[feynman]

I love Maxwell for the quality, I hate Maxwell 'cause i really can't accept to pay for a "not-100%-working" application (also V3 still buggy) and.... I'm really worried about future (= job).

Best start already evaluating alternatives before it is too late.

[burnin]

If in doubt, two are honored with SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING AWARDS (ACADEMY PLAQUES) by the Academy this year: Arnold & VRay

To Marcos Fajardo for the creative vision and original implementation of the Arnold Renderer, and to Chris Kulla, Alan King, Thiago Ize and Clifford Stein for their highly optimized geometry engine and novel ray-tracing algorithms which unify the rendering of curves, surfaces, volumetrics and subsurface scattering as developed at Sony Pictures Imageworks and Solid Angle SL.

Arnold’s scalable and memory-efficient single-pass architecture for path tracing, its authors’ publication of the underlying techniques, and its broad industry acceptance were instrumental in leading a widespread adoption of fully ray-traced rendering for motion pictures.

To Vladimir Koylazov for the original concept, design and implementation of V-Ray from Chaos Group.

V-Ray’s efficient production-ready approach to ray-tracing and global illumination, its support for a wide variety of workflows, and its broad industry acceptance were instrumental in the widespread adoption of fully ray-traced rendering for motion pictures.

....

The 89th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.

[luis.hijarrubia]

We've been nominated for that Oscar.

Well, a lot is been told here. We are working on several thing on maxwell. We are polishing the gpu engine, and doing new features. But not only that, there are some new things on whole maxwell that i think would be nice.

And as for the selling of x-flow. I'm not part of the management, but what we are told is that with this money we are more solid and can have more development. The existing products will be benefited and we can start new projects now, as CaronteFX was launched last year, new products can be faced now.

[Herbo]

We've been nominated for that Oscar.

Well, a lot is been told here. We are working on several thing on maxwell. We are polishing the gpu engine, and doing new features. But not only that, there are some new things on whole maxwell that i think would be nice.

And as for the selling of x-flow. I'm not part of the management, but what we are told is that with this money we are more solid and can have more development. The existing products will be benefited and we can start new projects now, as CaronteFX was launched last year, new products can be faced now.

It sounds great that development is moving forward! I think all of us here really want to see You succeed
Can you tell us a little about the current roadmap, especially for the GPU? When can we expect features like additive layers, multilight, support for large scenes, sss, grass, and stuff like that? with these in place, the gpu engine could be used in an actual workflow

[luis.hijarrubia]

Well, I just came back from hollidays, so I still don't know the exactly state of development. But i would say GPU engine on Linux and Mac is first. Multi-gpu, thinSSS and coatings are things we are working on. But this can change as there are some little features that can be implemented in fair time and should be added anytime (like for example booleans, that are already done on early builds).

[Herbo]

Well, I just came back from hollidays, so I still don't know the exactly state of development. But i would say GPU engine on Linux and Mac is first. Multi-gpu, thinSSS and coatings are things we are working on. But this can change as there are some little features that can be implemented in fair time and should be added anytime (like for example booleans, that are already done on early builds).

The most important feature (for me, at least), is additive layers. Allmost all of my current models and materials uses this, and without it i can't do anything with gpu. Even the material assistant makes additive layers for standard stuff.
sss, multilight, grass and multi-gpu I can do without for a little while, but not additive layers
hope to see it implemented soon.

[Mihai]

The most important feature (for me, at least), is additive layers. Allmost all of my current models and materials uses this, and without it i can't do anything with gpu. Even the material assistant makes additive layers for standard stuff.

1000+

As for V3 being "buggy", I don't agree - V3 is a very complete render package and all engines are "buggy" in their ways. I've started testing more seriously other engines and I'm not exactly finding render paradise on the other side of the fence (if for example someone could tell me how to render accurate good looking caustics with Octane, that don't take 5 hours to render on 12 GPUs... I'm honestly asking, not saying this to be derisive).

I'm going to keep testing and comparing, and hoping Maxwell GPU gets beyond alpha stage in the next 3-4 months. I'm sorry but practically speaking, for now it's an experiment that's nowhere near ready to use in any kind of production, however simple. I'll post my findings when Maxwell GPU is more mature as it makes no sense to compare now. However I can already see that in many cases it can be substantially faster than CPU, even for interiors.

[T0M0]

The most important feature (for me, at least), is additive layers. Allmost all of my current models and materials uses this, and without it i can't do anything with gpu. Even the material assistant makes additive layers for standard stuff.

+1001

What will I do with MultiGPU version of Maxwell if 95% of materials I couldn't use.

And I'll say it again, there should be a public vote poll about features what WE, users, would like to see implemented first in GPU version.

I'm sure that it will help you understand this situation from our perspective.

[luis.hijarrubia]

Well, the problem is that they are not isolated things. For have some features to work you need other ones before, or you need to do same previous work that make some features easier to be done. We are aware of the importance of additive layers and making all possible to move it as soon as possible in development.

[dk2079]

As for V3 being "buggy", I don't agree - V3 is a very complete render package and all engines are "buggy" in their ways.

