topic Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator in Visualization

Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:30:15 GMT

If you are interested in a new rendering engine for ArchiCAD, check out Maxwell Render.

Gallery at:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/

If you want THAT TYPE OF REALISM in your images, you need to take the jump into the Maxwell universe.

You might be thinking it is difficult. I used to think that way. Guess what? It isn't all that difficult. Within just a few hours I have been able to come to grips with the interface, navigation and material editor.

"But isn't it Slooooooooow?", you quip... No. In many ways it is actually fast. The reason it is so fast is because it is predictable. You don't need to think about Global Strength, Occlusion, Shadow Sampling settings, etc, etc.

It is extremely architectural, place your crosshairs on the hires Earth globe, think google earth, now position your project with north arrow - specify the year, month and time of day. Check Physical Sky and you have just successfully finished the lighting of an exterior.

It has a function that takes just 1 or 2 minutes to generate a fuzzy preview. Very fast and useful.

Here is the clincher, you can also do much of it from within ArchiCAD 10. Yup, NextLimit is working hard to create the connections (plug-ins) between ArchiCAD 10 and Maxwell. PC will come first (as usual Mac comes next) What's exciting about the Mac development is Universal App - Mactel support. Have you heard about the Quad Core Intel chips coming out soon? Imagine a MacPro with dual Quads. All of them working on your images at once. The future is looking kinda bright.

I will post within this thread more info as it become available to me, and I will give you a peek at some of the programs more useful features.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:56:54 GMT

With the Maxwell package you get, Cross Platform Mac, Windows and Linux versions of the program, plug-ins for many 3D programs, textures, materials, lights, tutorials, examples and a committed community of users.

You also get Maxwell Studio - a full editior to compose scenes, Maxwell Material Editor (a sample screen is attached to this message) and Maxwell Engine for distributed rendering across your office network.

The Material Editor includes a MATERIAL WIZARD which makes the process of creating your own materials a snap. This is the best material editor I have ever used.

Why give your client a rendering, when you can give them a photograph?

Check out the FREE community material library at:

http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/

While you are there, register and download the DEMO and support files.
Tell em' Mark sent ya, just to confuse the little buggers.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Thomas Holm — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 18:43:49 GMT

Burginger wrote:
Why give your client a rendering, when you can give them a photograph?

I appreciate the links to their beautiful gallery very much, Mark. MR seems to be a very capable renderer. You could tell us how expensive it is, too.

But THAT is a completely different question. I find it often is much better to give the client a not-completely-realistic picture of the project. It leaves something to their imagination, which is good! (See Dwight's Photoshop tweaks, etc)

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:33:14 GMT

Thomas wrote:
Burginger wrote:
Why give your client a rendering, when you can give them a photograph?
I appreciate the links to their beautiful gallery very much, Mark. MR seems to be a very capable renderer. You could tell us how expensive it is, too.

But THAT is a completely different question. I find it often is much better to tive the client a not-completely-realistic picture of the project. It leaves something to their imagination, which is good! (See Dwight's Photoshop tweaks, etc)

I agree strongly that for design discussion/presentation sketchy renderings are far better than photo-rendering. The photos are often good for public presentation when you want to present the project as a completed work and not a springboard for discussion. This all works out rather well since the model is usually not developed enough in schematic phase to make a decent photo rendering anyway.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:33:33 GMT

Thomas wrote:
MR seems to be a very capable renderer. You could tell us how expensive it is, too.

Yes you have a good point - it can be expensive, but a well rounded digital architect keeps his tools up-to-date. The alternative is to still be using ArchiCAD 8, PhotoShop 6, and a 800Mhz machine. It is a business expense. Never go backward and why stand still?

Price posted on Maxwell website - $995 for the complete package. free plug-ins, free incremental upgrades.

Compare: ArchiCAD 10 Upgrade from 9 Price: $795.00 ArchiCAD 10 Upgrade from 8.0 or previous versions Price: $995.00

The real expense is in training time, self-taught learning curve and daily implementation @ $$$+ per hr. Just ask Dwight about his Chapter Four LightWorks Voodoo Tricks rendering.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Thomas Holm — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:15:12 GMT

Matthew wrote:
I agree strongly that for design discussion/presentation sketchy renderings are far better than photo-rendering. The photos are often good for public presentation when you want to present the project as a completed work and not a springboard for discussion. This all works out rather well since the model is usually not developed enough in schematic phase to make a decent photo rendering anyway.

