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.

[Dwight]

Quality issues aside, does anyone here actually use Maxwell to generate real work?

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
Quality issues aside, does anyone here actually use Maxwell to generate real work?

Besides Mark...

[Dwight]

Lately, my assignments require numerous views prepared in short order.
Is there anyone here using Maxwell to be productive with real work?

Including Mark.

[Anonymous]

I thought that LOGO looked familiar - Exteriors by VB Visual working along with GraphiSoft.

See: http://www.vbvisual.com/product_info.php?info=p112_Graphisoft-Green-Line.html

$778 - I can't be right with that conversion.


Mark

[Anonymous]

maybe my deadlines aren't as rushed as some of the others. but yeah maxwell is all our office uses in day to day use.

if we need a render done in 5 - 10 mins we just simply use the preview in maxwell studio coupled with Neat Image in photo shop and usually this will suffice.

( Highly recommend Neat Image for any one who uses Maxwell )

If not.... then exterior renders don't take long at all. 1hour tops to render with 2 simultaneous in the background on low priority. which still allows me to use archicad as normal, be it presentation floor plans or setting up more views. or even photo shopping finished renders.

Maybe a 2nd machine running purely rendering on high priority just crunching out images, if the dead line is within sight.

[Anonymous]

Yep, I use Maxwell...
Agree on the NeatImage front, especially for internals. As far as times go, for me it's far more important that it looks ok, rather than be super-quick. The end result is what everyone sees, not the time it took...

[Anonymous]

I always liked that exterior shot looking across the habour.

I think that was the first image that motivated me into finally figuring out alpha channels / background images for maxwell.

[Anonymous]

Oops, I posted it before ???
What a show-off

[Anonymous]

it was either in the maxwell forums or ...

Oddly enough i actually think it may have been this thread.

either way, its still a nice image, grats

[Anonymous]

Actually, you may be right...
It definitely wasn't in the Maxwell forums, I've been lurking there hoping for some gems of wisdom, getting nothing & then along comes Daniel
Any more pearls of wisdom, anyone ???
I'll start... Multi-light... Imagine being a photographer, taking a set-scene shot, then going back to the studio & tweaking the intensity of your fill-lights as a post-production item rather than educated guess-work pre-shoot..? Luv it...
& HDRI... used to generate realistic reflections & scene lighting/tones. Use it in conjunction with alpha channels for the ability to post-edit backgrounds, etc... handy...