Sky Type: Select from Sky Dome, Physical or None 

Load: Load a preset for Physical Sky. 

Save: Save your presets for Physical Sky. 

Physical Sky 

Maxwell Render provides a realistic simulation of the sky. When using this mode, it is possible to 

enable or disable the Sun, as well as adjust the sky's Turbidity, Water, and Ozone values. 



Atmosphere 

Ozone: The amount of ozone gas in the atmosphere. The default value is 0.4 

Water: The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. It is measured in centimeters, in the same 

way as ozone. 

Turbidity Coefficient: Defines the concentration and amount of particles in the atmosphere. A 

value of 0 means a perfectly clear sky (in which case the next three parameters won’t have any 

effect). 0.01 is a good value for low turbidity, e.g. a sky with very few aerosols in it so that it will 

appear almost clear. 0.04 is a good medium value and 0.1 is a high value. 

Default settings (0.04) Turbidity 0.65, Scatt. Asymmetry 0.7 Turbidity 0.65, Scatt. Asymmetry -0.7 

Raising the Turbidity Coefficient in sunset situations will darken the sky. Remember that you can also raise 

the ISO of the camera in these cases, which can produce interesting effects: 

Default settings (0.04) Turbidity 0.18, ISO 150 Turbidity 0.18, ISO 1000 

Wavelength Exponent: Defines the average size of the particles in the atmosphere. The 

particle size influences which wavelengths of light are absorbed and which are scattered. Higher 

values than the default will at first increase the saturation of the sky, then gradually turn it green 

and then orange: 

Wavelength Ex. 1.2 (default) Wavelength Ex. 10 Wavelength Ex. 30 



Aerosol reflectance (%): Refers to the albedo of the aerosols, or the rate of energy scattered 

and absorbed by the aerosols. 

Scattering Asymmetry: This factor controls the anisotropy of the particles - that is, in which direction 

most of the light will be scattered. Positive values will produce a halo effect around the sun, brightening 

the area around it: 

Scattering Asymmetry 0.7 (default) Scattering Asymmetry 0 

Enable Sun: Enables/disables the Sun during rendering (Physical Sky & Image Based) 

Sun 

Temperature (ºK): Temperature of the sun’s spectral radiation. The default value of 5777 is the 

most common value measured outside the Earth’s atmosphere. 

Power: A multiplier that controls the amount of light emitted from the sun. Higher values than the 

default 1 will make the sun emit more light, lower values will emit less. 

Planet Reflectance (%): Controls the percentage of light reflected from the surface of the 

planet back into the atmosphere. 

Sun direction 

Compute from Geographical location: You can manually set the geographical data. 

Track Object: You can use an object from the scene to set the position or direction of the 

sunlight, for instance a directional light. 

Track Object: The object used to track the sun. 

Track Selected Object: Use the selected object from the scene. 

Tips for working with the Physical Sky: 

• Bear in mind that the atmosphere parameters influence each other. For example, if you raise the 

Turbidity Coefficient (more particles in the atmosphere), the Wavelength Exponent, Reflectance 

and Scattering Asymmetry parameters will then have a greater influence on the look of the sky as 

they are affecting a larger amount of particles. 

• To keep the horizon from turning too bright, lower the Planet Reflectance and decrease the 

Scattering Asymmetry. 

• Maxwell Render Studio and some of the plug-ins can interactively show an accurate OpenGL view 

of the current sky coloration and brightness. In Studio, press the “K” key to activate/deactivate the 

Sky Preview. This OpenGL view also takes into account the cameras’ F-stop, ISO and Shutter Speed 

settings. 

• The scene illumination and coloring change depending on what sky settings you use. If you raise 

the ozone level, which makes the sky scatter more blue light, your entire scene will have a bluer 

illumination. 



• Because the Maxwell Render camera has a fixed white balance of 6500K, you can save your render 

as HDR and then white balance your image in an image editing application that can handle HDR 

files. 

Geographical Location 

Longitude and Latitude: Choose the longitude and latitude 

Day of Month, Month: Sets the date. 

Hour, minute, second: Sets time of day 

GMT Offset: Offset for the current coordinates 

Ground Rotation: Sets an offset rotation on the ground without any modification in the world 

coordinates. 

Sky Dome 

In this mode, the Scene will be globally illuminated using an RGB-specified color, and a user-specified 

intensity value. 

