Very first impression

[xxfm5bassistxx]

You can enter a time or a sample level for Maxwell to reach, given enough time it will render out a noiseless image.

 

So basically we would purely guess on a time or sample level for it not to have noise. I am kind of confused. I thought the time was to reduce the artifacts. So it does both?

 

Brandon

[Devin Johnston]

Maxer, I don't want to get into an argument really. I never said that Maxwell isn't capable of producing nice images. In a nutshell I said that no one that is trying to make a living should even consider Maxwell in it's current performance state. It simply takes way too long.

Dave this is true with interiors, but exteriors resolve them selves rather quickly. I’ve done print rez images of exteriors in less than 15 hours on a single machine, granted that’s not super fast but it’s not unusable. Interior scenes is where you run into the problem, and your right there is no way you could ever make print rez images unless you had a big render farm (which I have)

So basically we would purely guess on a time or sample level for it not to have noise. I am kind of confused. I thought the time was to reduce the artifacts. So it does both?

Brandon

There aren’t any artifacts in Maxwell only noise so you would guess as to how much time it would take to get a noiseless image. This is really the opposite of how all the other render engines work, with them you’re hitting render and hoping that it will finish before your deadline, with Maxwell you tell it how long to render and hope the image is clear enough when it’s done.

[AdamT]

As a rule it's best to set time or samples to an impossible level. Then you just stop the render when it looks good, or when your client finally defeats your security system and is coming at you with guns blazing.

[Christopher Nichols]

Hate to revive this thread... but I was looking around at some stuff on the forum and found this:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/16706-first-v-ray-image.html

 

Two things to note. The first is that the guy learned not only 3dsmax but Vray in a few weeks. Then he created and set up the scene in around 12 hours, and the rendertime? Well that speaks for itself at 17min. After 12 hours, Maxwell would only be 1/3 way done with the rendering.

[AdamT]

Hate to revive this thread... but I was looking around at some stuff on the forum and found this:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/16706-first-v-ray-image.html

 

Two things to note. The first is that the guy learned not only 3dsmax but Vray in a few weeks. Then he created and set up the scene in around 12 hours, and the rendertime? Well that speaks for itself at 17min. After 12 hours, Maxwell would only be 1/3 way done with the rendering.

Impressive considering his lack of familiarity, but in truth it's a very CG-looking render. Maybe with a few more weeks experience he'll be knocking out eye-popping renders, but I rather suspect it's more like Maxwell; okay results come pretty quick, but exceptional results are a long time coming.

 

As always time is a huge consideration. If you have time then of course you'd prefer to have a slow but stunning render rather than fast, bleh render. If you don't you don't.

[Devin Johnston]

I've never used Vray, is it that easy to set up scenes and use? This guy is either exaggerating how long it took him to learn Max and Vray or he is very very smart.

[AdamT]

Don't forget that he did all the modeling in Microstation, so he was just importing, setting up materials and lights, and rendering in VRay. Once you've mastered one 3D app it's not that hard to pick up the basic procedures in another.

 

When I first got Maxwell there was no Cinema plug, so I was using the Max 30-day demo. I was able to pump out a few scenes in that time that, IMHO, look a hell of a lot better than the referenced VRay scene. Of course they took forever to render....

 

http://www.3danvil.com/Maxwell/mxs003_ps_sm.jpg

 

http://www.3danvil.com/Ackerberg_House.jpg

 

I haven't used VRay myself, but from what I read it's pretty easy to use out of the box, but has pretty good depth if you want to have a little more control.

[Christopher Nichols]

Not trying to say his renders are perfect, not trying to say anything more than the fact that he is one example that you can learn it fast and get pretty good results in little time. And if the 17min renders is not enough to convince you that Maxwell's speed is FAR FAR FAR from what it should be in this day and age... then so be it.

 

I am not trying to convince people that Vray is a better solution. I am just trying to make the point that the maxwells render times are insane and inexcusable in this day and age with current technology. I say the emperor has no cloths, if you want to convince yourselves that he does... that is fine.

[Devin Johnston]

Christopher I don't think anyone is saying that Maxwell render times are totally ok because that's not true. In some cases Maxwell can render a scene relatively quickly for Maxwell, these would usually be exterior scenes. It has a very long way to go before I'm going to be happy with the rendering speed.

