Jeff Mottle Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I would like to hear from the people who are using the latest version of Maxwell and have had enough experience with it to push it to it's limits. I specifically would like to know if it is a viable tool in production given the quality and render times and current feature set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kunstraum.tv Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 i know that other people have a different opinion.....but for me it´s a clear and loud: NO. for me maxwell is still a nice toy with maybe great potential in the future. but it´s nothing for real productions when time and workflow are two important points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 It mostly depends on how much experience you have with other renderers and on how "easy" you and your clients are with extremely long rendertimes. With Maxwell I can easily test the lighting conditions for my environments after which I do my final renders with VRay, fRender or MRay. Especially if you would like to do some artistic finetuning ATM there are no options to do this in Maxwell. You will have to simulate realworld lighting or studio lighting setups to get your required output. With the other renderers you can fake as much as you like. And why would you put your trust in a renderer that is still in extreme beta while others have already proven their usability. If you know your stuff you can make beautiful images in ALL current renderers. You only have to consider what features you need and how much time you have to make these beautiful images and/or animations. And something that may be personal. There are two things I like less about 3DCG: modeling and waiting for renders. The finetuning of light and material is the part I really like and there I need a FAST renderer. Because of the physical correctness of Maxwell, in the end it will be a one-button solution and for now I'm still asking myself whether I like it or not. On the other hand, if it would be fast enough I would surely use it just for economical reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jucaro Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I dont see that many maxwell renders in the Finished section of the forum. Maxwell's forum doesnt show that many 'oooooh' renders too that shows maxwell pushed to the limit. If somebody did, I wonder how long that render would take. So, I think its not yet a viable option. my .02 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 quality wise i think maxwell is more than up to the job, but render times? we all know about those at the moment, and i wouldn't suspect the full production product to be that much of a jump forward either as far as render times are concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IC Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 Have you seen Otacon's recent 'Stairwell' entry in the Finished Work forum? He has posted two very similar (VERY similar) renders from Maxwell and FPrime with a 57 hour difference in render time. It doesn't offer totally conclusive evidence of anything as it's just one comparison and, I assume, the FPrime render would have required additional set up time but to me it's a big indicator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidR Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 We use it as an adjunct to our Vray-based pipeline, and find it useable and fast enough for exterior work, and useful for interiors if there's enough time. I don't like not seeing the material until rendertime, limited metal colours, and having to convert maps from tif to jpg, but for us, the output is the best we've seen, though Vray can come really close and is super fast. Our renderfarm is Vray only, so Maxwell stuff has to render on local wkstations overnight, or more usually, over weekends. I don't think anyone can use only Maxwell yet (except Tom:). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 No. Not yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martincg Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 my opinion: and what about animation? no way with maxwell. maxwell is at the present time just for stills /some pics looks beautiful/ and useable only with smaller render farm. no material preview is bad choice too. software is almost ready but hardware maybe after 2 years. and for realtime presentations it is not ready too /i mean texture baking, lightmaps/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 No, not yet... Current version is not ready for production when there's a lot of 'emitters' and 'dielectrics' in your scene. On the other hand, I've done an exterior project recently (posted somehere on the forum) with acceptable rendertimes (under 18 hrs on a single HT supported machine). Release of the full version 1.0 is set in october this year and it will be an extended version of the current beta 1.2.22a. For the long rendertimes when there is quite some geometry and heavy materials involved, the renderer is not suitable for professional production, yet, allthough there is a conversation going on between Respower and NextLimit for support in the farm. I think that is a big step into the right direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecastillor Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 wow....this is an interesting thread for the people at next limit technologies to see! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHE Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I have been using Maxwell in production for the last month or so and I'm happy with it so far. Render times can be decreased by tweaking materials and other options like camera settings for example. Adding filling lights when needed (just like any pro photographer would do) helps too. Sure, things like render elements need to be supported, the dialectic material improved and major bugs like clip maps need to be addressed along with faster render times but Maxwell is still in its beta stage so be gentle, the guys at Next Limit are doing a great job. I have seen some amazing renderings in the user gallery at the Maxwell Forum http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/ John Voltaire, Octagon, Frances and others in the cgarchitect community have done some of them. With a little bit of imagination, creativity and resourcefulness Maxwell can be a viable production tool as is right now. Here are my first full production renderings done with Maxwell. Render time 7 hrs at 2400 pixels. Post in Photoshop. I hope it helps. Ernesto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renato Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 We'll have to wait for the final release, to see the new optimizations. I think it won't be a great improvement in speed, but let's wait to see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 The right image is very nice Ernesto... You're right about tweaking the settings for a serious decrease of the rendertimes. I'm also a Maxwell user, since a month, and I really enjoy the renderer a lot. But, the initial question was if Maxwell is suitable as a production renderer in this stage of development. