[fairliearrow2]

I am at the start. So far I have no bad habits. I am shiny and new.

But where do i start?

So far I am using a mix of Digital Tutors and VTC.

[a.behrens]

The workflow is:

1. Load objects into a new project
2. Setup environment
3. Setup a camera
4. Create materials
5. Assign material to meshes
6. Press 'render'

It is quite easy.

If you want to know how to do those steps:

Use these keywords "maxwell render 2.7 documentation pdf" there are some pretty good PDFs (which look like the official manual?!) for maxwell.

I wonder why _I_ didn't get one of those manuals. I downloaded maxwell as a DMG archive (OSX) and believe that the archive didn't have such a manual.

Edit: http://www.architektur.uni-kl.de/digita ... nglish.pdf

[Ha_Loe]

I wonder why _I_ didn't get one of those manuals. I downloaded maxwell as a DMG archive (OSX) and believe that the archive didn't have such a manual.

In fact the PDF is pretty outdated and should not be referred to. The official Maxwell manual is completely online. http://support.nextlimit.com/category/maxwell

[fairliearrow2]

Well, I think that the notion of a "tutorial" for Maxwell can get complex.

Let's take the 2010 VTC tutorial set on Maxwell Render 2 that was done by Jason Maranto. This is a physics-based approach that considers fresnel, abbe number and so on.
So you can have more pragmatic or scientific approaches.

From what I have read so far the Maxwell online documentation for MAXWELL 3 seems to be more pragmatic. I am that new to Maxwell that I have no idea if a pragmatic approach is good. I also have no physics background. But I am inclined to take the physics approach; I look at it like calculus where you could learn the rules without knowing what a derivative is. But such calculus would not be good.

[fairliearrow2]

BTW in one of the videos Jason Maranto said that he posts on these forums under the handle "half-life". So whether he posts here any more I do not know.

I think that to use tools that imitate real physics [to a virtually perfect degree in Maxwell] you should understand the physics. It won't make me into a scientist or a physicist. But it seems weird to me to be imitating and recreating reality without acquiring some understanding of the science of it all.

[Mihai]

Get this book:

"Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting"

It teaches you to light different kinds of surfaces and goes into a little bit of why light reacts with materials the way it does. But mostly it's a photography book and everything you learn there can be directly applied to Maxwell.

It's really photography you need to learn to make great renders, the physics part of it shouldn't be exaggerated. It's like saying, you need to learn computer science to use Vray, because they use computer rendering terms.

[Dansercoer]

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a free or inexpensive alternative to James Coleman’s experiential tuturials that cover everything one needs to know, for version 3?