mental ray .Map Converter v1.1
This MAXScript collects all of the bitmaps in your scene, converts them to mental ray .map files, places them into
a directory of your choice, and replaces all bitmap textures with a 'mib_texture_lookup2' shader containing the new
.map files.
If the backup option is checked, the script automatically saves a backup of your file (filename_backup.max), and
when it has finished converting the bitmaps, automatically saves a new copy of the file (filename__mr_maps.max).
The 'Update Scene' option converts all bitmaps and then replaces
all of the bitmaps with a mib_texture_lookup2 shader containing the
.map file.
If you save the maps to a network drive, you also have the option of converting the mapped path to a UNC path.
If you notice that some bitmaps aren't being converted, it is
probably due to the file format of the bitmap. For example, imf_copy
doesn't like LZW-compressed TIF files.
Comments
If you are wanting to use
If you are wanting to use this for Max 2010 we learned the shader you need to unhide "gui_mib_texture_lookup2" is in your "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2010\mentalray\shaders_standard\include\base_max.mi" file and NOT "base.mi".
same instructions just use that file.
Great!
Great!
Ooh, that's really cool, I
Ooh, that's really cool, I didn't know that! Thanks, I learn something new every day!
Cheers,
-Johan
.map files are uncompressed
.map files are uncompressed memory mapped textures, which means that mental ray never needs to load the whole bitmap into memory like Max does. It just fetches the bit it needs for the bucket it's rendering form the hard drive, and then dumps it when it's finished with it.
This can be useful when rendering very large images with huge texture, but the problem is the missing support in Max for this type of image. mental ray can render them, but there is no way of setting up the tiling, UV offsets etc.
Dave
MAX Plugins.de
The Plugin database
Dave, what are the
Dave, what are the advantages of map files over tga/tiff/etc..?
-Johan