[yog]

I've never used Vray, is it that easy to set up scenes and use? This guy is either exaggerating how long it took him to learn Max and Vray or he is very very smart.

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).

[AdamT]

Trust me, no one has been more critical of Maxwell's speed deficiency than me. As Maxer said, it can be useable under some circumstances, but for interiors it simply isn't commercially viable.

 

OTOH, I wouldn't discount it completely, even for interiors. If you want the absolute best quality you can get, time be damned, I don't think VRay or any of the others can touch Maxwell.

 

I use Cinema 4D Advanced Render (AR) and finalRender-2 in addition to M~R. Hopefully I'll be adding VRay soon, as there's an effort afoot to build a CinemaVRay connection.

 

In terms GI, AR and fR-2 have similar quality, but fR-2 is much faster. AR is a faster and IMO better looking raytracer.

[leoA4D]

"Based on Real Physics" – "One of the principal characteristics of Maxwell is

that the rendering technology is strictly based

upon the real governing physical equations of

light transport. Maxwell is capable of producing

incredibly realistic illumination results without

having to resort to the illumination tricks used by

other renderers. Consequently, the results

produced by Maxwell are the most accurate

renders of the real world." – NL White Paper

 

It has been reported that V1.0 render times are worse than RC5. If the time issue is related to achieving "Real Physics" and the results of an unoptimized engine, fine. When it is reported that emitters have to be set unrealistically high to light a scene and glass has become "AGS", relying on BSDF layers for transmissivity, reflection and tinting but no refraction, then I wonder what is left of the vision, above, and the long, long render times become less forgivable.

[Fran]

I say the emperor has no cloths, if you want to convince yourselves that he does... that is fine.

 

The emperor is buck nekked.

[Devin Johnston]

Well I've spent the last few hours trying to create a frosted glass material with the new stand alone editor and I'm completely frustrated. Noting works like it did in the Beta and with all of these new parameters to change it's imposable to figure out which one I should be adjusting to get the desired affect. I also want to use SSS but there is some debate as to whether or not it's actually working.

 

Anyone got any advice on how to make a good frosted glass?

[AdamT]

I haven't tried it, but I would try to do it like the real thing. Use two materials--regular glass for the front face of your pane and another material with the same settings but high roughness for the back face of the pane.

[_PopArt]

The emperor is buck nekked.

 

and hes buck ugly:)

[Adehus]

and hes buck ugly:)

 

And he has a veeeeerrrrrrry long nose.

[AdamT]

And he has a veeeeerrrrrrry long nose.

Hey, you're mixing your parables.

[runrun]

I've been using Vray 1.09 for the last 8 hours and already I can tell I like it way better than Maxwell. True enough, it takes longer to figure out the settings to get lighting right. But the speed of the render blows M~R away in my opinion. I think the quality of the M~R renders is slightly more realistic, but that may depend on how good your Vray settings are.

 

Now I just need to learn more MAX skills.

[runrun]

Here is my first Vray render with MAX, having very little experience with either. Rendered on dual core imac booted in XP with Max R8 and Vray 1.09. I used a fake vraylight sun object for the light.

Time: 15 minutes or so. I don't think I can do this with M~R.

[Sawyer]

Robert

Pretty nifty m8. I have a hunch about this maybe being not official software and maybe shouldn't be posting here. Typically 1.5 is internal beta and people who have a test build. What are your thoughts about this?

[runrun]

Robert

Pretty nifty m8. I have a hunch about this maybe being not official software and maybe shouldn't be posting here. Typically 1.5 is internal beta and people who have a test build. What are your thoughts about this?

 

1.5? Is there a 1.5? I'm using 1.09 something or other.

[olbo]

Heya Robert. ;o)

 

I guess he is thinking this way, because of the .... *cough* sun *cough*.

 

 

take care

Oleg

[runrun]

Heya Robert. ;o)

 

I guess he is thinking this way, because of the .... *cough* sun *cough*.

take care

Oleg

 

Emulated physical sun vraylight plane.

[olbo]

Here is my first Vray render with MAX, having very little experience with either. Rendered on dual core imac booted in XP with Max R8 and Vray 1.09. I used vray sun object for the light.

Time: 15 minutes or so. I don't think I can do this with M~R.

 

:p

 

 

take care

Oleg