Precisely!

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:22:27 GMT

Is this turning into a debate? I scratch my head because the Forum is called "Presentation - Rendering and Multimedia" - Are we suggesting that users need go no further than the Kor-i-noor Sketch engine of ArchiCAD? Honestly for most purposes that suits me just fine in the initial phases and documentation. I have a B&W HP plotter, rendered color images don't even get considered for my standard work.

However, for special projects seeing the bldg. as a real object is also interesting.

I started this thread for an honest analysis of a very powerful rendering engine. If you want to use it for daily routine architectural work is not even the subject.

--
Taking a standard example model - the NHS Building - (supplied on the GS web site) - using ArchiCAD 10 - export as a .3ds - Layers/Materials - Import directly into Maxwell - Drag and Drop a few shaders - render for 50 min. with a G5 single 1.8 MHz will deliver the following result. Longer rendering will give a smoother texture to the image.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 18:38:24 GMT

One more example before I dump this example model out of the program. NHS example file again in a standard G5 1.8MHz. Open GL very responsive easy to navigate. Camera lens changed to 20mm, image 1000 x 700 rendered for 90 minutes. Smoother image grain. I forgot to turn on the GLARE, notice the black sun spot on left corner of bldg. - You can have selectable diffraction effects from the camera diaphragm. You can select circular, hex and any other shape you might like to try.

The next feature I will address will be Multilight (tm).

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Thomas Holm — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 19:09:46 GMT

Interesting. Looks just like a physical model, made of cardboard and plastic and paint!

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 19:50:32 GMT

Thanks for sharing your excitement about this relatively new product.
I have been interested to try maxwell out. I have the demo downloaded but have not had the time yet to play. I am always open to new techniques and technologies.

I have found that I have shifted to mainly sketchy renderings for clients as it stimulates their imagination a bit more than the photo renderings (unless the photorealistic rendering is perfect). I think that Maxwell may be able to produce renderings that are a bit more artful than Lightworks. Photorealistic yeah, but also able to go past that and create pleasing renderings that are exciting to look at but not necessarily photo accurate...

Again, I appreciate your post. Thanks.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:48:25 GMT

i remember posting an answer at this thread,what happened to it?
Did someone delete it? And why?
Is a negative experience from a product not welcomed?

My experience with NL and maxwell was very dissapointing, and ofcourse i am not the only one.

Why was the post deleted? If you dont allow negative posts about a product, you shouldnt allow positive too.

In any case. If you need a unbiased-like renderer, you can take a look at fryrender witch looks promising but i have no personal experience with it.

(hope the post is not deleted this time, on second thoughts it might have to do with the problem the forum was experiencing earlier today...perhaps not)

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

TomWaltz — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 21:10:51 GMT

oreopoulos wrote:
i remember posting an answer at this thread,what happened to it?
Did someone delete it? And why?
Is a negative experience from a product not welcomed?

If it was posted recently (like the last few days), it may be lost. The forum has been having a LOT of problems lately.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:02:31 GMT

oreopoulos wrote:
Did someone delete it? And why?

Please post it again or perhaps just edit the previous post. I promise nobody is editing the thread.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 07:36:19 GMT

I would try to point my negative experience with Maxwell.

1) Promised alot delivered half. They promised a ton of features (texture baking, displacement maps, procedural materials... and much more)

2)The archicad plugin is simply a DISASTER (they have announched a new better one, 3 months ago, but still no sign of it), The current one is simply a geometry exporter, and that would not be bad IF the exported materila was useable. What you get is a SINGLE object, and materials are assigned as triangle groups, not editable (locked). Simply unusable for serious Job.

3) Alternatives? Tried 3ds and obj export. There, either Archicad is a bad exporter of 3ds and obj or Maxwell is just producing garbage. Some projects (very small and simple) are exported in 3ds ok, but others either do not load or end up missing most of the structure

4) The only viable way is exporting to c4d and then exporting to Maxwell. You also get problems that way, but less, and you can actually produce something usufull.