Color: Sets the Sky Dome colour. 

Intensity (Lumens): Sets the Sky Dome lighting intensity in lumens. 

Enable Sun: Adds the sunlight to the Sky Dome model. 

Image Based 

In this mode, Environmental lighting is provided by either a Maxwell Render MXI (.mxi) image, or an 

HDR image. Four separate layers (Background, Illumination, Reflection, and Refraction) are 

provided, and different maps may be used in all of them, if so desired. Individual layers may be 

enabled or disabled as well. The user may choose to use Physical Sky, Sky Dome, or No 

Environmental lighting in disabled layers. 

Please note that changes made to one channel will not be made to the others as well. Also note that 

the Sun can also be enabled and rendered when using an Image Based Environment. 



Use Image Based Environment: Activates the use of HDRI files. 

Env Preview Chan: Changes the visualization in the viewport for Background, Reflection, 

Refraction or Illumination files. 

Background 

Use Image Based Environment: Enables/disables light by IBL. 

Use layer: Enables/disables this layer. 

Texture: Sets the path to an MXI or HDR image to use in this channel. 

Intensity: Sets the intensity of this layer's map. 

Scale U: Scales this layer's map in the U direction 

Scale V: Scales this layer's map in the V direction 

Offset U: Moves this layer's map origin in the U direction 

Offset V: Moves this layer's map origin in the V direction 

Reflection, Refraction and illumination 

Same as background: Enables/disables using the same map as Background so you can control 

the parameters from the Background tab, except the Spherical Mapping switch that is used for all 

channels. 

Render Channels 

The Render Channels tab contains options to control which types of output will be generated while 

rendering: 



Color: Enables/disables rendering the Colour channel. 

Alpha: Enables/disables rendering the Alpha channel. Alpha channels are not embedded in file 

formats so will be rendered apart in single files with a prefix call alpha_nameImage. 

Opaque: This option hides the sky in the render. 

Embed Alpha: Brings the Alpha channel into the Render Window. 

Depth: Enables/disables rendering the Z-Buffer channel. 

Z range start: Sets the Z-Buffer near distance. 

Z range end: Sets the Z-Buffer far distance. 

Shadow Pass: Enables/disables rendering the Shadow channel. 

Motion Vector: 

Object ID: Enables/disables rendering the Object ID channel. 

Material ID: Enables/disables rendering the Material ID channel. 

Roughness: Outputs an image containing the Roughness value of the materials in the 

scene. High Roughness materials will appear white in the image, while low Roughness 

materials will appear dark. 

Fresnel: Outputs an image containing the Fresnel information of the surfaces. 

Render Type: You can choose between three main render types for the color: 

• Diffuse+Reflections: The usual complete render. Outputs the whole render including 

diffuse and reflections. 

• Diffuse: Outputs an image containing only the diffuse color of the surfaces. 

• Reflection: Outputs an image containing only the reflective component of the surfaces. 

Layers Settings 

Specifies which of the different light interactions should be included or excluded from the 

calculation. 



Direct Lighting: Enables/disables the Direct render layer 

Indirect Lighting: Enables/disables the Indirect render layer 

Direct. Ref. Caustics: Enables/disables the Direct Reflection render layer 

Direct Rfr. Caustics: Enables/disables the Direct Refraction render layer 

Indirect. Ref. Caustics: Enables/disables the Indirect Reflection render layer 

Indirect Rfr. Caustics: Enables/disables the Indirect Refraction render layer 

SimuLens 

Allows you to control the lens diffraction, lens scattering, and vignetting effects of the Maxwell 

SimuLens system. 

Diffraction: Enables Simulens effects. 

Aperture map: The shape of the diaphragm will model the pattern of light that reaches the film. 



Obstacle Map: Water drops, eyelashes, dirt, etc on the camera lens will also cause diffraction 

effects. 

Diffraction intensity: Controls diffraction/glare intensity. 

Diffraction Frequency: Controls the frequency of coloring in diffraction effect. Higher values 

will make the patterns denser. 

Scattering: Enable Scattering 

Scattering value: Commonly known as bloom – occurs when the light is scattered inside the 

lens before reaching the film. 

Devignetting: Enables devignetting. 

