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]

tigr , jp, do you render straight from archicad or export it and bring it in to maxwell as mxm

[Anonymous]

Mine was from ArchiCAD.

[Anonymous]

Great images!
How much time did it take to render?
Is the new version of MW ready for AC?

[Anonymous]

An overnight on my laptop, I don't remember exactly.

Yes, new release is ready for AC 10 and 11. I cannot say anything about new plug-in workflow cause I'm still on AC 9+old plug-in.
Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I use the AC to Maxwell output plugin as & do all texturing in Maxwell Studio, having assigned all 'like' materials in AC. Rendering times can be an issue, especially internals, minimum is overnight... But there are so many other advantages & plusses, I'm always prepared to wait...

[Anonymous]

tigr wrote:
Cannot post anything from the latest since it's a pay work, but here is one I did some time ago for fun.
BTW great one Justin.

nice pic man !

[Anonymous]

So its better to export it to MW studio and do all the prepering there?

[Anonymous]

I made the effort to switch over to using Maxwell materials straight away, & although the plugin allows you to utilise these 'mxm's' in AC, you don't have as thorough a previewing option as you have with Maxwell Studio. So I make rough, approximate colours for like objects in AC, then tweak settings & use pre-set mxm's in MxS. Free & downloadable textures via Maxwell's web-page.

[Anonymous]

Maxwell 1.6 out now, displacement is very cool.

Images from Maxwell forums Link

[Anonymous]

Was this done in Studio or with the plug-in?

Pretty cool.

Justin