maxwell render fuzzy?

[KRAY345]

i am using archicad v11 and rendering my model via a plugin directly through archicad. i have just started to use maxwell this week, and so have no real experience, it looks confusing and with the tutorials i dont know where to begin.

anyways i rendered my image in archicad without altering any settings and it comes out like there are speckaly little dotts and as if the render hasnt finished , anyone know why?

any other help would be great too

thanks

[AJLynn]

It's because Maxwell is slow. The speckles are "noise" - which only clears away by letting the render go longer. Depending on the scene - size of the image, materials use, lighting conditions - and the speed of your computer - this can take anywhere from several minutes to several days to never (it is possible to create a Maxwell scene that can not render, despite their claim that all renders "converge to a solution"). Optimizing the scene is tricky and takes experience and study.

[Tommy Burns]

Don't know much about maxwell but I have seen demo's and it sounds

like your talking about noise on your images. I think that the longer you leave it rendering the better it gets but it takes a hell of a long time.

[Tommy Burns]

Snap!!!

[KRAY345]

well ive tried it twice and each time it takes 2 hours

[Tommy Burns]

As Andrew said it could take days to get a decent result. The main reason people use maxwell is that their lighting is very accurate to real life but at a cost of large rendertimes

[KRAY345]

ok, well how do i make it go on for days as it stops and says 100% after 2 hours

[chuck]

You're probably meeting a set SL. Maxwell will stop at whatever parameter it reaches first, time or SL. A SL of around 15 or so should give you good results for the most part. Set it at 15 and go to bed.

 

The Intel quad cores have made rendertimes in Maxwell bearable...but other rendering engines will almost always be faster. What CPU are you running?

 

A view of the rendering would help...there might be other reasons it's taking so long...extra complex lights/glass etc.

 

Chuck

[AJLynn]

You really need to read the documentation on Maxwell and the plugin.

[KRAY345]

whats an SL? and i am running a pentium 4 3.2G/Hz

[BrianKitts]

SL = sample level

RTM = a strong suggestion

P4 = not enough horsepower to get a decent rendering in 2 hours w/ maxwell

[chuck]

SL's are something very important, you can learn all about them here:

 

http://www.maxwellrender.com/manual.html

[AJLynn]

You'll definitely want an upgrade to at least a Core2 Duo, more like a Quad or more, if you're going to be doing much Maxwell rendering. (A current generation Quad at 3+ GHz is 8x as fast at rendering as what you're using, and it's pretty much standard for Maxwell users these days.)

 

Also, the terminology and the concepts behind them are very important as Maxwell is very different from most other rendering technology, so you really need to read and understand the manual.

[KRAY345]

whats better a higher or lower sample level at the moment mine is set at 25 with a time of 120, and threads on 0.

what would be an ideal setting

[chuck]

There's a great way to figure out what all those letters and numbers mean:

 

http://www.maxwellrender.com/manual.html

 

"The pupil can only educate himself. Teachers are the custodians of apparatus upon which he himself must turn and twist to acquire the excellencies that distinguish the better from the poorer of God's vessels."

 

~Martin H. Fischer

[AJLynn]

"The pupil can only educate himself. Teachers are the custodians of apparatus upon which he himself must turn and twist to acquire the excellencies that distinguish the better from the poorer of God's vessels."

 

~Martin H. Fischer

 

I feel more enlightened already.

[mrcharles]

Do read their documentation... and searching their forum can be very productive...

 

SL and Render Time and two parameters that you can set before starting your render. You may determine from tests that you need a SL of 15 for the render to be of acceptable quality... but you don't know how much time to give the maxwell to get to that SL.

 

So... you would set SL=15 and set a very high time such as T=1000 min. and let it run.

 

You could also set a high SL and specify a lower time and maxwell will stop the render after the time has passed and save the image (it may not have reached the desired SL yet...).

 

More cpu power will speed things up... but a lot depends on how big your rendered images are...

 

Also... maxwell uses a camera where the aperture and camera to subject distance must be set correctly for the image to be in focus... object scale is also important...

[Tommy L]

I wouldnt recommend using Maxwell on a P4. Unless you are

 

 

 

very

 

 

 

very

 

 

 

..............patient.

 

If you must use a non-bias render engine (non-bias means it calculates true light without any shortcuts) then take time to read up on a few of them. FryRender is quicker than Maxwell but you will still be needing a more powerful PC than you currently use.