Devignetting value: Vignetting is an artifact which darkens the image through the edges due to 

camera optics. Now you can partially or completely remove it by dragging the slider from 1000 to 0. 

Vignetting is activated by default. 

Maxwell Materials 

Support for Maya native materials 

• Automatic translation of Maya native shaders: 

o Lambert 

o Phong 

o PhongE 

o Blinn 

How native Maya materials are translated to Maxwell Render? 

Lambert One Layer 

Note: m.r. means Maxwell rollup Lambertian Layer 

Maya parameters Maxwell Render 

parameters 

Settings 

roughness % roughness 100 

color reflectance 0 

fresnel/m.r. reflectance 90 white by default 

transparency transmittance 

absorption distance /m.r. absorption distance 100 cm by default 

index of refraction Nd 1 by default 

abbe number/m.r. abbe number 

dispersion/m.r. dispersion 

bump texture bump texture 

Blinn (as metal in Maxwell) Two Layers 

Note: m.r. means Maxwell rollup Shiny Layer Diffuse Layer 


Maxwell Render 

parameters 

parameters 

absorption distance /m.r. absorption absorption 

dispersion/m.r. dispersion dispersion 

abbe number/m.r. abbe number abbe number 

reflectivity layer weight 

Settings 



color reflectance 0 reflectance 0 


fresnel/m.r. (if "use fresnel" it´s 

on) 


reflectance 90 

roughness %/m.r. roughness 90 by default 

anisotropy%/m.r. anisotropy 

bump texture bump texture bump texture 

Shiny layer nd/m.r. Nd 20 by default 


reflectivity weight 

reflectivity weight 20 by default 

Phong (as plastic in Maxwell) Two Layers 

Note: m.r. means Maxwell rollup Glossy Layer Diffuse Layer 


Maxwell Render Settings 

parameters 

parameters 

Does not exist blending mode additive 

absorption distance /m.r. absorption absorption 

dispersion/m.r. dispersion dispersion 

abbe number/m.r. abbe number abbe number 

reflectivity layer weight 


fresnel/m.r. (if "use fresnel" it´s 

on) 


reflectance 90 white by default 

roughness %/m.r. roughness 90 by default 

bump texture bump texture bump texture 

Glossy layer nd/m.r. Nd 2,5 by default 




The native shaders can be converted approximately into equivalent Maxwell Render materials using 

the shader type drop-down in the Attribute Editor. 

We have overridden Maya's default behavior for that operation, so that the Maya shaders are 

converted using the same presets as those used "behind the scene" during scene export. 



Bump connections are also translated. We take the "bump strength" value from the "bump depth" 

attribute of bump2d nodes and we support normal mapping in the Maya versions where it is 

implemented. 

Maya file texture nodes are correctly translated when encountered. We take into account all their 

attributes that have a Maxwell Render correspondent: invert, tiling factor and offset. We use Maya's 

internal logic for locating a texture file from its relative path, so Maxwell Render will always use the 

same texture files as the Maya software render would. 



To find out more about these parameters have a look in the BSDF section. 

Maxwell Render Material node 

Create Maxwell Layered Materials within the Render Node Panel. 



Maxwell Layered Material Attribute Editor 

When we create a Maxwell material, an empty MXM node is created (see following panel): 

This is the new look for Maxwell Layered Material node. The new panel let us create multiple layers. 

This panel will contain the tabs for several layers such as Displacement, Masks, emitters, BSDF, SSS 

and Coatings. 



Material Attributes 

Import/Export buttons: Import and export specific materials located in specified folder 

locations. A Windows Explorer pop-up will appear. 

Browse Library button: The MXM Browser can be accessed by clicking on the "Browse Library" 

button on the Maxwell Material Shader interface. It provides access to Maxwell MXM files located in 

the file system and shows a preview. 



The MXM list simply shows the MXM contents of whichever folder it is currently set to view in the 

Path parameter. 

The Up and Back icons will let you choose the folder you want to browse in, Home being the 

material database of the installation folder. Select the material by clicking on it. Scrolling Up and 

Down will let you navigate through the entire chosen folder. 

MXM Gallery button: Selecting this button opens a dialogue box to look for a material. 

Remember you will need to introduce your login and password for the MXM Gallery. 

Wizard button: The Material Wizard is provided to assist in the task of creating Maxwell 

Materials. The Material Wizard creates several materials as shown above using a minimum number 

of inputs. 