5) The maxwell potential was (is?) good. But customer support is non existent and the usual response to protesting is "shut up" (yes when you ask to deliver what was promised you get that answer )

6) You can produce some nice picture with Maxwell, but for architecture interiors you have to provide it with a cluster of computers to get a noise free image, or leave it for 3-4 days (or more ) to get to acceptable noise levels.

Thats the negative side of the moon. For the bright side you may look at other posts

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 16:50:50 GMT

Oreopoulos, thanks for the concise list of concerns. Looking at it I don't see anything that is insurmountable. Over the next few weeks I am sure each one of them can be mitigated.

Let's start with that plug-in, are you on a Mac or PC also are you AC10 or 9?
If you are Windows and AC10, be assured the plug-in is in beta and it works. It will release very soon. As far as the Mac - I don't know.

For now, I am using a Mac without the aid of a plug-in. I have been successfully and unsuccessfully testing various export file options. I will share this information within this thread so that we can all learn from it. For example I recently tested an ArchiCAD model of a home. It exports fine as a .3Ds - but - when I add VF-Tile to the roof the process broke down. If you ever want to overload a 3D program with polygons, just use the Tile Object.

The .3ds exported and imported fine with Cinema4D, but it would not load into Maxwell. So then I switched to the lowest 3D common denominator file format - DXF . Exporting the model in AC10 took 30 MINUTES! Ouch. But then the model loaded fine into Maxwell. Go figure?
I attach a test render from Maxwell, 250 min. on a Mac single processor 1.8 GHz.

Moving the model from AC10 --> C4D then export as --> .obj and dxf and .3ds

None of these methods worked 100% - for some reason the 3ds just would not load into Maxwell, causing a hang. Then the .obj and .dxf seemed to work for about 75% of the geometry, but who can use a peoject with missing polygons?

Most of these problems are probably related to the tile object because without it the success rate is much higher. Anyone have a better tile solution than VF-Tile object?

I have the beta AC10 plug-in for Windows and I will test that with AC10 on my windows machine soon. For now I am giving up looking for a good method of using the Mac with Maxwell.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:41:05 GMT

Running the same Roof Tile AC Model thru the AC Photorender:

Sketch... This engine takes an unknown amount of time to render, 193 min...110min...268min... (I stopped the render after 15 minutes because the estimated time to completion kept increasing each minute) Sketch does not like a tile roof. Without the tile it renders in 45 seconds.

Internal Rendering Engine: It was like watching the moon move, but it did get a render after 30 min.

LightWorks Engine: Yes! It cranks thru the model in 5 min. Lighting can be adjusted to create the necessary image. If all you have is AC10 for rendering, then get Dwight Atkinson's book and learn how to maximize the potential of this built-in rendering engine. Better yet, sign up for one of his classes when he is in your town, the guy is like a gypsy doing traditional folk dances from town to town, you have seen his avatar - that's one of his dances.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 20:58:42 GMT

Burginger wrote:
Sketch... This engine takes an unknown amount of time to render, 193 min...110min...268min... (I stopped the render after 15 minutes because the estimated time to completion kept increasing each minute) Sketch does not like a tile roof. Without the tile it renders in 45 seconds.

Burginger

Annoying isn't it. It does eventually stop increasing and all of a sudden you will have you sketch render, but you never know exactly when that is going to be. In your case, it was probably after 16minutes

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 08:24:28 GMT

Burginger wrote:
. Over the next few weeks I am sure each one of them can be mitigated.

I am 100% sure that this wont be the case. Its a year since the first (incomplete) release and NO update since then. There are tons of missing (promised) features. There is no indication of fixing the problems. So i wouldnt bet in a few weeks. If you said in a few years, that would be closer to the truth

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Rafal SLEK — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 09:10:17 GMT

So i wouldnt bet in a few weeks.

Yes - Oreopoulos is right. I am regularly watching Maxwell User forum and there is no info about plugin for ac10 for weeks (or months).

MaxwellRender with its idea of simulating Real Light is heading in the future.
Besides all (negative) points listed here I could add - Rendering time(!).
Average time is 10-20 hours - from User Forum informations.
It is impossible to use this software now for everyday architect work.

Re: Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:02:33 GMT

Here a test in Maxwell using a scene i am currently working on.

Jus to add to this post.

I used a skydome for my exterior lighting and my camera settings were an ISO of 100, fStop was 1/19, focal distacne was 500. My render time was like 2.5hrs.