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.

[Rakela Raul]

you guys are too picky...with my mickey mouse artlantis i can produce something like this in 2 minutes...i know !! terrible !! but , i havent put a minute yet into the ' dressing' part yet, nor lighting, etc....and i can still produce a sellable really quick image.

[Anonymous]

Here is a render i did about a month ago, not very good, but not bad either. Just a little photoshop to merge the background.
Any comment are welcomed (well not all.. lol)

[Rakela Raul]

too good for me !!! i dont even know which is the modeled building...maybe
it is just a picture and u pulling my leg

[Anonymous]

Well I'm almost done with this scene. My shingles are workin me. I am not sure about the UV mappig of textures on my roof. I think it has something to do with the projector setting in maxwell.

[Anonymous]

The recent History Channel series, prompted me to search for an Egyptian 3D Model site. I found:

http://www.virtual-egypt.com/framed/framed.cgi?url==http://www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/digital_egypt/3d/ind...

Can you find others?

[Rafal SLEK]

Is this plugin working for You in AC 10?
I got only some alerts:

[Anonymous]

thx rakela

The truth is maxwell has alot of potential, backed up with very bad customer support and ultra slow progress.
Its missing tons of features (which are standard in almost all renderers)

Now that the archicad plugin is out , the workflow is much much easier.
I still cannot recomment it to someone, cause behind software you have to deal with people, and my experience (and not only mine) was really bad. (i just dont want to be responsible for someone's choice)

[Rafal SLEK]

The truth is maxwell has alot of potential

Yes, I agree. Maxwell got very fine algorithm to render light in the scene.
But...
- you have to think it over before spending a 900 Eur for it (instead of 0 eur for Lightworks or 495 for Artlantis),
- and prepare some extra (average 10) hours for good quality render computing.

[Anonymous]

Rafal wrote:
Is this plugin working for You in AC 10?
I got only some alerts:

Is requirement mit in computer road "C:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents" and smelt her in accessories
is it problem unEnglish Windows

[Anonymous]

If you feel you need to see into the future and find out what your Maxwell render time might be, try this program.

MXC - The Maxwell Render Calculator

http://www.klausbusse.de/mxc/