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yog

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  1. Oh look, sunlight being transmitted through glass. ;-) It's a great test scene, I use it often. Haven't got around to trying it with 1.5 yet though.
  2. I have both. I play with Maxwell, I work with Vray. I'm always under very tight time constraints, and because of that I can't even begin to consider using Maxwell for paying work. With Vray I have the ability to scale the accuracy of my work (whilst still achieving a very smooth results) in order to match the deadline. Maxwell is more of an all or nothing. And that's just for stills work, for animation work Maxwell isn't even a consideration.
  3. I always found it strange that Next Limit is so paranoid about the number of processors each licence can enable. It's not as though the DAT file approach is much of a copy protection system. I found that if you just copy the DAT file to another computer (I was working from home for a few days), Maxwell runs just fine on two computers at once. If I'm not allowed to sell this extra licence, I'm really not sure what to do with it ?
  4. I have experience of/own Maxwell, Vray, Final Render, Lightwave and Mental Ray (used through XSI), and I would say without doubt Vray is bar far the easiest of the bunch to learn (especially given MW new "improved" material editor), and only Final Render comes anywhere close to Vray's blazingly fast render times. Setting up materials in Vray is a breeze. As well as being able to use MAX standard materials, there are only three Vray specific materials, VrayMtl, VrayHDRI and VrayLightMtl, which all have strong connections to MAX's own material setup. The main "complexity" of Vray comes from the fact you have the option of using four different render methods (five if you count progressing path tracing as a sub-set of light caching), depending on your accuracy/speed needs, plus you can mix and match the different meathods between initial and secondary light bounces. None of the render methods are hard, with very few options for either. I still say Maxwell has a better quality of light than any of the other renderers, but I would put most of this down to MW's physical sky option (it'll be interesting to see how Vray's soon to be released physical sky compares).
  5. Light Sizes. The sample scene consists of box rooms 3.0m high and deep and 2.0m wide. All lights have the same emitter material applied. I wanted to see if the size of emitter had any effect on the amount of light they gave off. The results indicate NO, or negligible. Light Types Here I wanted to see how emitter shape effected the light given off, and whether light was effected by the number of polygons in the emitter. Left to right, Emitter-1 was a 50 poly sphere, Emitter-2 was a 6 sided box, Emitter-3 a single poly plane, and Emitter-4 was a 1426 poly model of a semi-recessed light fitting with cowl. Again the same emitter material was applied to each. The most noticeable result is that the single plane poly gives off far more light than the six poly box, even though they have the same plan area. This is surprising as the box has a far greater surface area, and even throws light above and to the sides, unlike the single poly plane. Likewise the 50 poly sphere gives off a lot more light than the 1426 poly light fitting, although admittedly the light fitting has a cowl to prevent side light spill. I did initially think that emitted light could be adversely effected by the number of polys in the emitter, but a test using a variety of tessellated planes proves otherwise. So it’s more about emitter shape than physical size or poly count (although I still think the box should output more light than a single poly plane). Light Cowls The first box contains just a bare 30 poly sphere, the rest contain the same sphere surrounded be chrome material cowls of varying spreads. It’s interesting to see how the two wider cowls really focus the light onto the floor, and it’s good to see the reflected light patterns on the side wall on the bib cowl sample.
  6. ND Setting Reflection (0) = Dark red. Reflection (90) = White ND = 1.5 to 6.5 in 0.5 steps. Note – Big changes up till ND-4.5, but very little change afterwards. ND Settings (2) Reflection (0) = Dark red. Reflection (90) = White ND = First is 3, then 10 to 100 in steps of 10. Note – It’s been said by some members of the A-Team that if you want to boost glancing angle reflections, then ND values of between 50 to 80 should be used, this is often quoted when it is remarked on that AGS glass has particularly poor glancing angle reflections. These results seem to indicate that there is practically no change after ND-20. Coatings – Interference Colours BSDF = Mid red Lambertian, ND-3 Coating = ND-3, the rest = standard settings. Coating thickness = 100000nm to 50nm (steps 1 = /10, step 2 = /2, repeat) Note – It’s been said that if you don’t want interference colours (oily effect) with coatings, then the thickness should be set to 1000000nm(1mm). Results tend to show the interference colours are limited to the 1000nm to 50nm range. Coating ND’s BSDF = Mid red Lambertian, ND-3 Coating = ND-3 to 13 in steps of 1 Coating thickness = 100000nm Other settings = Standard Note – ND’s for coatings seem to have more effect than ND’s for BSDF’s. However ND’s for coatings are limited to 20, higher numbers are automatically reduced to 20.
