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ZClip planes in Maxwell

MArch n' unemployed

i want to render a section cut of my model..i thought this was what the z-clip planes feature was all about, but i can't figure out how to get it to work. is it something i can only do in the actual studio, and not directly through Rhino? can anyone shed some light and or some tips, i haven't found much info on the web.

 
Apr 27, 08 3:48 pm
MMatt

In the time it took to post you probably could've just split the damned model and re-exported. Sometimes it's just easier to have geometry which reflects exactly what you want to show, particularly when jumping from one software package to the next.

.mm

Apr 27, 08 3:56 pm  · 
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MArch n' unemployed

yeah i hear you MMatt...but that's a last resort right now, i have a highly trimmed surface that took my computer 15min to offset, and another 15 min to mesh - lord knows what splitting will do. but i don't want to find out unless i have to.

Apr 27, 08 4:00 pm  · 
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rehiggins

do it in studio

Apr 27, 08 5:26 pm  · 
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rehiggins

there's also two buttons for choosing it on the toolbars (next to focal distance)

Apr 27, 08 5:29 pm  · 
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Mission St.

it's super-easy. go to the camera tab, somewhere near the bottom is a box with z-clip off/on and near/far distance options. use 'em.

recent versions of rhino/maxwell plugin expose just about all of maxwell's features. meaning you can now do everything inside rhino.

i found mw studio totally painful to use and a huge waste of time, and i'm very glad it's no longer needed!

Apr 27, 08 5:43 pm  · 
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MArch n' unemployed

yeah mission st, i see the box containing the zclip controls, but im not seeing anything when i change those numbers. no clipping plane appears in rhino and when i render i just get the full model. it seems insanely easy, considering there are only 2 parameters to control, but am i missing something?

Apr 27, 08 6:05 pm  · 
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rehiggins

the issue could be that maxwell wants metric units--z-clip settings are in meters.

Apr 27, 08 8:21 pm  · 
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sk8ter12548

I looked on the internet for a while for an answer for your post because I was wondering how to do it also. I have rhino with maxwell plugin and also the maxwell studio. It is totally do able to z-clip in rhino for maxwell. It is way better and easier than a section cut and the lighting is simulated as if the entire building were in place...pretty awesome. So to do it in rhino (4) just click the viewport that you want to do the section cut in and right click on the name of the viewport -->set camera --> show camera. Now make sure that the 4 viewports are showing and you should be able to see your section camera in the other viewports. So the trick to setting the clip plane is that when you click on any of the three options (Focal dis, near, and far) for z clip you must have the viewport that you want it rendered from selected (not necessarily maximized). When you click the far for instance you can select the distance in the other viewports, but be sure to see if the line for options is coming from your camera point - that is crucial. Once selected you then should be able to render it in the viewport and it should work--worked for me.

May 8, 08 10:58 am  · 
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Mission St.

and if that still doesn't work, double check that you have the latest maxwell plugin (1.6.6 or newer). might be the z-clip was broken in a prev. ver.

May 8, 08 3:28 pm  · 
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MArch n' unemployed

sk8ter thanks for your write-up, i was definitely missing some of those steps, so thanks for clearing it up.

May 8, 08 3:48 pm  · 
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