Fran Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 The render time on this was 7 hours. I had it set to go for 12, but the power went out in the middle of the night and I had to shut things down. A nice thing about Maxwell is that it saves the frame buffer each time it updates. The upholstery fabric is a twill, so it's not all noise. I'm aware of the geometry issues with the lounge chair. It has to do with Power Translator imported Breps. People can laugh all they want about the long render times, but there is something I see in this renderer that I like very much. I'm trying to balance enough illumination in the scene to decrease the noise, with the amount of lighting I actually want in the scene. The second image is in the same scene, but the lighting is lower. So there is more noise for the same amount of calculation time. Right now, I'm told that there is no way to simulate light filtering through fabric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lambros Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 you may be right, the result is somehow different from the standard vray/mray global illumination, but there is just too much noise for the render times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skogskalle Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 im not gonna laugh at the long rendertimes, cause as everyone knows its still in alpha and theres no point in critisizing an un-optimized product... The noise sucks, but If ive understood things correctly the noise decreases if you set the rendertimes even higher. (I may be wrong here, dont have maxwell myself) But I have to say that I dont see anything that special in these renders. And the lighting is (correct or not) very dull and greyish in the first pic. (is this because of the grey background??) a question... Ive read that one of the resons the maxwell is so slow, is because it has all the sweet effects like glossys, caustics and DOF etc ON att all times. How would its rendertimes be compared to a complex Vray scene with all the similar effects turned on? Vray DOF for example takes forever to render... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 23, 2005 Author Share Posted January 23, 2005 Well Kalle, Maxwell isn't the only thing here in alpha testing. I just started playing with it a couple of days ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph alexander Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 What's interesting to me about that render is that maybe it's the room that's the problem not the render engine. That's pretty cool to me because I always question how honest a lot of the work we do really is. Does Maxwell offer a lot of photometric presets, for skylights direct sun tungsten vs halogen etc? Is there a renderpass control? Ie reflections rendered separately? Does illumination pass through glass? (as a crit there doesn't seem to be a blue skylight. i think this makes the room grey) -joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 24, 2005 Author Share Posted January 24, 2005 Joseph, something about your post makes me want to let you answer your own questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skogskalle Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 Well Kalle, Maxwell isn't the only thing here in alpha testing. I just started playing with it a couple of days ago. aah... I see... =) well, im sure we´ll se lots of awsome Surreal maxwell renders in the future... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 24, 2005 Author Share Posted January 24, 2005 aah... I see... =) well, im sure we´ll se lots of awsome Surreal maxwell renders in the future... Thanks for the encouragement. To answer your questions, yes things like reflective and refractive caustics and variations in DOF just happen. You can disable caustics in the render settings and chromatic dispersion in the material settings. Decreasing the fStop for the camera decreases the area that is in focus outside of the main "target" area. In order for more of the image to be in focus, increase the fStop. I think mental ray does the same thing, only the camera settings are in the render dialog. There is a complexity to achieving good illumination in Maxwell. The camera fStop and Shutter speed settings can be adjusted to allow more or less light into the lens, therefore more illumination. The number of light bounces affects the light level and shadow density. The intensity of your luminaires obviously affects light levels. Also the Tone Mapping settings for film gamma, contrast, and monitor gamma can be tweaked. I hope I got that right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 I haven't ever touched Maxwell or even read some of the lengthy threads concerning it. I guess I've seen the render times, and the grainy output and thought that if they ever get past those things I would take a look. I do have to say that using photographic settings for rendering effects sounds interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph alexander Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 I emailed them. No photometric presets, they have a complete pass-control setup, caustics, reflections, alpha etc. They also have a cool distributed rendering option that works cross platform, meaning that you don't have to shell out several hundred bucks for Microsoft, for each node. I also got a cryptic line "Maxwell is not fast, but depending of the complexity it can be really fast." I'm not sure what is meant by that... complexity of geometry or lighting? I think Maxwell would be pretty great of you had a large render farm. -Joe I look forward to seeing more renders Fran, you're work is always great.