Dispersion: Enables/ disables the dispersion calculations 

Matte: Enables/ disables the shadows or this material 

Shadows: Enables/ disables the matte properties for this material 

Global Bump Mapping: You can specify a global bump/ normal map which will affect the whole 

material, alongside the bump of each individual BSDF. 

Bump Strength: This is the intensity for the bump effect 

Bump Texture: Loads a texture file for bump. 

Use Bump as Normal Map: Uses the texture as Normal map or bump. 

Flip X, Y and Wide Z: These options are for specifying how the normal map was created. 

Building Materials 

Buttons bar: 

Add Displacement: Displacement properties will be added to the layers. 

Add Layer: A new Layer will be added to the pile of layers. 

Add Emitter: Emitter properties will be added to the pile of layers. 

Add BSDF: Adds new BSDF node properties. 

Add Coating: Adds coating properties to the BSDF selected. 

Delete: Deletes any node in the pile. 

Preview: Renders a preview of the material. 

Maxwell Material Layer 

Materials are built from BSDF, Coating, SubSurface, and Emitter layers. Adding and removing these 

layers is accomplished by clicking on the appropriate buttons above the Materials Components bin. 

Adding Displacements 



Texture: Loads texture to displace. 

Absolute Height: Checking “Absolute Height” allows you to set the Height in centimeters and it 

will always displace to this given value regardless of object dimensions. 

Height: This parameter sets the maximum allowed displacement distance. 

Offset: This parameter allows you to specify which grey level in the texture should represent zero 

displacement. 

Adaptive precision: The adaptive option locks the precision value to the given texture detail (at 

half pixel accuracy) which has the advantage of always creating the most detailed displacement that 

a given texture can provide. 

Precision: Precision defines surface accuracy, ability and response to detail independent of 

texture resolution. 

Smoothing: Similar to the object’s smoothing angle setting, this parameter controls whether the 

displaced surface should render smoothly (continuous shading) or render with facets. 

Adding Layers 

Layer name: You can change the name of the layers by clicking on the Layer bar. 

Enabled: Activates or deactivates the contribution of the layer to the whole shader. 

Opacity: The percentage of contribution of the layer. 

Mask: Loads a file to use as a mask for the layer. 

Blend Mode: Choose between Normal (in which the values are clamped) or Additive (in which the 

values are added and can give values over 100). 

Adding Emitters 

The Emitter editor panel provides access to the values which define the behaviour of a Maxwell 

Emitter: 

In Maxwell Render there are no light nodes; lights are built with objects. New emitter layers are 

created by clicking on the Add Emitter button. Emitter layers may be removed by clicking on the 

Remove button. Only one emitter layer is allowed per material. 



Load preset: Select one preset on the list. 

Emitter Type: An Emitter may operate in one of 3 modes, or Emitter types: 

• Colour and Luminance 

• Temperature of Emission 

• MXI Texture 

Colour and Luminance 

In Color and Luminance mode, the colour of the Emitter may be specified using either an RGB color, 

or a Correlated Color value. A Color and Luminance Emitter may specify power either using Watts 

and Efficacy values, or in lumens, lumens/m^2, candelas, or candelas/m^2. A new feature has been 

implemented, so that you can now use IES files. 

Temperature 

Use the Emission Temperature control to set the temperature of the Emitter surface. 

MXI Texture 



MXI/HDRI Texture: An Emitter using the MXI Texture type may use a Maxwell MXI (.mxi) file, or 

an HDR image file, to define the Emitter's output. 

Intensity: Changes the light intensity from the texture. 

BSDF Properties 

Enabled: Activate or deactivate the contribution to the whole shader. 

Weight Value: The percentage of contribution of the BSDF layer 

Weight Texture: You can use gray-scale texture to weight the contribution. 

The BSDF layer controls provide access to the values which define the behaviour of an individual 

Maxwell BSDF component (layer). 

Reflectance 0/90º: Select the material colour. 

Transmittance: The color of the light which passes through an object. 

Attenuation distance: Specifies how far the light can move through the object before losing 

half of its energy. 

Nd, K: Indicates the Index of Refraction. From a physical point of view, the index of refraction is 

not just a number. In fact it is a number derived from a complex calculation to define the refractive 

index at one particular wavelength. To learn more about this have a look the Maxwell Render 

Manual. 