  7. I'm assuming that NL are still being jerks about keeping the ban on some of it's more "outspoken" clients, so I thought I would post these tests here where everyone could see them. Just a normal round of tests to try and understand Maxwell’s materials better. Edge Reflection. Reflection (0) = Black Reflection (90) = Black to White in 10% steps ND = 3 Centre Reflection Reflection (0) = Black to White in 10% steps Reflection (90) = White ND = 3 Reflection (0) = Black to White in 10% steps Reflection (90) = White ND = 50 Note – The change in ND number makes for a massive change. ND Setting Reflection (0) = Dark red. Reflection (90) = White ND = 1.5 to 6.5 in 0.5 steps. Note – Big changes up till ND-4.5, but very little change afterwards.
  8. MAX cannot preview materials in the ME using Maxwell as the renderer. In fact Maxwell cannot even preview it's own preset materials (Diffuse, Plastic, Metal, etc). The only preview that will appear in the material editor when using Maxwell as the renderer are those MXS materials generated in the Maxwell material editor, even here you have to make a preview in the Maxwell ME before it will appear in the MAX ME.
  9. If I'm being as un-biased as I can, I would say that Maxwell Studio is a Ver-1, but the MAX and Lightwave plug-ins are still back at the beta stage (possible Rc-1). Still no faster though
  10. Apart from the fact that it is the IOR that is stopping caustics appearing through glass (i.e. the original problem).
  11. Thats because the "new" and "revolutionary" AGS-preset is nothing more than two ordinary BSDF layers. One allows light to pass through it but has no reflections at all, and the other has reflection enabled, with the already understood problems with caustics passing through them. The weighting between the two layers is 85/15 in favour of the non-reflective layer by default. This means that although you will have a lot of light pass through the glass, you will generally only get around 15% of the reflection value you would normally expect. Of course you will also lose light refraction as well, something I have found is quite obvious (not in a good way) when it comes to curved glass. Not so much a new material, rather a half assed preset.
  12. It doesn't surprise me. A previous prefered rendering partner for Autodesk was Final Render, at one time it was the only one they would personally endorse. And whilst a very capable renderer, capable of some great results, the parent company is the only one I know that could match Next Limit for customer disservice.
  13. I must say that caught me completely off guard. Although I would say that Maxwell has really great natural light reproduction, I've yet to have had a paying job where I could have afforded to use it, my deadlines are just way too tight. Damn, I must be attracting the wrong clients
  14. Perhaps they haven't decided which version of Maxwell they are releasing yet ? ;o)
  15. Hi Gattomanzo. Despite Next Limit's behavour, and uncertainties over how well their support may or may not be, I do think it is worth including Maxwell as part of your training program, if only to show another aspect of the rendering possibilities. However, I would be a little reluctant to base your entire rendering lessons on Maxwell. Two reasons, first it is untested in the wider industry, and second I would be tempted to teach software that your students are more likely to use in the working environment. At present I'm not sure how well Maxwell will fair, even in industries most suited to it's strengths, i.e. architecture. Whilst it's true that more than any other clients, architects appreciate good quality lighting, and will be prepared to pay a little more for better lighting simulation, even architects wont pay too much over the odds for overlong render times. I generally present new clients a range of render samples (from flat shaded, to photorealistic) together with likely pricings for each. Whilst just about all really like the Maxwell renders (mainly for the natural external light quality), I've not had one that was prepared to pay the asking price. Most usually opt for the almost as good, but a lot cheeper Vray renderings. I hear all the time people on the Next Limit forum (generally from members of the A-Team), that Maxwell whilst relatively slow at actual rendering, they find they are as fast as other renderers, if not faster, because they can predict how the materials will react and so enter material settings right at the start without having to do loads of test renders. Personally I find this puzzelling, because if you have used any renderer for any length of time you have a fealling for how materials will react right from the start.
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