I'm running blind in here...

[leoviale]

Hi guys, it's been a while since i'm trying to unsolve Maxwell Render. Unfortunately i couldn't solve this.

Here r some test i made with a model i found with maxwell and vray as well

 

Maxwell render

 

Vray

 

As u can see, if i have to take my own conclusion, i would say that maxwell suck ass really hard, it took 3 hrs to make that awful image, when vray, took only 1 hr and made a good one.

I tried many times with maxwell, and always get the same results, no matter what, so i always abandon it.

Can any one get me some tips to it? I search some tutorials, but never find any one that tells me render times, some basics configurations or nothing.

I say this because i saw incredible resoults browsing in google, so i guess i suck ass right now in maxwell .

Well, any guidelines will be appreciated. Thx m8s.

[Magnus_Alexander]

Is there a reason that you need to know how to use maxwell? Although some of the images it produces are amazing and it tends to be a lot more "hands off" than v-ray, I gave up on it because I don't have 10 hours to wait for a single rendering. Clearly you are getting decent results with v-ray; is that not reason enough to stick with it? I've rationalized my decision this way: I can wait 10 hours for maxwell to make a nice image (assuming no problems occur), or I can do 9 hours worth of studying for v-ray, and spend that last hour rendering a comparable image. In addition, every subsequent image I produce will not require the 9 hours of studying.... just remember that in the architecture industry (arch viz as well) time = money....

[leoviale]

Yeah, i agree with u ass well, i didn't make any "search" for this vray image, that's the first try i gave to it, i use it allot, so i have some practice with it, if i want to get a realistic one, i do as u say, i start to spend some hours studyin it, specially on materials. With that i agree with u 100%, time = money, and as i read in some post, maxwell is completely useless in this terms, because in vray we r talking about hours to complete an image, and in maxwell, we need maybe days.

Anyway, now i got some free time to spend, so i was trying to see if i can use this powerfull engine, maybe i could use it some time, it's not bad to learn new stuff .

Well, i thx your reply as well.

Anyway, if someone can guide me in this maxwell path, i will be gratefull. Greetings.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I don't have much Maxwell experience, but my guess is that your image suffers from being lit exclusively through those windows. iirc, reflective/refractive objects slow the solution down and if all the light is coming through a refractive object then all your light gets noisy. Now I'm trying to remember if there was a way to help the situation.

 

... and I'm not remembering and the web isn't helping me do so quickly.

 

I mean, well yeah... take the windows out ;-). Isn't there a 'cheap archie glass' material to give you some color and reflection and maybe even tinting but without all the refractive and caustic accuracy? Look for that.

[leoviale]

Thx, i will try that. Now i'm getting another problem, very important, when i export my model from max, using the export mxc option, when i open the file from maxwell studio, several objects r all messed up, like moved in all directions, i don't know why...

[cadmunkey]

leo, the maxwell support forum is pretty good imo, try there I am certain you will get the full help that you require.

[Devin Johnston]

I don't have 10 hours to wait for a single rendering.

 

For an interior it's more like 50-100 hours to get a clear image.

 

leoviale the comparison between Maxwell and Vray that you did is very illustrative of just how slow Maxwell is and how useless it is for interior architectural illustrations. Even with a render farm you'd have to devote to many resources to a single image just to get a descent print sized rendering in 12 hours. Even if you optimized your Maxwell scenes the will always be 5-10 times slower than Vray.

[ihabkal]

Vray all the way

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Thx, i will try that. Now i'm getting another problem, very important, when i export my model from max, using the export mxc option, when i open the file from maxwell studio, several objects r all messed up, like moved in all directions, i don't know why...

 

I've never gone that route. I didn't know that route existed. I just initiate the render from inside max.

 

First stab guess : Are you using xrefs or anything?

 

Oh yeah, from what I can tell Maxwell does not like Max instanced geometry at all. Straight from Max it just refuses to render. Maybe the export option does what you are seeing?

 

Only a guess.

[leoviale]

hmm, i converted everything to editable mesh, just in case, but still getting the same probem. Anyway, i launched the render from max, and i'm not getting any problems so far... i hope it stays this way. I'm testing in a proyect i made a while ago, done some nice renders in vray, so now im trying some light test and then the whole proyect with materials.

I will post the results when i'm done. So far, now that i set the render in 500 min, i don't have any problems, i'm getting nice results, i stop it at 7 hrs, and it was almost no grainy.

Well, thx all 4 your reply. I will be posting my results later, and i will post some tips i learned doing this

[Peter M. Gruhn]

So I ran some tests with real .25" glass, single plane archie glass, no glass. No glass was the winner, but not by a streaking much. Archie glass was more better than glass glass but they were still all in the same ball park at 2 hours. Then I set environment to "none", put a big brightly lit panel just outside the window and in half an hour got a much better render and well... it was different. That's a cheap simulation to a bright overcast day. The sun is missing.

 

So I'm still learning ;-)

 

Seems to me that what we need here is a sky portal. I had thought that these renderers had a cheat that prevented them from wasting time looking for windows yet didn't illegitimize their accuracy. I'll hit the books again.

 

And even instances work now. I have to hang my head in utter shame. I wonder if I'm thinking of an entirely different renderer ;-).

[leoviale]

I found that AGS glass (IOR 1) is the better way to simulate glass, i mean if u r looking for some reflections too, the only bad news is that the caustics r still reflected, and takes some time (hours) to get a clean caustics. But, i find out that u can uncheck caustic to elements, so, that would be a nice solution to glass.

Still, i use this kind of glass for windows or objects where light is passing through and i don't want any kind of detail, just light passing trough. If i want a nice glass, for example, a glass table, i use another glass (IOR 1.52) where i get all the cool stuff. This is maybe a tip i learned in all these days.

 

I'll add a complete post with what i learned, some examples, and i'll show u guys some test renders, also explaining multilight, but after new year, i gotta go now to celebrate . Ok guys, have a happy new year!!!.

 

Greetings.

[leoviale]

This is my first multilight test in Maxwell, it's from an apartment of my dad, I made the interior design of it, because it's really really small. Here I leave u guys the link of the multilight test. Btw the render it's not finished yet, so it's still grainy. I think i had some improvements since I first started with Maxwell .Hope u guys like it and leave me your oppinions.

 

Greetings.