Cesar R Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Well this is one of my first renders in maxwell, just a default BDSF. Modeling in Max and rendered with the plug-in. That workflow is not as bad as using MXStudio in my opinion. which has a slow interface for some reason. Things i like about M~R: 1. Simple and intuitive material editor - guys why are you all complaining. I think it makes more sense than 3dsmax. 2. Render Quality- i love the grain 3. No photon / FG theories to deal with. Things i dislike about M~R 1. Interface is slow at times. (MXSTUDIO) 2. Slow Material Preview. (and no indication of a prevew being generated) 3. I wish the actual render RS1 would be a little faster..? ------------------------------------ Can someone tell me how to duplicate the orange material on the teapot using 3dsmax materials and perhaphs also in C4D ? Well Im going to see if I can render the same sence in MR and get similar or better results. This image rendered in 60 min / 40 samples. well I jsut wanted to share. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bongo51 Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 we are 'complaining' because compared to the beta, which is what most of us bought, it's extremely complex. We all fell in love with the absolute unobtrusive simplicity of maxwell beta, then this monster came out... In the beta, one could (for example) select metal/silver enter two numbers and DONE. I could set up a scene (FYI 90% of images on the maxwell website are made with the beta) and go in about five minutes. Whatever gains in features in V1 come with a much higher loss of operational simplicity A few days ago I tried to render a simple scene and after 2 HOURS I was still messing with textures and projectors, etc. "simple as taking a photo" pshaw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 1. Simple and intuitive material editor - guys why are you all complaining. I think it makes more sense than 3dsmax. Cesar, Good job with your first image, keep it up! As for why were all complaining bongo51 summed it up pretty well but I think you will find that once you start trying to create more advanced materials that are photorealistic you will find it's much more difficult to achieve your goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus3D Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Congrats on your first rendering Cesar About the complaints.. the nature of humans is they tend to complain if they can, it don't even have to make sense as long as they can complain about this and that hehe also you know how people complain about the weather constantly, not much they can do about it anyways can they.. it is what it is and that's it. You just have to adapt and learn to live with the weather, same theory fits quite well to Maxwell. / Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Hi Cesar, It's kind of hard to tell what material you are attempting to produce here since the image is so small. Is it a simple ceramic? Perhaps you could post the settings and someone can help you translate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 23, 2006 Author Share Posted June 23, 2006 Hi Cesar, It's kind of hard to tell what material you are attempting to produce here since the image is so small. Is it a simple ceramic? Perhaps you could post the settings and someone can help you translate it. Well Fran, in reality it is a copy of the "plastic" material that M~R has in their tutorial. I just changed the color a bit. the matial is composed of a BSDF + clear coat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackb602 Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 About the complaints.. the nature of humans is they tend to complain if they can, it don't even have to make sense as long as they can complain about this and that hehe also you know how people complain about the weather constantly, not much they can do about it anyways can they.. it is what it is and that's it. You just have to adapt and learn to live with the weather, same theory fits quite well to Maxwell. / Max Actually you're wrong. Stop by almost any Cinema 4D forum (just for one example) and compare the level of "complaining" (often by the same users) to that on any Maxwell forum. Maxwell users tend to complain about Maxwell because it is incomplete, buggy, and produced by a deeply ethically challenged team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaron-cds Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 2. Render Quality- i love the grain LOL, there's always someone out there that can find a positive in anything. I'm sorry, this is just hilarious to me. I've been following the maxwell debacle from the sidelines and I'm waiting for the Titanic to sink. I'm sorry if this comes off as taunting, but I can't help it. I'm amazed that there are people out there buying maxwell now. I can't imagine buying software from a company with such a lousy track record. By the way, you may love the grain, but I can assure you most of your clients won't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 And unlike the weather, you don't have to live with it...thank god Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 24, 2006 Author Share Posted June 24, 2006 By the way, you may love the grain, but I can assure you most of your clients won't. Well, its okay. I just tought i would give the software a shot. and no I didnt pay for it. Its an NFR =) I don't care what my client like or don't I right at the moment I am doing CG for fun testing software trying to find something that works for me - but I see your point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 The material editor is superficially easy, but as soon as you try to do anything moderately complex it gets very nasty indeed. Example: I was