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Maxwell vs Vray


cjlopez4
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I had the opportunity in the schedule to do a test render on this project. The Maxwell image cooked for 18 hrs and reached an SL of 19.5

Vray image cooked for 1.5 hrs.

 

Maxwell folks need to speed things up if they want us to integrate into our workflow.

 

However, the Vray interior took considerable more time to prep lighting and materials than the Maxwell image which the only time spent was material selection.

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Since you probably spent the same amount of time on materials with both, how much time did you spend tweaking the lighting with vray, and do you use PPT for lighting previews, that cuts down on my lighting setup times by at least 80%, I can ussually tell if my lighting is right in just two minutes using PPT, just curious about your workflow...

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PPT is progressive path tracing, it works similarly to the way which Maxwell works in that the picture starts out black and then noisey and slowly begins to get clearer, as I said before, you can tell how your lighting is looking within two minutes, no need to wait for GI to calculate, very handy...

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PPT is progressive path tracing, it works similarly to the way which Maxwell works in that the picture starts out black and then noisey and slowly begins to get clearer, as I said before, you can tell how your lighting is looking within two minutes, no need to wait for GI to calculate, very handy...

 

I havn't used PPT yet. You will need to give me your work flow.

 

My workflow is as follows:

 

Vray

1. Data and Asset Collection

2. Modeling

3. Lighting (Usually low settings using Light Cache for Primary and Secondary)

4. Materials(Usually low settings using Light Cache for Primary and Secondary)

5. Lighting (Here is where I up the settings for GI to find potential problem spots)

6. Render

7. Post

 

Maxwell

Aside from asset collection and modeling shown above, in Maxwell I really only work on materials and very little lighting while it renders (multi-light enabled for emitter tweaking)

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PPT is progressive path tracing, it works similarly to the way which Maxwell works in that the picture starts out black and then noisey and slowly begins to get clearer, as I said before, you can tell how your lighting is looking within two minutes, no need to wait for GI to calculate, very handy...

 

Nevermind, I found it in the vray help site. This does speed up tests, thanks.

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  • 7 months later...
Sorry AJLynn - look at the light, materials and the relationship between them and you'll see that Maxwell is such a better render!

 

i'd completely agree with that statement. the maxwell image looks heads and shoulders more realistically lit.

 

 

Was trying to work out which is better and the Maxwell is by far the best!

 

i'd completely disagree with this statement!!!

 

the vray image is below average in my opinion, and thats (sorry cjlopez4) down to the artist and NOT the software. With proper knowlege and experience the artist can make most softwares produce very similar imagery, and besides, vray is the industry standard. they cant all be wrong.

 

because of the nature of unbiased renderers like maxwell and fry for example, it makes life a whole lot easier for the artist to produce realistic works than say vray and mentalray. he has less work and setting up to do.

 

not that i'm saying it's a magic button because it isn't, but it's usually down to the artist. a good artist can make most render engines sing. as shown in this example it's much easier to get maxwell to produce the goods than vray.

 

besides, even with a budget the size of Nasa, most companies would never be able to afford the computing power to make maxwell a useable commercial option i shouldn't think. maybe in the future, but at the moment you'd struggle to meet a deadline for stills let alone animations.

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Yeah I was basically going to say the same thing strat. The realism of the maxwell render is better, but I think the realism of the vray one could be alot higher than it was there. You only have to look at the some of the work of the likes of zuliban or hidalgoserra to see what vray is capable of, and thats in an incomparably shorter time than Maxwell.

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I don't think either image is very appealing, and you certainly can achieve a similar look with V-Ray. Just takes a lot of time to get to know the software. I know we've hashed this debate over and over again, but there's nothing really new to say -- new users will be more successful with Maxwell straight out of the box, though due to the render times and general inflexibility when compared with V-Ray's robust control set, most professional studios find it a lot more difficult to fit into their production workflow.

 

For me it's honestly comparing apples to oranges here, as given the differences between the two renderers I can't help but see them as targetting two different user bases.

 

Shaun

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I like the looks of the Maxwell image and I have to be honest that it didnt work for me at all, rendering times are killing your fun pretty quick, eventhough it has better quality images.

 

Vray however can do very nice things for an acceptable rendertime and you get good renders with a little understanding of the technique. Great renders will come in time when you hang in there.

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Something that annoys me about a popular viewpoint of Maxwell (and unbiased renderers in general) - it's never Maxwell's fault if an image is bad and if an image is good it's because it was rendered with Maxwell. It's like using an unbiased renderer is somehow "cheating" or an unfair advantage that inexperienced users are getting over the "Old Way Bulldogs" (who were once regarded as having an unfair advantage over the then "Old Way Bulldogs" who insisted that global illumination was "cheating"). :)

 

Skillful visualization requires knowledge, experience and hard work no matter what engine you use.

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Skillful visualization requires knowledge, experience and hard work no matter what engine you use.

 

Coming from Lightscape as both you and I did, it was a rude shock to be back in the land of arcane settings and shadowmaps and things that don't have much of anything to do with light. But that's where we are. I'm glad there are once again viable products like maxwell and fry that use light in a way that makes sense. But we all have to be responsible for our work, no matter which engine we use--it wasn't the computer that made it.

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Sorry AJLynn - look at the light, materials and the relationship between them and you'll see that Maxwell is such a better render!

 

Was trying to work out which is better and the Maxwell is by far the best!

 

Anyway....

Cheers for the render!

 

 

The light, the materials, the grain, the fuzz, the hopelessly unwelcoming dark and dank lighting. I know which image (and time frame for that matter) my clients would prefer.

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Just because the lighting is more accurate in the Maxwell doesn't make it any 'better'. The image looks pretty miserable to me... like someone has walked in with a camera and taken a quick, grainy photo.

A photographer would use reflectors, adjust ISO settings and use additional lighting to get a really good result - and probably include some photoshopping afterwards. I personally think that unbiased renderings often need the same kind of treatment.

The v-ray image is technically inferior, yet far more cheerful!

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  • 2 years later...

I thing Maxwell render is better as a realistic look but in fact it looks somehow noisy a little bit, Vray is more clear but you feel that you are dealing with graphics not a real shot, however the time taken by maxwell makes me terrified ... 18 hrs with that quality is not worth ... while vray 1.5 hrs and you get the good result so if you tried to post process the vray image in 2 hrs to look more realistic I think this would be better

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  • 3 months later...

According to the Science behind both renderers, unbiased really means that the renderer will just keep on going until it converges to a correct solution, but biased renderers are still quite accurate at insane settings... both type of renderers would look identical to the human eye! It's just biased renderers allow limits to the behavior of rays in order to reduce rendering times.

 

unbiased:

eg. a car curves to the left and keeps curving left until it forms a circle.

biased

eg. a car curves to the left, but the driver in the car decides to stop just before forming a complete circle becuase he has covered enough distance to see that it is a circle.

 

in a biased render: imagine stopping maxwell after a few samples, then interpolate the grain until it becomes smooth, you wil notice blotchiness appears along the walls such as in a interior rendering of a square room.

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