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]

Continuing with the tests. This time a simple scene. Minimum time involved with each program, first up is LightWorks inside of ArchiCAD 10.

Quick to render, easy enough to set-up. It works.

[Anonymous]

Next up, Cinema4D. The export is straight, some slight adjustments to the colors. 3ds export is the only good method of getting the model data to C4D. The plug-in for AC to C4D has been missing in action for a few years. Without it, using C4D as a rendering solution is a chore.

[Anonymous]

Final test. This time in Maxwell Render. MR

The export to MR is painless, the plug-in for windows platform is a gem. The file was rendering within minutes. It looked good, so I adjusted the colors of the chairs.

In LightWorks the sun beaming in was accomplished with a fake window light. In C4D the sun was a light placed outside of the window and in Maxwell the sun was defined as a real time and place.

Which one was I most successful with? You vote.

[Anonymous]

One feature of MR that I am extremely happy with is MXI. It is a data file of the rendering that along with Multi-Light (tm) - allows you to adjust the F-stop and ISO of the film you are using, after the rendering is finished. Below is a rendering of the Next-Limit office building. Consider the Multi-Light as rendering insurance. Under-exposed rendering? Just adjust it later. I have never seen a feature like this in a rendering package. That render insurance is worth a couple of bucks all by itself.

You can also create light animations that control several lights within a scene. There is an excellent example of an image like this at the Maxwell Render home page. It uses floor lights, bar lights, and exterior sunlight. All adjustable, after the render. Now that is cool.

Something to keep in mind. The render time in MR is not so much a function of the complexity of the scene. It is mostly a function of the amount of light energy. Exterior scenes such as the ones below render within 20 min. (exteriors brightly lit) - However when the light level drops the grain and render times increase dramatically.

[Anonymous]

Burginger wrote:
You vote.

I vote for lightworks - 10 hours for a simple scene like that is a tad steep.

It might be easier to compare if all scenes were the same (view angle, materials, window) though.

But keep up the good work...

[Rakela Raul]

excelent test and thx for sharing it.....

i will repeat exactly what tom norman just said!!

[Thomas Holm]

Tom wrote:

Burginger wrote:
You vote.

I vote for lightworks - 10 hours for a simple scene like that is a tad steep. ...But keep up the good work...

I agree with Tom. LW not only renders the fastest, it looks best! Even if the shadows on the floor feel a little weak.

[Anonymous]

I see that the Maxwell website has a number of free materials that can be downloaded. I really haven't worked with the materials and textures in Archicad much - Can the Maxwell materials be used within Archicad without any Maxwell add-ons? I see the Maxwell materials have several parts - the image and then usually a texture of some kind. Could I use these to apply to materials in Archicad and what would be the best way to do that?

Thanks

(Still using Archicad version 9. Mac OSX)

[Anonymous]

Good news - Bad News. Good news first, the Mactel version of Maxwell Render should be available within a week. Yes!

[ edit: It is currently available Oct. 19th ]

Bad news, the developers at Next Limit are having trouble with the Macintosh SDK in regards to the ArchiCAD/Maxwell plug-in development.

This problem is on the GS end of things from what I understand. Perhaps if Big Brother is reading this, they can chime in and explain why the problem exists.

To see what the Macintosh users are missing, download the PDF Manual for the ArchiCAD plug-in at: http://www.Burginger.com/MAXWELL/Ac2Mxs.pdf

This is the first time I have seen a major 3rd Party rendering engine provide a hook directly within ArchiCAD. The solution extends to material placement within ArchiCAD. It would be nice to see more developments like this one besides the limited LightWorks solution.

[Anonymous]

Although they don't look 3D in this C4D planar elevation view, one thing missing from the Maxwell universe is the easy insertion of entourage. With C4D the inclusion of xFrog Plants and trees is an easy process. You can also insert any of the items from Dosch Design, a snappy BMW 7 class is shown here. This is not currently possible with Maxwell.

If there was a plug-in for Mac/PC that would migrate a C4D version 10 scene to Maxwell, then the cycle could be complete. Also needed badly would be a plug-in from MAXON that moves an ArchiCAD project to C4D v10.

I know... that's alot of wishing going on.