[jjs]

Well - Maxwell plugin works with the sw2006 only.

Using the 'Add -in' in SW creates a Maxwell menu that when activated in a sw assembly , creates a Menu on the left (where the Feature tree is). In this menu you have all the maxwell settings and then the render button. It really is very easy to use. However there are limited material libraries so you have to set up your own but this is not very difficult, just different to PW.

Maxwell is easy to set up and the lighting is very easy to control compared to PW , - however the down side is that Maxwell is currently running slow as NL bed down the software before optimizing it, so its not any good for quick presentation work. However i certainly think it is the future as far as a render for SW, because it will speed up and setting up the models for rendering is so easy - even an engineer can do it - however a basic knowledge of manual photography is very useful as maxwell simulates camera settings such as Fstop, shutter speed, ISO film (ASA) to acheive the correct exposure.

Jonathan