Abbe: Controls the amount of dispersion. 

Use R2: Set the values in the fields for a Fresnel curve. 

Use IOR File: Check this if you want to use a specific and complex .ior data file. 

IOR File: Loads an IOR file provided by a laboratory. 

Maxwell Render for Maya: Plug-in Help 34/34 


The Subsurface editor panel provides access to the values which define the behaviour of a Maxwell 

Subsurface layer. Each BSDF layer can have specific SSS properties. 

Coefficient: When this is set to 0 it has no affect. The value sets the virtual thickness of your 

surface in mm. This parameter acts as a multiplier for the inverse color set in the transmittance 

parameter. The inverse color of the transmittance parameter will be absorbed faster. 

Scattering Color: Scattering color is the reflectance of inner particles causing subsurface 

scattering. This means that the incoming light will be reflected/ scattered in this color. This value can 

be mapped. 

Asymmetry: Asymmetry defines the isotropy of scattering. Asym=0 (default) means that light rays 

will be scattered equally in all directions. A negative value will let the light rays go through while a 

positive value will send the rays back. Besides the volumetric subsurface scattering explained above, 

Maxwell Render also has a Single-Sided mode which helps you simulate thin translucent materials 

like paper, leaves, and lampshades. The remaining parameters in this drop-down only control Single- 

Sided scattering. 

Use Thickness: Switch on to set user thickness values or texture maps. 

Thickness (mm): Set a value or texture map chosen by the user. 

Thickness Range: These values define the minimum and maximum virtual thickness and are 

only available when a thickness map is used. 

Surfaces properties 

Roughness Value: Controls the diffuseness of the material (0 is a perfect mirror) 

Roughness Texture: Roughness allows you to add tiny imperfections and miniscule details on a 

surface to make it reflect light in a more diffuse way. 

Anisotropy: This parameter controls how directional the surface reflections should be. 

Angle: Specifies the anisotropy angle; the main direction of the reflected light. 



You can assign individual values to BSDF layers for Bump mapping: 

Bump Strength: This is the intensity for the bump effect 

Bump Texture: Use this to load a texture file for bump. 

Use Bump as Normal Map: Use the texture as Normal map or bump. 

Flip X, Y and Wide Z: These options are to specify how the normal map was created. 

Coating 

New Coating layers are created by clicking on the 'Add Coating' button. Coatings may be removed by 

clicking the on the 'Remove coating" button. 

Coating Name: Changes the name of a coating layer. 

Thickness (nm): Use a simple scalar Thickness value to specify the theoretical thickness of the 

Coating. To avoid heavier interference colours, use higher values for Thickness. 

Thickness Range Min/Max: The Minimum and Maximum values correspond to the dark/light 

areas of the Texture used. 

Mapped Thickness: Uses a Texture to regulate the thickness of the coating. 

Reflectance 0º/90º: Reflectance in Maxwell Coating layers may be defined in terms of RGB color 

values for the 0 and 90 parameters. Reflectance 0 defines the color which will be reflected from the 

more direct viewing angles. Reflectance 90 defines the color reflected from glancing viewing angles. 

Nd, K: Indicates the Index of Refraction. From a physical point of view, the index of refraction is 

not just a number - in fact it is derived from a complex calculation to define the refractive index at 

one particular wavelength. To learn more about this have a look the Maxwell Render Manual. 

Abbe: Controls the amount of dispersion. 

Use R2: Set the values in the fields for a Fresnel curve. 

Use IOR File: Check this if you want to use a specific and complex .ior data file. 

IOR File: Loads an IOR file provide by a laboratory. 

Note: We highly recommend that you read the section related to Maxwell Render Materials in 

the Maxwell Manual to get a fuller understanding of how Maxwell Render materials work. 



Rendering 

Rendering stills and animations 

To render stills simply select the renderer in Render >Render using > Maxwell or in the Render 

Globals options then press Render>Render Current frame or the icon. The Maya plugin also gives 

you the possibility to render animations. 

You can do this using the batch rendering function, which means that each frame is exported to a 

temporary MXS file and rendered by the MXCL application. When the process is finished, the file is 

deleted. You can see the process in the Script editor. 



