Everything related to Maxwell Render and General Stuff that doesn't fit in other categories
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400480
we can talk about it again and again but as I see it, NL made a big mistake letting their users down with slow dev that reflect the slow render speed. a once very busy forum with users enjoying the best quality and workflow renderer, feeling like cheaters and only asking for more speed whatever - became almost a graveyard forum, with a few veteran users that simply know their s@#t so good they can get decent render times over weekends ;) .... In my eyes, NL should do nothing more than boost their users base back again with low prices or very good deals and support/tutorials with a dedicated crew for that, and dev should concentrate on speed alone, nothing else. give me a render (without all sort of "can't use this" or "to be supported in the near future" that) that will take an hour and not 4, and no one will even bother to look at Vray , Corona or Octane.
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400486
choo-chee wrote:
Mon Feb 15, 2021 4:59 pm
we can talk about it again and again but as I see it, NL made a big mistake letting their users down with slow dev that reflect the slow render speed. a once very busy forum with users enjoying the best quality and workflow renderer, feeling like cheaters and only asking for more speed whatever - became almost a graveyard forum, with a few veteran users that simply know their s@#t so good they can get decent render times over weekends ;) .... In my eyes, NL should do nothing more than boost their users base back again with low prices or very good deals and support/tutorials with a dedicated crew for that, and dev should concentrate on speed alone, nothing else. give me a render (without all sort of "can't use this" or "to be supported in the near future" that) that will take an hour and not 4, and no one will even bother to look at Vray , Corona or Octane.
You're right.

NL lost many user within the release of V4.

We paid for a list of features planned for V4
We paid again for the same feature list for the V5 ( and still waiting to see them all released)

I personally gave them the benefit of the doubt paying out again to buy again for something i didn't received within the V4 release.

If they plan to release a V6 with something that was on V4 feature list and request again a new payment, personally i'm out.

Actually Maxwell Render is supported directly by Core and old customers, before gaining new customers they need to don't loose the active ones.
User avatar
By Max
#400487
Matteo Villa wrote:
Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:35 pm
choo-chee wrote:
Mon Feb 15, 2021 4:59 pm
we can talk about it again and again but as I see it, NL made a big mistake letting their users down with slow dev that reflect the slow render speed. a once very busy forum with users enjoying the best quality and workflow renderer, feeling like cheaters and only asking for more speed whatever - became almost a graveyard forum, with a few veteran users that simply know their s@#t so good they can get decent render times over weekends ;) .... In my eyes, NL should do nothing more than boost their users base back again with low prices or very good deals and support/tutorials with a dedicated crew for that, and dev should concentrate on speed alone, nothing else. give me a render (without all sort of "can't use this" or "to be supported in the near future" that) that will take an hour and not 4, and no one will even bother to look at Vray , Corona or Octane.
You're right.

NL lost many user within the release of V4.

We paid for a list of features planned for V4
We paid again for the same feature list for the V5 ( and still waiting to see them all released)

I personally gave them the benefit of the doubt paying out again to buy again for something i didn't received within the V4 release.

If they plan to release a V6 with something that was on V4 feature list and request again a new payment, personally i'm out.

Actually Maxwell Render is supported directly by Core and old customers, before gaining new customers they need to don't loose the active ones.
Well i think they already lost them. I bought v4 and never used once with gpu, pratically unusuable.
Let me tell you something... I went back to version 3.2 man... oh hell that was a software. Slick interface, extremely fast, rapid voxelization, instant geometry voxelization when you hit render, no glitches, the UI was perfect, maxwell 4 and 5 are horrible in terms of UI ,i dont know what they have done, but if you open up 3.2 that thing is so fast that its actually embarassing..

Now to the render core, tried v4 vs v5 vs 3.2 on cPU and there is no difference at all. Basically the cpu core is the same as 3.2 where also i have access to the plugins they supported back then (in my case softimage sill works wonder).

