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]

The Maxwell AC-plug-in comes with a PDF manual, that is helpful.

http://download.nextlimit.com/download.htm

[Anonymous]

I can't get the website open,
but will try to hunt for that from the next limit web site

thanks

[Anonymous]

Hey guys, i have attached a project i am currently working on. I'm actually working on three projects right now. I have adjusted my camera settings to solve my depth of field problem. These tests i am attaching are just test right out of archicad with default textures. I am more concerned with the lighting of the scene. I am adjusting the model as well so its not completely finished.

[Anonymous]

another view

[Anonymous]

Speed and Quality, these are the holy grail of the rendering artist. Programmers understand the quest and recently they have been tapping into the Parallel Processing Power built into our GPU's - Graphic Processing Units. Take a peek at one project called, Parthenon which is targeting Maxwell Render. The results are like, 2 hours reduced to 60 seconds.

http://www.bee-www.com/parthenon/index.htm

[Anonymous]

some updated views. modelling @ 70% completed.

[Anonymous]

front view

[stefan]

If you want less of a "Fisher Price" look, you should do something about the textures. The grass and street have very visible repeating patterns.

And your roof is floating above the walls.

The renderings are grainy, but that is easy to solve in Maxwell, given enough render time.

Try to diminish the saturation of the material colors (or quickly use Photoshop or something to tone down the vivid colors).

[Anonymous]

thanks for the advice but like i said it these are just W.I.P and i just want to post them to get feedback. thanks for the advice.

[Anonymous]

With all due respect, there is a reason Stefan is a veteran member. If you want to post a technical achievement, tip, technique or trick. Great, we will all learn from it. However if you just post an image without any text explaining who, what, when, where.... then the image is fair game for critique. After a few hundred posted messages, you will get what we are all after. I agree with Stefan, the image does not utilize the rendering power of Maxwell.

Perhaps explain the techniques of work flow, texture mapping, render times, computer system, etc. Keep up the effort and keep posting useful information.