Maxwell Render | Official public forum

I feel like you as well being on a mac, a macintel even. Still I like maxwell even for all its failures and bugs. Its a pity Next Limit isn't honest or clear about what is happening. I think in order not to loose market or potential customers.

The software does render and indeed only works if you are willing to spend tons of hours just finding out how it works and installs. Once you master that and accept the bugs and not working dialogboxes, commands and buttons you will appreciate the results.
Next Limit is Spanish and we here in Europe know we should not take them very serious in marketing, reliability or anything very organized. You get Germans for that ....lol. At Next Limit you find young artists loving their product. And with good reason. I am enjoying it while it last, it sure does not look like it will be for ever. Its also very clear that they don' have enough resorces to live up to their promises but I am sure they want to. Render software comes and goes and I no longer use anything I used ten years ago.

Maxwell is like a ferrari needing the workshop every 2000 miles, not very handy for someone needing to be at his work every day driving 10000 miles a year.

When I had purchsed Maxwell in March 2005 they surprisingly told me that there was no Mac version existing yet. Not at all! This is not „Spanish“ – selling non-existant articles of trade is simply fraudulent. Even today there is no really working Maxwell version for the Mac; just some alpha features they impertinently call „Maxwell Render 1.1“.

tok wrote:When I had purchsed Maxwell in March 2005 they surprisingly told me that there was no Mac version existing yet. Not at all! This is not „Spanish“ – selling non-existant articles of trade is simply fraudulent. Even today there is no really working Maxwell version for the Mac; just some alpha features they impertinently call „Maxwell Render 1.1“.

LOL! What are you talking about? Of course there are some bugs, like every complex software has, but the current OSX version is perfectly usable for professional work and runs pretty fast.

It's not very helpful for other users to make a statement like 'just some alpha features they impertinently call Maxwell Render 1.1' without giving any points why you think so.

mgroeteke wrote:LOL! What are you talking about? Of course there are some bugs, like every complex software has, but the current OSX version is perfectly usable for professional work and runs pretty fast.

It's not very helpful for other users to make a statement like 'just some alpha features they impertinently call Maxwell Render 1.1' without giving any points why you think so.

Here's just one of them. I wrote this to the NL support (still waiting for an answer):

"why do the downloaded materials from the new "Materials Library" refuse to appear in my material editor? (BTW: many of your official materials also don't show up.) And why does the material editor not open from my Sketchup menu? I am on a Mac."

Maybe you can help me solve this problem, mgroeteke; if not -- would you agree that a renderer without reliable texturing features is a tiny little bit of inchoate?

congellous,
first an answer to your question: the only personal help I received from NL was when my license.dat file did not work and in another very special case concerning my user data.
Yet I draft a considerate amount of help from these pages, and they are provided by NL. I don't say: this is enough. Sure not when it comes to the nastier bugs in MWR on OSX. There should not be more careful bug reports by average users than NL replies. Definitely not.

mgroeteke,
"the current OSX version is perfectly usable for professional work and runs pretty fast" - if you invest a considerate amount of time and understanding in the adaption of your workflow to this tool - I'd like to add. Thats allright with me. Never before did I own such a capable render engine, so I might have to adjust some things in my routine. I happily try to.. not finished yet. Sure these bugs in MWR on OSX cost me some additional minutes too.

So, no rant from me. But a plea for a thorough update, soon, and some more kind words from NL. Thanks.

tok wrote:

mgroeteke wrote:LOL! What are you talking about? Of course there are some bugs, like every complex software has, but the current OSX version is perfectly usable for professional work and runs pretty fast.

It's not very helpful for other users to make a statement like 'just some alpha features they impertinently call Maxwell Render 1.1' without giving any points why you think so.

Here's just one of them. I wrote this to the NL support (still waiting for an answer):

"why do the downloaded materials from the new "Materials Library" refuse to appear in my material editor? (BTW: many of your official materials also don't show up.) And why does the material editor not open from my Sketchup menu? I am on a Mac."

Maybe you can help me solve this problem, mgroeteke; if not -- would you agree that a renderer without reliable texturing features is a tiny little bit of inchoate?

well, a lot of issues seem to be related to the sketchup plugin, which i don't use, so i cannot comment on these - i'm basically using the formz and the lightwave plugins which are not completely bug free but perfectly usable.

however, there are general problems with paths on the current OSX implementation which for sure is no minor point, becuse it affects a lot of functions in studio, the renderer and the plugins.
on the other side, there are simple workarounds, so you can use all the features, even if it's not working always 100% how it is intended to work.

i don't know what your problem with downloaded materials could be. for me, it's possible to load all materials into studio or the material editor. what is exactly the error or problem you get? i can perfectly texture all my scenes so far.

anyway - as far as i know, they are working hard at NL to fix all these path issues and to give us a much improved universal binary version.

mgroeteke wrote:however, there are general problems with paths on the current OSX implementation which for sure is no minor point, becuse it affects a lot of functions in studio, the renderer and the plugins.
on the other side, there are simple workarounds, so you can use all the features, even if it's not working always 100% how it is intended to work.

This is not what I call a professionally efficient software. As I said: alpha (at least as far as Sketchup on a Mac is concerned).

mgroeteke wrote:i don't know what your problem with downloaded materials could be. for me, it's possible to load all materials into studio or the material editor. what is exactly the error or problem you get? i can perfectly texture all my scenes so far.

I load the materials down, I decompress them and put them where the other mxms are (the „materials database“). But wherever I place them -- the material editor will open only their name. Nothing else. Same problem will the arroway stuff, with shiny plastics and most of the other official NL materials.

I understand the posters very well who are complaining about not working materials. On a mac its very hard to get things working and it needs a lot of patience. Once you've worked it out its actually simple enough. The problem is that everybody keeps different systems and workflows. Its very hard to even understand why it did not work for me until I got it working. I use all the materials, export from SU to Maxwell Studio and apply all textures there. From there I save a Maxwell file and double click it to render. No problems at all. Of course I would like it would render straight out of maxwell or materials applied in SU but it does not work for me that way. Now I know that and I just live with it until Maxwell gets an update. I hope mostly things will be getting easier to use, the quality of the renders are fine, its just the workflow that needs a lot of extra tweeking. I only got to work with maxwell after I seriously took some free time and studied for about 4 nights how to get things working. Its just not easy and one could wonder why not. I am sure they will get it right. Mac users are always a bit behind with this kind of high end software. I am actually happy to see that maxwell is not one of the many apps that I would like to have but not available for mac. I have always been an early adapter, always got into problems because of that, annoyed as well but basicly thats my character. Nobody forces me to use Maxwell, they even offered to refund my money but I did not want to be without this kind of render engine, the potential is enormous, especially looking at the great material website. I am sure within a few years I will render all my projects in Maxwell. I even see Zaha Hadid getting her designs Maxwelled. I would almost by a PC just for Maxwell....ok..not really but still..

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in the response, most of the team was attending events or on holidays. We are working hard to fix osx bugs and also the universal binary version of Maxwell is already in testing phase. We are putting more resources in the OSX area to improve it as much as possible.

Kind regards,

Juan

Its reasuring to read the team is behind OSX, I am sure with the new Mac Pro's and lots of designers using Apple's Maxwell has enough reason to keep OSX alive for those of us keeping their macs.

I must say Maxwell on the web does look more and more professional. But I am afraid there are too many bugs to keep atrackted casuals users happy.

Hi Juan
hope you all had nice events and holidays!
Now back on track.. chase the bugs..

Thank you Juan.

The Universal Binary version will be very much appreciated!!

holding my breath....