From 3.2 and on they just did worse. i bought v4 because i trusted them and i thought (coming from 3.2) that they would deliver... but well all know how it ended.
V5 i am waiting but probably im going to skip because the same issues and attitude i've been seen during v4 days is happening again, stale development, very slow release, very few communication and still feature missing.. i dont know it just doesnt convince me.

When i look on the other side of the fence i find a lot of render engines that are just so more developed and rich that it just annoys me how NL intentionally screwed up.
At this point im very afraid that this engine is basically done, just for people who are sentimentally attached to it, on a professional environment this engine is not really a competitor anymore vs other engines at all. I recently took a look at Maverick render (the old Arion) man that thing is fast..super slick interface, entry level price, just does its job especially for product rendering.

I am not even sure what are we all waiting here about Maxwell to be implemented...its a bit mindblowing.. everything with this company always seem so slow.
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400488
Max wrote:
Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:27 pm
Matteo Villa wrote:
Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:35 pm
choo-chee wrote:
Mon Feb 15, 2021 4:59 pm
we can talk about it again and again but as I see it, NL made a big mistake letting their users down with slow dev that reflect the slow render speed. a once very busy forum with users enjoying the best quality and workflow renderer, feeling like cheaters and only asking for more speed whatever - became almost a graveyard forum, with a few veteran users that simply know their s@#t so good they can get decent render times over weekends ;) .... In my eyes, NL should do nothing more than boost their users base back again with low prices or very good deals and support/tutorials with a dedicated crew for that, and dev should concentrate on speed alone, nothing else. give me a render (without all sort of "can't use this" or "to be supported in the near future" that) that will take an hour and not 4, and no one will even bother to look at Vray , Corona or Octane.
You're right.

NL lost many user within the release of V4.

We paid for a list of features planned for V4
We paid again for the same feature list for the V5 ( and still waiting to see them all released)

I personally gave them the benefit of the doubt paying out again to buy again for something i didn't received within the V4 release.

If they plan to release a V6 with something that was on V4 feature list and request again a new payment, personally i'm out.

Actually Maxwell Render is supported directly by Core and old customers, before gaining new customers they need to don't loose the active ones.
Well i think they already lost them. I bought v4 and never used once with gpu, pratically unusuable.
Let me tell you something... I went back to version 3.2 man... oh hell that was a software. Slick interface, extremely fast, rapid voxelization, instant geometry voxelization when you hit render, no glitches, the UI was perfect, maxwell 4 and 5 are horrible in terms of UI ,i dont know what they have done, but if you open up 3.2 that thing is so fast that its actually embarassing..

Now to the render core, tried v4 vs v5 vs 3.2 on cPU and there is no difference at all. Basically the cpu core is the same as 3.2 where also i have access to the plugins they supported back then (in my case softimage sill works wonder).

From 3.2 and on they just did worse. i bought v4 because i trusted them and i thought (coming from 3.2) that they would deliver... but well all know how it ended.
V5 i am waiting but probably im going to skip because the same issues and attitude i've been seen during v4 days is happening again, stale development, very slow release, very few communication and still feature missing.. i dont know it just doesnt convince me.

When i look on the other side of the fence i find a lot of render engines that are just so more developed and rich that it just annoys me how NL intentionally screwed up.
At this point im very afraid that this engine is basically done, just for people who are sentimentally attached to it, on a professional environment this engine is not really a competitor anymore vs other engines at all. I recently took a look at Maverick render (the old Arion) man that thing is fast..super slick interface, entry level price, just does its job especially for product rendering.

I am not even sure what are we all waiting here about Maxwell to be implemented...its a bit mindblowing.. everything with this company always seem so slow.

1) To be clear, V5 is good in term of UI. A timid improvement over 4K support is still there. So if you use big screen and 4K it's a good investment
( if you base your business around maxwell render obviously) if you've already switched to Octane, Redshift, Vray, i don't think you need to switch back to Maxwell Render.