trying to do a material for a glass windshield with tinting at the top. In Cinema and I imagine most other apps this is trivial--just add an appropriate gradient in the transparency and/or color channels. In Maxwell you have to create a gradient in Photoshop (because Maxwell has no procedurals), create a multilevel BSDF shader, assign the gradient as a mask to the clear layer, assign the inverted gradient as a mask for the tinted layer, and then go back to Photoshop about half a dozen times to tweak the gradient bitmap, because there's no way to adjust its intensity inside of Maxwell. Regarding the teapot shader, in Cinema, color: orange, enable reflection (around 50% I would guess). Not too tricky really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bongo51 Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Another point is... though this IS CGarchitect forum I often wonder why oh why people try using maxwell for architecture. Of everything I have used maxwell for it really seems that architectural visualization is what maxwell is absolutely worst at. The highest noise, and the longest render times. Realism isn't all that impressive. Now... take studio product work, or small scale scenes like a dining room table, maxwell is almost noise free and pretty fast! Personally I think maxwell is being totally mismarketed. The demands placed by exteriors and even larger rooms is much better suited to packages like Vue or even Vray. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some pretty amazing stuff in the architectural realm with maxwell, but the most impressive stuff, and the most successful stuff that I'VE done with maxwell is small scale product shots. With maxwell one can really produce photographically convincing almost noise-free images! 90% of the outdoor stuff done with maxwell I can spot as CG instantly. So... if your looking for something for architecture, maxwell will only frustrate. As for complaining... go to any forum where they are discussing fPrime or Vue and you will find almost NO complaining. It can't be chalked up to only human nature. Maxwell and Next Limit are really the 'worst case scenario' of the software world. Almost 2 years in development, very little customer service, outright deception, a final that is NOWHERE NEAR the product we were sold, a final that is STILL extremely buggy and almost non-functional at times... no.. maxwell for all it's brilliance truly is worthy of some major complaining. The people who bought in at alpha and beta really have been treated poorly. Maxwell has done such a poor job of realizing it's original promise that i had to sink another $400US into yet another renderer (fPrime) JUST to be able to render stuff reliably. You don't hear me complaining about fPrime... It's done nothing but astound me and is soooo much more then I expected in every way. It's stable, unbelievably fast and was not sold as something it's not. Maxwell really needs to be looked at as a racehorse, and a really expensive one that bites you when you don't expect it. Some of us just have no further patience for Next Limit's mangling of what could have been the most brilliant CG software of this decade. ian As an aside: if this were posted on the Maxwellrender forum either the post would be deleted and/or I would be banned from the forum. This is the manner in which Next Limit has chosen to deal with issues. Bury them so that people (Cesar, I'm glad you didn't spend $1000 to find out all these issues) will continue to purchase the product. In October of 2005 when the 'final' was supposed to be released and instead we got RC1 (which btw was LESS functional then the beta) The Maxwell website continued to sell the maxwell Final as a finished product, showing the featureset hobbled together with renders from the beta/V1 hybrid for MONTHS after the failure of final release date. I find that to be an unacceptable and wholely unethical manner of doing business. There were quite a few people popping up on the forum asking questions like "where is the final version I just bought for $1000". Alas, though these people were convincingly sold a final, they, and us are still waiting over ONE YEAR later. No... complaining in this case is to be expected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Yep, Maximus really justified his avatar with that post... as with most everyone else here, I use a variety of 3D apps, and Maxwell is the only one I've ever complained about. Which is not to say I don't have frustrations with other apps, but I believe that most other developers have dealt in good faith with their customers. Unfortunately, it seems like this is not the norm so much anymore, and that quite a few developers (of apps I luckily don't own) have been deceptive in their practices as well (though not to the extent of NL). Cesar- as someone considering becoming a reseller, take this to heart: NL will tell you anything you want to hear to get you to 'join their team' (ie- pay up). They'll blow so much smoke up your, um, tailpipe, and believe me- most of it won't be true. They've never had any problems with lying through their teeth to users, and the resellers don't seem to be much happier, judging from the threat of lawsuits that an organized group of them used to get their money back. NL is probably not an organization you want to get tangled up with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Well lets just shed some light on the reality again... I looked that that image, and decided to try and redo it in Vray... just for kicks. Build the scene in around 15 mins, and setup the lighting to match an get the quality in another 15 mins. Sorry to say that I rendered it on my laptop so the 1 min 3 sec rendering time is a bit slow. On a new computer that should render in around 20 