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 24, 2005 Author Share Posted January 24, 2005 Here are some 30 minute tests with different fStops. Illumination in this scene is a Physical Sky with Sun, (5) 2" dia. spheres near the ceiling with an emitter material and one sphere in the lamp. The 5 spheres should really be modeled into a recessed fixture, but I haven't done it yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 ..."Maxwell is not fast, but depending of the complexity it can be really fast." I'm not sure what is meant by that... complexity of geometry or lighting?... First: ATM Maxwell is slow, and although it is in alpha, I doubt if speed will get much better. Even if it gains 80% it still is slow. From experience I know you can get that kind of speed increase by optimizing code. On the other hand: my first version of Lightscape (v2, I don't know how long ago) was at least as slow as Maxwell. Now I find it the fastest Radiosity renderer around (if used right ). With this in mind, there are some things that can help you in getting "faster" and better renders in Maxwell. The polygons that get the primary rays (early bounces) get the least noise. Polygons receiving (late) secondary bounces will be very noisy, and take longer to smooth: actually the more secondary they are, the harder they get smoothed. Keep this in mind when setting the number of bounces UP. Especially when having glass and metals which generate caustics and reflections (also light is reflecting), resulting in many secondary rays, can cause a lot of noise. So to get a nice and smooth image, it's best to make lot's of (modeled)lights, light panels, light casting environment, whatever to tune your space with primary rays. Because of the alternative rendering technique, Maxwell is (relatively) much faster when using LOTS of complex lights and geometry. Making a hall with 1000 shadow casting area lights will probably render faster in Maxwell then any other renderer I know of (excl.FPrime for Lightwave). There is one strange thing that strikes me as very unrealistic. After choosing a certain camera setup (fstop, etc) with environment light and modeled lights, the effect of the environment light is way stronger without the modeled lights, then with them. Within the same camera setup this means there is some auto exposure correction going on !) After one month playing and 2 commercial projects, I really like it for it's output. The rest can only get better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted January 25, 2005 Author Share Posted January 25, 2005 Hi Erik, Yes, what you say is something I have noticed too. An exterior scene with harsh light can render practically noise-free in 30 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 Here are some 30 minute tests with different fStops. Well THAT'S interesting. They are using the fstop concept to vary both brightness and DOF, which is definately an effect of lens optics. But what I did NOT see changing in your three examples was contrast. f32 will produce much more contrast than with f2.8 along with the very different depth of fields. Obviously an ASA400 film will add contrast and grain, while an ASA64 is the opposite. Are we heading back to film cameras, only virtual ones now, but ones that REALLY are virtual film cameras? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IC Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 I think you should be congratulated for posting such a thread Fran. What will be interesting here will be how quickly you can become as adept with this as you are with your current software setup. And whether this will affect the times! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gozali Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Need help, gamma correction setting for 3ds max 7, help me, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Right now, I'm told that there is no way to simulate light filtering through fabric. In Cinema, there is a medium-quality SSS function. You can also make a surface illuminate, like a Maxwell emitter. The SSS seems to detect where light is hitting an object and spreading it out, and then re-radiating some of it. It produces 'new' light. Theres also a 'backlight', which does the same only transfers light falling on the back of an object and making the object an emitter. While those probably count as cheats, they work visually. Can't we make a fabric, like your lampshade, an emmitter for low, warm light? However, materials should behave like physical objects do to keep our claim of 'physically accurate'. Does anyone know how this issue is going to be handled by Maxwell--the SSS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juan Altieri Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Well Kalle, Maxwell isn't the only thing here in alpha testing. I just started playing with it a couple of days ago. frances, i honestly think that your maxwell "test" works didn't looks like "surreal" works, i really like your style of rendering and i'm a really fan of your work, so i think that maxwell render can be so danger for you to keep your style alive.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted December 21, 2005 Author Share Posted December 21, 2005 Hi Juan, You realize how old this thread is, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 Hi Juan, You realize how old this thread is, right? With Maxwell lately, everything old is new again. Never pass up the ironic use of a cliche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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