superbad Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 I asked this at the Maxwell forum, and I was pretty surprised by the responses. I thought I'd ask here too for some balance. I know there are some people here who have serious issues with NL, and I don't really want to turn this into a flame fest or rehash of old problems. I'm really looking to hear from people who are currently using (or trying to use) the software. Here was my original post: I find myself increasingly frustrated by unsolved critical bugs in the plugins and studio. I bought in after the whole beta / RC debacle, so I don't have that baggage with me. The current product is certainly better than the RC5 I originally got, but I really expected basic, repeatable, serious bugs to have been addressed by now. I just spent $3000 on a Mac Pro expressly for the purpose of using it with Maxwell, and after installing the brand new improved universal binary, Multilight, a core feature, crashes every time I try to use it. I have to seriously question WTF is going on when something like that makes it out the door. So, is anyone really happy with this thing right now? If so, why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 Multilight is pretty unstable, and I can almost never get Glare to actually work without crashing. But anyway... I am reservedly happy with Maxwell as it currently is, though mental ray for Max just got so many ease-of-use improvements I think it's going to take Maxwell's place in my work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 In my observations, people tend to fall fairly neatly into two camps: 1) The lottery winners- Those whose operating system and plugin work relatively well for Maxwell, and are more or less content with what they're able to do with it (and of course have either massive amounts of computing power, or very understanding clients). These people tend to remain active on their forum. 2) Everyone else- Those who have found that MWR is too buggy, slow, etc., with their current setup, and have basically written it off as a loss. Not likely MWR forumgoers. Seems like you're somewhere in between, which is a fair place to be... though you may not have much company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 I would actually expect that a majority of Maxwell customers are in the it's-pretty-useful-but-I-wish-they'd-fix-the-damn-bugs camp. Then there are the indignant folk and those with unbridled enthusiasm. It seems like everybody's in one of those two camps, but that's because those are the people who post the most - the rest aren't motivated to spend much time with the forums, and are either getting work done or ignoring Maxwell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 I would actually expect that a majority of Maxwell customers are in the it's-pretty-useful-but-I-wish-they'd-fix-the-damn-bugs camp. Then there are the indignant folk and those with unbridled enthusiasm. It seems like everybody's in one of those two camps, but that's because those are the people who post the most - the rest aren't motivated to spend much time with the forums, and are either getting work done or ignoring Maxwell. I think you've nailed it on the head right there. This same theory applies to anything in CG that you see on the net. For the most part the only people that post on forums are the hardcore users and they most certainly do not account for the majority of any product's users. It's also true that you will always see more negative feedback than positive as people who have had a bad experience with a product are always more vocal that those who don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thickly Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 I would have to say I fall into the "happy with Maxwell but wish they would fix the nagging bugs" category. At first, I was a plug-in only user, then I got used to studio and actually started to like it (especially the paint polygons selection tool for applying multiple materials to different parts of a single object) -- now I'm back to just using the Max plug-in. The fact that in the material editor, the material preview and material name always seem to reset drives me insane -- the material is still there, but I have had to resort to writing down on paper what material is in what slot so when I open and close the editor I know what is where. Now that I understand the material system, I think it is incredible and fairly easy to get good results quickly. Multilight never gives me any issues (knock on wood) -- and now I think it is totally in-dispensable. I love it! I just got upgraded to a serious system at work (Dual, dual-core Woodcrest 3ghz 5160's, 4Gig Ram) which makes Maxwell very feasible for what I need to do. Even tough interior scenes are clearing nicely. I usually only need to produce one high quality rendering a day, so i just set it up to run over-night and by the time I get in (10-12 hours) the render is very crisp -- this is for fairly complex scenes that never would have cleared on my old P4. Simple scenes I can crank out beautiful results in under an hour. Disclaimer -- Maxwell is the only render engine I have ever really used, I have justified putting up with the bugs because I just can't pull myself to learn all the parameters necessary for the the other engines out there when i know the results (for what I do) will be sub-par. I did just get Chris Nichols DVD so I can begin to learn Vray, but overall, I'm happy with Maxwell. Oh, I have also trained my boss that renderings take x-amount of time, so I don't get unrealistic requests -- well sometimes I do, but its easier to deny them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 I wouldn’t say I'm happy with Maxwell; it's more like pure frustration that has been smothered with complete inaction on NL's part with a nice helping of unwanted acceptance at the situation I find my self in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 Oh, I have also trained my boss that renderings take x-amount of time, so I don't get unrealistic requests -- well sometimes I do, but its easier to deny them. That's funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 I wouldn’t say I'm happy with Maxwell; it's more like pure frustration that has been smothered with complete inaction on NL's part with a nice helping of unwanted acceptance at the situation I find my self in. Yeah but Devin, I think your attitude has really been what has made your work in maxwell successful. Everytime you post I see a really positive attitude at trying to make what you have work. So important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 