I feel the same way; Have been very happy with maxwell 3. It has always been solid and reliable for my needs; I still use it now.
Despite the funny launch of 4.0, I don't see much reason to be too upset about the state of the GPU engine;
Everybody can(and should!) evaluate before they purchase;

However it really is more than a bit frustrating how the whole thing was communicated and that us users have to find out about what is currently possible on GPU by our self. The charts online about what is implemented already were not complete, partially wrong and without much further description, and no directions at all about how to use the new engine when trying to deal with older projects/materials containing incompatible settings, etc.

There should be a clear forum thread on the current state, showing how to use it, and how things are progressing.
I appreciate the GPU features thread Luis started, but it is a bit too little info. And a developer has to code and not write nice forum postings all day long

IMHO this 4.0 launch was targeting mainly new customers. On the first look, or if you didn't know about the old licensing scheme, maxwell seems "cheaper" than before at 695.- € (+ including GPU ) and probably it is for some users who do not need more.


I still purchased 4.0 (the friday offer), because I think NL will get their act together.
I have used 3.0 long enough and made alright business using it, so I was ok in "investing". (4.0 is not installed on my WS yet)

Let us look at the unbiased render engine world: Solid Angle got swallowed by AD, Thea by Altair, Octane by Otoy..
So NL, located in Spain(you probably have heard about the general financial struggle across southern Europe), are doing a respectable job staying independent, i find.

I support that.


my words to the devs?

as a non 4.0 user yet only:

1:
I am still baffled that the Houdini plugin got wiped. that was a fully featured one... please find a new developer.
Indie 3rd party rendering will certainly bring maxwell to the clientele so many features were designed for.

2:
MULTI GPU
more important than additive layers for me. Because then I could actually give it some serious try on smaller projects, even without the additive feature.
Have two Titans here in the WS, and from using the other GPU engine I know that 3d apps+Photoshop+gpu rendering on the same card is not a clever idea.

3:
please change the multilight application look, the Logo at the top and the text next to it is WAY TO BIG.
and even there in fullscreen.
When I look at a red shoe, I want to see a red shoe and not a green Logo! please let us view the image only, other elements are really distracting the eye. we know we are using multilight;) have a look at the screen grab from my Laptop:

[mdfmuse]

Luis: Thanks for your input. Can you (or someone) at Next Limit give us a general outline of the development plans for v4 for the next year? As I've stated in other posts I LOVE Maxwell (v3 at least) but find v4 not useable. It would be great to let us know a basic timeline stating when the developers expect fixed features to be implemented. I'm not asking for speculation on new features, just features already announced, that should be working in v4. I realize that timelines cannot be promises, but I think it would help your customers to know a general timeline for getting v4 up-to-speed.

Multi-GPU support in Maxwell v4 would be a fantastic help for my setup, as I do use two Nvidia graphics cards in my machine. I've already seen how much speedier rendering can be using the two graphics cards by testing with the free software Blender 3D and it's Cycles render engine. Cycles allows rendering with either the CPU or multi-GPU's. The difference in render speed between CPU and two GPU's is astonishing.

Thanks.

[Luca_Studioaltieri]

As for V3 being "buggy", I don't agree - V3 is a very complete render package and all engines are "buggy" in their ways.

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 13&t=44247
hemmm.. for who renders hundreds of elevations per year, the thread linked above is an "hole", not simple a bug.
And after months from request i had no useful update/solution. (and you know, the suggested workaround does not produce same result: depth is always visibile).

... and all engines are "buggy" in their ways...

I know, but this is not an excuse.

These are my last words on it.. or i go too far from topic.
Good work! :*

[Mihai]

(and you know, the suggested workaround does not produce same result: depth is always visibile).

Really? Set the camera to 5000mm then. Can you show an example?

Edit: Just tried now, with 3000mm vs Ortho:



Could anyone really tell the difference, that's it's not a "real" ortho between these two? I mean of course it's a bug and needs to be fixed but it seems to me the workaround is pretty easy and works ok....?

[choo-chee]

hhhh, glad to see I'm not the only person looking to continue using Maxwell....
The funniest thing, though, is that till today we see nothing in the "announcements" section that will give us loyal clients something to look for.

[Luca_Studioaltieri]

Really? Set the camera to 5000mm then. Can you show an example?

Of course Mihai.
My elevations are often (>60%) "huge machinery" were elevantions aren't so flat.
...And hdr+emitter illumination is needed to control metal reflections.
The example below is a grid of columns measuring overall 200x40 mt.
Camera is set to 5000mm, and it's 6km far away from objects to frame the 40mt side.



I think that differences can be spotted also if i don't link the ortho version of this image.
That's why i prefer to have the bug "hdr/emitter on ortho" solved than focus on workarounds that work only for more flat scenes.

Direct question: in past it worked fine, using it daily. Will you consider to fix it or it will stay forverer bugged like these last 9 months?
I need only a YES or a NO, so i can decide what to do and stop hoping, while looking fire preview, where it works.
Thank you.



EDIT.. i forgot to answer:

Could anyone really tell the difference, that's it's not a "real" ortho between these two?

Everyone who need to put as overlay the precise cad elevation on it: and we work on precision.