secs... notice the lack of grain. Now why would you wait 60 mins for a grainy image when you can have a grainless one in 1 min? I just don't get it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Chris, did you use the Vray sun for that? It will be great when the average user has that feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Chris, did you use the Vray sun for that? It will be great when the average user has that feature. Sure, I just did it for an apples to apples comparison... but I could easily redo it with normal lights and envionment. The "sun" things is just gimic. I still like my method of area lights and HDRI which you can do in any version. I attached a new image with just a gradient for the sky and an area light for the sun. The point is that Maxwell is so amazingly slow I can't believe people say great image instead of... OMG 60min for that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 You could even spend 5 minutes in Photoshop and have that Maxwell "unbiased" look With apologies to Chris: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 24, 2006 Author Share Posted June 24, 2006 yikes,... yes ive head people get banned over there for expressing their feelings. although I can see why they would so that. so you mean to tell me the release we have is not the final? .. .please explain because i am confused now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 They pulled a Microsoft. (Browser Wars style.) The product is shipped and labelled 1.0 but it's full of bugs, there are advertised features that don't work yet, and there's a lot they need to do to bring it up to expectations level. Basically an unfinished version labelled as release so they can say it's released. And let's not get started on the "RS2" vaporware. 1.1 will be released... actually I have no idea when I stopped reading the forum there... presumably with a lot of fixes, hopefully with a lot of changes and an overhauled materials interface, so I'm witholding my final verdict until then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 24, 2006 Author Share Posted June 24, 2006 i see thanks for the info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Now why would you wait 60 mins for a grainy image when you can have a grainless one in 1 min? I just don't get it.... Wow at first glance i understood 60 hrs -with maxwell v1 60 hrs wouldnt even be surprising to me.I need to take a break from maxwell:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 24, 2006 Author Share Posted June 24, 2006 Wow at first glance i understood 60 hrs -with maxwell v1 60 hrs wouldnt even be surprising to me.I need to take a break from maxwell:) i did a MR test and I cant get the immage to look like that... so if someone can render my model just like that then i guess we have proven a point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Cesar, is it possible for CGA to host your file? Maybe you could upload it as a zipped 3ds. Chris, it would be nice to see the teapot reflecting the environment in a more similar way to Cesar's render. Looks kinda dead in there. And yes, the scene and the render aren't much, but Cesar seemed to like the material and asked about reproducing that in another program - maybe one that renders faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bongo51 Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Christopher, I have frustrations with maxwell.. but to be fair, the reason I bought it in the first place is that it does have capabilities even VRay doesn't have. I'm a photographer and have been for a long time, maxwell may be all the negative things I've been going on about, but one thing it does do is realistic rendering. The sun 'thing' isn't really a gimick, it accurately simulates the diffuse light coming from the sky. It isn't the most important feature on earth, but it's not simply a glowing blue hemisphere either. - If you wish to pit Vray against maxwell in the realism department, please try recreating some of these images. The only reason Maxwell is still installed on my computer is that it does offer the absolute best photorealistic renders I have ever seen. Complex defraction effects and caustics, DOF blur and other real photographic effects are the best I've ever seen. - http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6435 http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13820 http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10153 and my own stuff: http://www.iandavis.ws/maxwell - As a Vray user you should be able to quickly see that maxwell is no slouch, and the noise issue greatly depends on the skill and experience of the maxwell user. Next Limit has done horrid things with Studio, but that doesn't change maxwell's actual abilities. I'm still holding out hope that they will eventually make studio as stable and easy to use as they claim it is right now. - So, Maxwell may be buggy, slow, and noisy but when used properly and with patience the output is the best I've ever seen. I've seen quite a few Vray/maxwell shootouts. Never seen one where i didn't immediately choose the maxwell render as the most photographic. - my 2cents EDIT: Sorry, I still stand by the whole architecture thing... and I just realized that you are wishing to do architectural renders. So... for your line of work, perhaps Vray IS the most sensible choice. But for someone like me who does a great deal of studio product stuff, Maxwell is really amazing for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 24, 2006 Author Share Posted June 24, 2006 NL is probably not an organization you want to get tangled up with. yeah from I am seeing... good to know about the lawsuits that is interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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