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. Depends on the complexity of your scene and setup. What I do know for sure is that Maxwell has come a long way in a very short time so that is very, very promising and I look forward to the release of 1.0 as much as you and everybody else in the Maxwell comm. does... Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHE Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 Thanks Dennis. Again, with a little bit of imagination, creativity and resourcefulness Maxwell can be a viable production tool as is right now. I'm not expecting Maxwell to be as fast as vray nor to be as customizable as Mental Ray right now. Like you said, we are talking about an application that is still in development. Maybe Jeff asked the question a little bit too soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I think Maxwell will be a really competative product. Right now I don't see it as being ready for prime time. I think they have a great idea and are heading in a way that we all want to go. They aren't there yet. At SIGGY I heard more than a few people comment on how Vray is just incorporating Maxwell in their new features. I think thats great for all of us. This is real competition making our tools better. I want everything to be as easy as Maxwell wants us to have it. Is Maxwell there yet? NO. But I want to get there. If Vray wants get get me there I am fine with that too. I want things easier AND faster. And really to me lacking the material browser was the worst thing I have seen since I tried Max's booleans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I've been using Maxwell since February but haven't been able to use it for any "paying" jobs yet. Animation is imposable and even still shots of any significant resolution are almost imposable to produce in less than 30 hours. The big debate currently on the forum is weather or not it is going to be released in October as Next Limit has promised. There is a lot of confusion right now because Next Limit has almost completely stopped communicating with it's client base. This could mean one of two things that they are so busy getting ready for the October release that they just don't have time for questions. It could also mean that they have hit a big wall and don't know what they are going to do about it and they will not be meeting the October deadline that they set. I do believe that we will have something close to a full release by the end of this year but without communication from Next Limit it's imposable to know what's going on. Really the only good thing about buying Maxwell now is you still get a discount over it's final release price which is still significant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I would like to hear from the people who are using the latest version of Maxwell and have had enough experience with it to push it to it's limits. I specifically would like to know if it is a viable tool in production given the quality and render times and current feature set. Of course it's not. Is there something wrong with it not being considered to be production-ready? It's beta software that doesn't have an optimized core or even a complete feature set. There are people who use it in production, but mostly for product shots and exterior viz. I don't post my M~R work here because the first thing I'd hear about was the noise and it would p*ss me off. Ask again when Version 1.0 is released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted September 1, 2005 Author Share Posted September 1, 2005 Given that it is supposed to release in October, I guess my line of questioning was more along the lines of if it had increased speed significantly in the last build, the one right before the full version comes out. It does not appear this is the case and based on several responses, it'd not known how much faster the full release will be from the current beta. Any comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 if it had increased speed significantly in the last build, the one right before the full version comes out. NextLimit not only stopped most communication with those of us who bought the pre-release product, they also stopped releasing WIP product. The last beta will be the first beta. I bought into it knowing I was gambling. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. In the long run I think the product will be great. October? Doubt it. But to show what a fool and/or optomist I am, I also bought a pre-release licence to FinalRender-2 which was supposed to be released today. What? It'll be another month? Shocked! I'm shocked! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 But to show what a fool and/or optomist I am, I also bought a pre-release licence to FinalRender-2 which was supposed to be released today. What? It'll be another month? Shocked! I'm shocked! released today? wow, i missed that one i was expecting a good few months wait! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 released today? wow, i missed that one i was expecting a good few months wait! I'm sure you'll get that wait. FR2 was originally listed as being available 9/1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 When the "Beta" was released there was a speed increase from the Alpha. Next Limit clamed that it was about 4 times faster than the Alpha, I think it may have been twice as fast but regardless it was faster. When Maxwell was still in Alpha we purchased 30 copies for office use and network rendering, I still am only using one copy so I'm praying that Next Limit comes through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anvaraziz Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 not yet...... sure in future maxwell hits hard...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 When Maxwell was still in Alpha we purchased 30 copies for office use and network rendering 30? So that's 120 CPUs worth. Damn, that's gambling! I only bought 2 (8 CPUs). Now I want the BOXX 8 core workstation to house them like an apartment building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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