Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

..... and folks, that is what you call, "Sandbagging the Thread". Thanks guys.

[Anonymous]

Well I'm done with this exterior shot. I hope you guys like it.

[Anonymous]

Another view.

[Dwight]

How are you reconciling the sharp shadows beneath the gate with the soft shadows elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

kjverine wrote:
Well I'm done with this exterior shot. I hope you guys like it.

I like it. About 100x better than your first (very yellow) attempt. How long did it take to render?

[Anonymous]

How are you reconciling the sharp shadows beneath the gate with the soft shadows elsewhere?

My bet is that sun position is very high and just a bit before 3 o'clock, so the front facade is not lit with direct sunlight but GI.

[Anonymous]

Well done! You have tackled the technical Maxwell issues and won. (Not easy, believe me)

Now we can get down to critique. How about (just for presentation) removing the gate in front of our eyes, let us see the house. As said elsewhere, splashing the sunlight across the front face of the home to enliven it by changing the sun angle.

Way to go, when do we move in?

[Anonymous]

Dwight

How many steps back to move ahead?

[Dwight]

huh?

[Anonymous]

After looking at the results of allot of time and effort, I want to believe....
but I don't see a reason to leave the comforts of LightWorks.