Rhino to maxwell studio (mac)

Rendering
1

Hey there,

I’m fairly new to rendering and I have a mac, so the maxwell plugin doesn’t seem to work. I have maxwell studio, however, and I am unsure of how to export from a rhino file into maxwell studio and keep my camera view. I want to keep the exact view I have in rhino to render because I then layer make2D drawings from the same camera view over the render.

Any help would be really appreciated - thank you!

2

Hi Robin,
from the Mac side I don’t think that there’s an elegantway currently. The fbx format supports cameras generally, but they don’t come along with the V5 Exporter. If setting up cameras in Mw-Studio is no option for you, you might read out camera coordinates inside Rhino and then dial in the same values in Studio, this should at least get you close.

3

Hey there,

Thanks for your help. I’ve been dialling in the values and it’s getting me close but things are still askew. When I try to layer over my make2D line drawings, over the maxwell renders, things are a little out. It’s quite frustrating…any other tips that might be useful? Setting cameras up in maxwell isn’t ideal as the line drawings are the elements that I need to match to, the render is secondary (as a kind of shadow fill)

Getting there!

R

4

definitely a convoluted workaround here but you could export from rhino to sketchup free then use the maxwell exporter from sketchup… (and you’d probably have to get the linework export from sketchup too in order to line up the views)…
that’s basically what i’ve been doing for my renderings… Rhino -> SketchUp -> Indigo

fwiw, a maxwell rep has said they’re interested in making an exporter for mac rhino… once the SDK is released (and i don’t know or even have a guess as to when that will be), they said expect another 6months to a year for the mac exporter…

5

I have never used Sketchup and we are down one Windows computer (Flamingo), so trying to figure out a way for the 2 MacRhino people to render and gets similar results to Flamingo.

Do your files stay in 3Dm or do you use obj ?

I have never used Indigo. Will it work in SKetchup free OSX ?

6

for free sketchup, export from rhino as .skp or collada… sketchup pro will also import .dwg and .3ds.

indigo isn’t a free renderer… the freest way to render through sketchup is the free version of the maxwell for sketchup plugin.

7

Thanks Jeff, I meant using Sketchup free as opposed to Pro. I lost a Flamingo computer and have 2 people on Mac’s and 2 people on Windows Rhino with Flamingo. The idea is to make the renders look the same, so a cheaper alternative for 4 or sticking with Flamingo and going the Bootcamp route for the Macs, just to render.

Looking at all the costs and learning curve, if new software. I may look at the Maxwell route for now,

8

Adding to this question, I’ve figured out that the units in RhinoMac has to be set to metres (for Maxwell Studio to keep the scale right).

What I would like to know is whether any export format retains cameras (from this discussion thread, apparently not), lights or materials? Currently I’m exporting the geometry, then setting up everything else in Maxwell Studio. But any changes to the model require starting from scratch in MS.

9

Is there any changes now…? I wanna know the workflow of render now…? it seems to have no options for mac rhino render except Rhino Renderer?

10

Yes, a few changes.

The two options which landed in my world (using Maxwell) are

  1. To use asset references. This actually worked quite well once I adapted to it. Export all the geometry, then bring the model in to Maxwell Studio as an asset reference. Create new materials with the same names as the exported ones and they take their place. When you export the updated model, the MW materials are applied again.
  2. With MW v4, there is a plugin which is a poor cousin to the other packages, but heading in the right direction. Can export from Rhino straight to Studio or to a render.