[rockguy]

If I post an model from SolidWorks 2006 and an image created in PhotoWorks 2006 can someone render the same model in Maxwell so I (we) can see a comparison?

[John Layne]

If it's simple, I'll do it in the Beta if it's complex I would rather wait until after Maxwell V1.0 is released on the 22 November.

I'm sure lots of people here will give it a go, give us a link to the to files. If you don't have anywhere to host them let me know and I'll host the files for you.

[Eric Lagman]

Yeah post it. I will give it a shot if its not too complicated. Textures don't really work well so if needs a lot of texturing I will try it with standalone.

[rockguy]

You can can find the Solidworks file here

http://www.robrodriguez.com/robrodrigue ... 20Page.htm

Once opend you will need to unsuppress all the features in the feature tree.

This is the image from PhotoWorks. It took about 1 hour to set up and and about 32 minutes to save at the highest settings possible (300dpi 6" x 8" jpg image on a P4 2.4 Win XP 1 gig ram)

http://www.robrodriguez.com/robrodrigue ... button.pdf


I thought this model would be simple enough. Thanks for doing this gentlemen.

You can see more PhotoWorks images at http://www.robrodriguez.com/robrodrigue ... 20Home.htm
under the PhotoWorks button

[John Layne]

Snap shot after 2 1/2 hours.I have left it rendering will post an update later today or first thing in the morning.
AMD Athlon XP 2400 1 Gigabyte of RAM (my old machine /server)
15Mins to set up, just droped it into my standard studio.
3 emitters 50mm X 25mm one overhead - can't remember what setting think one is d75 (will check later after work as I have to reboot to play with swx 2006)
3 reflectors
1 backdrop diffuse
f stop 32
ISO 200
Shutter 1/50 sec
camera 135mm
700mm distance to object -- roughly
Rendered at 1600 x 1200
Denoised in Photoshop and resized to 1024 x 768
There is still enough noise to be annoying --- but fingers crossed this will be less of an issue in V1. I'm only running it on one PC for this test will network 3 when V1.0 is out. Didn't do the texture (obviously), will run the test again with texuture on V1.0.



Rob's image below

[Eric Lagman]

10 min light setup in existing studio I built. I let it go for 2.5 hrs. it was reasonably clear of noise after little over an hour. I rendered it at 640 x 480.
No post work was done at all. Hopefully final release will be faster. Multiple machines working on the same image will also help when the final release comes out.

[John Layne]

We should turn the red bit into an emitter -- just for the hell of it.
Or maybe a dielectric with an emitter behind it.

[rockguy]

Thank you guys. Very nice. I thought I had the plastic (red & white areas) looking pretty good but no matter what I tried in PW my base just didn't have a very metalic look. You both have definately captured that better with Maxwell. Much more realistic looking than mine!

I've been wrestling with the purchase of Maxwell but this really shows the improved quality (to me anyway). It has some short comings, decal support, textures and render times but I have to think (with everything I've read here) it will only get better and be more integrated with SolidWorks.

[juan]

Hi,

I had not time to do something more accurate now, I just show a test with wood. 3 minutes modeling a plane, 3 creating materials and 5 making assignments. 10 minutes rendering at res 800x600. I willl make a more serious attempt if I have time..
Regards,

Juan

[mick]

10 minutes setup time (added base and tweaked camera setting slightly), used Physical Sky (Madrid 9:00 day 199).

Rendered for 1hr 20 minutes at 1600x1200 - final picture resized to 800x600 - no other post processing.

[John Layne]

Question for Mick and Jaun, did you render with the beta or the pre release?

If beta what texture did you use, I couldn't see one like this in SolidWorks?

Amazing reality to your picks, mines been rendering for 20+ hour on the beta and still doesn't look as good as Micks.

One other question, when using physical sky with SolidWorks how do you no which way is North? I can't figure out how to relate this Physical sky to the orientation of the SolidWorks part or assembly.

[mick]

Mine was produced using Maxwell Beta 1_2_2a_beta.

Texture: using "SolidWorks Textures...Wood...Grain 2"

Yes, it is difficult to locate North. My "rule-of-thumb" is using a SW iso view with location Madrid, the sun seems to rise roughly from the back right and sets roughly from the front left. I know its not very scientific and doesn't work for every location ...

An extract from the log ....

== Render settings ==

resolution: 1600 x 1200
maximum desired time: 1h 20m 0s
threads: 4
target sampling level: 50.00

>> Starting Render

>> Start Voxelization...
>> End Voxelization...


[0h 0m 5s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 0.00
[0h 0m 43s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 0.00
[0h 1m 24s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 0.00
[0h 2m 13s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 0.00
[0h 3m 13s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 1.71
[0h 4m 36s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 3.46
[0h 6m 40s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 5.18
[0h 10m 7s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 6.90
[0h 15m 57s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 8.62
[0h 25m 45s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 10.13
[0h 35m 30s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 11.06
[0h 45m 17s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 11.73
[0h 54m 52s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 12.25
[1h 4m 46s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 12.69
[1h 14m 43s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 13.05
[1h 20m 8s] of [1h 20m 0s] , current sampling level : 13.23


Render finished successfully


Close this window or the frame buffer to End Session...

[juan]

Hi John,

Question for Mick and Jaun, did you render with the beta or the pre release?
If beta what texture did you use, I couldn't see one like this in SolidWorks?

I have used Maxwell Beta 1_2_2a_beta too. I have got the same result in the prerelease in a few minutes (sorry I did not get the time, I will do it soon).

I can post my assembly with the assignments and the material and maxwell data files if you want it.

Regards,

Juan

[John Layne]

Yes, please do and when V1.0 is released post files for that as well. It will be intereseting to compare the two.

Could you enlighten me on how the physical sky relates to a SolidWorks part or assembly, how do we establish which way's North?

Thanks

[rockguy]

Very nice Mick and Juan! So realistic! I guess the only thing left for me to do is purchase my own copy before the pre-order price is history.

Does anyone have any info as to how Maxwell version 1.0 standalone will interface with SW or if there will be updates to the plug-in?