Thanks Sawyer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leoA4D Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 People are staying away from the forum. The ones that are posting are the usual crowd. Today is one of the heavier days – some 38 folks. Many days have seen attendance between below 20 and 30. A good indication of the situation is that most posts are in the Off Topic thread with links to youtube.com. Not much is happening in the Gallery while the Wip thread has a competition going with some folks generating an amazing amount of modeling. Very impressive. Credibility of the company and problems with the product are, in part, reasons people stay away. Also, the forum's credibility suffers, IMHO, due to renders presented full of noise yet receiving much praise with some taking 60± hours. And then, there is the blatant avoidance of discussing the noise and render times. Anyway, I go to the forum to learn and am disappointed with how little action is going on there. And, I still hope to be able to put it to use some day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamT Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Put me in the unhappy camp. In fact I haven't even dusted off Maxwell in 2-3 months. Bottom line--scenes that aren't too slow with Maxwell aren't particularly challenging for other renderers with better workflow. The scenes that are challenging for other renderers are impossibly slow with Maxwell. Add to that the buggy plugins and crappy Studio app.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Bottom line--scenes that aren't too slow with Maxwell aren't particularly challenging for other renderers with better workflow. Well that pretty much sums it up. Once you get past the whole religious aspect of using a 'sacred light' unbiased engine, you have to look at Maxwell as just another choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
u.biq Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 And the new plugin -at least the 3dsmax one- is a joke : it's officially unfinished ! The next limit of the Grotesque. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 And the new plugin -at least the 3dsmax one- is a joke : it's officially unfinished ! The next limit of the Grotesque. Wow...that surprises even me. I would have thought that Fry's existence would have lit a fire under their butts to do *something* right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 From what I've read so far NL is saying they completely rewrote the plugin in a month which begs the question what the hell have they been doing for the past several months? It really makes me mad that they paid all of this attention to Maya and basically left 3D Studio out in the cold. I haven't installed or even downloaded it yet, I'm going to wait to see what others have to say about it but from what I've been able to gather it's basically in the beta stage. Basically they released another update that wasn't complete, lots of features aren't working or simply aren't available. It blows my mind how they can't seem to do anything right, it isn't even a matter of misinterpretation it's simply a matter of not enough development and not enough testing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 ...it's simply a matter of not enough development and not enough testing. and not enough respect for the users that invested in them, and not enough giving a s#!T. They need to just go away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 No they need to deliver the final product that I've been waiting almost 2 years for. This has gone beyond absurd now; I simply can't understand why this is so hard especially when they have a full time guy working on the plugin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 Maxer- Don't disagree, and I can't think of anyone who deserves it more than you do (or for whom I'd wish it'd all just work) but After I first posted here, I looked at the mwr 3DSMax forum... and I absolutely couldn't believe what was being posted! NL employees saying, "yeah, that's a bug... we'll get to it soon" with respect to basic functionality that simply doesn't work... over and over! The plugin is apparently worthless beyond what anyone could have expected (even from NL!). I guess I'm just feeling that if they can't even begin to show the promise of being able to deliver *now*, given the circumstances and competition, then I can't imagine that they ever will. And I take no real pleasure in saying that- I'd prefer it work well, both for myself and you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 they need to deliver the final product that I've been waiting almost 2 years for. It's time to give it up, man. Take a deep breath, accept, move on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 It comes down to this, NL may be a fine company in Spain but as an international company that deals with the USA their business practices border on incompetent. I can't imagine the thinking that leads them to do what they do, who would release a plugin like this and call it an update. How many months has it been sine the last update, why did they release this thing in the state it's in now, they could have easily taken another month or two to test it properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 It's time to give it up, man. Take a deep breath, accept, move on. You know it's just the principle of the thing now, if I never use Maxwell again I still want to get what I paid for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
u.biq Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 It's time to give it up, man. Take a deep breath, accept, move on. Personally I did it, moving to Fry. At least some awesome support, so far. But I'm a bit like Devin, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 5, 2006 Share Posted December 5, 2006 You know it's just the principle of the thing now I know. Just let it go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanSpaulding Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 I hate to hear this news that the new beta is asscheeks. I mean, us MicroStation users have been trying for like 2 years to get Bentley to allow us to export to a different rendering engine...and they finally did...it takes all of our textures and converts them and all that to MXMs...but it lacks the ability to work with 3ds files like I'd like to...and now it seems the Max plugin isn't going anywhere. I seeeeriously don't know what to do. Vray and learn Max w/ DWGLink...or stay this route.... ARG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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