If the question is, V5 far better then V4 for GPU rendering? Definitely yes..
Is Maxwell Render at the same level of Real Time rendering software using GPU? : No absolutely.
But you've to consider the huge differences between BIASED and UNBIASED rendering.

2) CPU wise i 've the same feeling.
Even with a Threadripper 3990X , 3970X or 2990WX you feel like pushed back in comparison to other rendering engines.
I don't see important improvement over CPU engine in the last 2 release. Devs stated there will be some improvement in the next releases. Let's see.

3) GPU wise, i' ve seen some marginal improvement over performance and some good improvement in features.
Using the last patch i noticed a decrease in performance within my 4x 1080TI Workstation, so i downgraded by 1 patch release to keep the best performance.


Devs have already many things to release easily that would cost zero to minimum effort.
I even wrote them in this forum, but seems they don't want to listen and prioritize so easily features that would change the user experience fast and with many benefit in the long therms :mrgreen: .

For now i stick to Maxwell Render, since I'm comfortable with the Maxwell Studio workflow.

Does V5 worth a try? Yes, for now.
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400495
I stick to Maxwell for now only because the easy to achieve super-realistic quality, and the assets I gained over 15 years of use. I render previews for one project on my render PC while working on my main working station PC on another project, and vice versa, to save some time and during nights and weekends I render better images. I can get along with it for now even that it's slow compared to others, only because the quality is the best. It will be very nice to get something as 30% speed increase using new CPU or GPU tech and even more if possible, since it will render a good image that took 20 hours (night+day) during the night itself..
User avatar
By CDRDA
#400502
For me a lot of Maxwell is about the time saved setting up each scene compared with other engines. My material and model library means that my workflow is reasonably streamlined. The biggest problem I have setting up a scene is which HDRi to use and getting the sunlight/shadows balance looking right and maybe tweaking a few materials here and there.

I also use UE4 for movie walk throughs, which is the polar opposite of intuitive and easy to use and has a lightning fast development compared with Maxwell . "Lighting not working? Oh, I forgot to check/uncheck an option in a hidden menu somewhere ... Oh, another new version, so soon.... But my project now doesn't look the same as it did before.... Oh, the skylight doesn't seem to work with RTX ray tracing on interiors now..." And so it goes. So no piece of software is perfect, we learn to live with and work around most of the bugs and quirks. My sincerest hope is that Maxwell will endure for many years to come.... Maxwell must endure! Just don't sell out to Autodesk...

Because my business is a business, no matter how much I love what I do, cash flow and getting enough work in is a reality most of us have to face. At the moment, using Maxwell with SketchUp enables me to turnaround projects as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately I don't get the luxury to spend a month, or 2 months solid on a single project fine tuning materials and models to the nth degree to create absolute stunning visuals, but Maxwell currently gets the job done for me and has often led to clients ordering extra visuals.

Apart from the let down that has been the GPU engine, my one big problem at the moment with Maxwell is that the SketchUp plugin for 2021 has taken so long. I am fast approaching having to get a subscription, but if I was already on subscription, a quarter of that subscription year would have meant me having to use the previous version of SketchUp. I get that Covid has caused issues and I get that waiting for the 5.2 update is probably more economical and that would have been fine if everything had been released shortly before, or after new year. Waiting 3 months for a plugin update is a bit too long to be honest. So I am glad to hear that it will be released this week...? Or maybe next week?
User avatar
By Mark Bell
#400513
We upgraded from v3 to v5 and have noticed improvements with speed and stability (CPU) - the voxelisation time appears the same but the renders are quicker and we're running 5-6 year old Lenovo workstations doing exterior and interior renders of projects we design. Apart from the very realistic images that Maxwell creates, which is what attracted us to buying it, it's so easy to use compared to 'traditional' renderers, plus there's the added benefit of being able to play around with the image at the end without having to re-render all over again. Another plus is Maxwell's ability to save a render then resume it another time. This allows us to get a render going on a machine then continue working on another machine on some other task or project. If the render hasn't finished or isn't of a high enough quality at the end of the day we can either leave that machine rendering through the night, or save it and resume it the next day, all without impacting our workflow. This is a really good feature and I think it's under used judging by various posts. It's not in our interests to sit watching every pixel materialise as we have other work to get on with. Maxwell helps us win projects and the ease of use and seeing what it can do based on images other people have posted continues to inspire us to stay with it. FIX Studio in France have done some amazing videos using Maxwell - https://www.adforum.com/talent/6334-bru ... k/34521070