Another option is to export the sequence to .mxs files and then render them with the MXCL 

application. To export MXS files go to File>Export all/Export Selection. 

Use active camera: Check the box (by default) if you want to export the active camera in the 

Maya viewport. 

Camera to use: Select a camera from the list, which contains the cameras used in the scene. 

Animation: Check this box to export a file sequence from an animation. Select the range of frames 

in Render Globals in the Common Tab and extension. Always use a padding to use the Network 

Rendering option from Maxwell Render. 

Protect geometry: If this is enabled, it saves you from having to save meshes as OBJ from 

Studio. 

If you have a render farm, have a look at the Maxwell Render manual to find out more about 

Networking Render. 

You can also use the command line option. To find out more about about command line options, 

open a console and write render –r Maxwell –help. 



Maxwell Render specific options: 

-rt float Per-frame render time in minutes 

-sl int Maximum sampling level 

-nt float Number of threads (0=use all CPUs) 

-ml boolean Use Multilight 

-cao boolean Export static fly-by 

-low boolean Start in low priority 

-fge boolean Use fast geometry exporter 

-cmd string Additional MXCL flags 

-rc boolean Output color 

-ac boolean Output alpha 

-oac boolean Output opaque 

-mc boolean Output material ID 

-shc boolean Output shadow pass 

-oc boolean Output object ID 

-dc boolean Output depth 

-zmn float Min depth value 

-zmx float Max depth value 

-dl boolean Do direct layer 

-il boolean Do indirect layer 

-dcl boolean Do direct caustic reflection layer 

-dcr boolean Do direct caustic refraction layer 

-icl boolean Do indirect caustic reflection layer 

-icr boolean Do indirect caustic refraction layer 

Geometry export 

Supported geometry types: 

• Polygonal meshes 

• NURBS surfaces 

• SubD 

NURBS surfaces are tessellated using the "advanced tessellation" options in Maya. In order to see 

the rendering tessellation you need to check "Display render tessellation" and "Enable advanced 

tessellation" on the NURBS object. The ModeU and ModeV attributes are ignored; internally we 

always use the equivalent of "Per span # of Isoparms". We always enforce this tessellation mode 

because in order for motion blur to work, we need to have constant tessellation between frames. 



FAQ Index 

ERROR: I get the following error message - "Parent attribute was not found" 

The error "Parent attribute was not found" means the plug-in could not add the "Fresnel color" 

custom attribute on the native Maya material nodes. 

The user won't be able to control the Fresnel colour attribute on native Maya materials, but the rest 

of the functionality will be unaffected. 

This error is because of a Maya bug. We've only seen this bug with Maya 7 running on XP 64, which 

is not a supported combination, because Maya 7 has many problems when running under a 64-bit 

OS. The only version of Maya that can be used with 64-bit XP is Maya 8. The 32-bit Maya 8 has some 

minor problems, but it's usable. The 64-bit Maya 8 is the ideal choice for XP 64. 

ERROR: When I hit render I always get the message the following message: 

Error: Cannot export scene to file C:\DOCUME~1\davidy\LOCALS~1\Temp\mxs82A.tmp 

1) Check if you have Maxwell Render installed. 

2) If you have it installed, check if you have the next environment variable in your system with your 



path - something like: MAXWELL_ROOT = C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell\ Go to the Start 

menu and press RMB in My Computer > Properties. In the dialogue box “Advanced” tab click on 

Environment variables and check it on the two lists. If you don’t have this variable created, you will 

need to create it manually. If the problem persists uninstall Maxwell Render and reinstall it again. 

ISSUE: Everything looks blurry in my images 

You need to work in real scale. If you haven’t done so, you could try increasing the global scale to 10 

in Render Globals. Have a look at the workflow area in our website to see the videos. 

ISSUE: MXCL crashes when rendering if Motion Blur is activated in Maya. 

Check your scene; it is possible you have objects containing vertices in the same world space. Search 

for objects that do not contain UV maps or assigned materials. If you have "verbose export" on in 

the preferences, the plug-in will issue a warning if it finds faces with 0 area (which means it also 

catches coincident vertices). The warning is something like this: 

// Warning: Mesh 'pCubeShape1' contained 2 invalid faces; they were skipped. //

Maxwell Render for Maya: Plug-in Help 1/34 doc v.1.1 - iam

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