We did trial UE4 last year, more out of curiosity, but what a difference! Admittedly it does more but the learning curve and complexity are through the roof and the image quality shown on various posts seemed all over the place, some really good, many average and not worth the effort. The market has matured since Maxwell was top of the tree with many more competitors out there. An improvement for the Maxwell team would be to finish things off. Simple things like creating an animation isn't really available in Maxwell which outputs the individual image files then requires the user to go and search for another software that stitches them together into a sequence. Most other software we're aware of creates an MP4 or other optional format and it would be good if Maxwell could do this too. Adding a number of pre-set camera splines that you drag and drop, tweak the shape and then render to animation would also be welcomed. Another item we'd like improving is the shadow catcher on imported photos. We need to super impose the rendered model onto the photo and have the photo cast the right shadows. We tried the Altassian help page but couldn't get it to work so adding a tutorial or improving how it works would also be appreciated.

I'd say most offices are time poor and fees are always competitive so minimising the number of software to a minimum is preferred and I think there's scope to finesse various existing features whilst developing CPU/GPU/speed enhancements, in whatever form that takes.
By Andreas Hopf
#400514
"the learning curve and complexity are through the roof"

Late last year, I evaluated Studio V5.1.1.33 from an industrial/product/FMCG packaging designer's point of view (different requirements from "Archviz", a market I have no knowledge of) and posted a list of UI glitches, missing features that would be good to have, and bugs.

I found that with Studio V5 one can get from Catia/Alias/Creo/SolidWorks/Fusion 360 data to a very good standard analytical on-white image in around 15 minutes (import, organising, arranging scene, assign materials, some FIRE to check), and the minimal user interface without "node spaghetti" or an excruciating list of parameters like in Blender, as well as the easy to understand camera paradigm, is easy on the novice. I use it a lot in design education for that reason.

Compared to what one must spend for Keyshot, the price of Studio is fair, another benefit of Studio being that it is 3D software agnostic, a huge benefit in the multi-software environments I looked at. There should be a $99 version that students can buy.
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400515
well to put things short I believe (after 15 years of maxwell more or less) is that the only drawback remains slow rendering speed. no matter what. everything else is fixable, ppl can get help in the forums, newbs can watch a youtube tutorial... but speed is always the only thing you can't bypass. I recall getting help in here where ppl rendered sessions of a scene I couldn't finish rendering on deadline. all other stuff is like 10% impact on my workflow. speed always the final frontier. make it faster and clients will come again. keep it slow (or GPU with all sorts of limitation that actually means CPU and slow), we are the last users of a once upon a time, best render engine.
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400516
choo-chee wrote:well to put things short I believe (after 15 years of maxwell more or less) is that the only drawback remains slow rendering speed. no matter what. everything else is fixable, ppl can get help in the forums, newbs can watch a youtube tutorial... but speed is always the only thing you can't bypass. I recall getting help in here where ppl rendered sessions of a scene I couldn't finish rendering on deadline. all other stuff is like 10% impact on my workflow. speed always the final frontier. make it faster and clients will come again. keep it slow (or GPU with all sorts of limitation that actually means CPU and slow), we are the last users of a once upon a time, best render engine.
Andreas Hopf wrote:"the learning curve and complexity are through the roof"

Late last year, I evaluated Studio V5.1.1.33 from an industrial/product/FMCG packaging designer's point of view (different requirements from "Archviz", a market I have no knowledge of) and posted a list of UI glitches, missing features that would be good to have, and bugs.

I found that with Studio V5 one can get from Catia/Alias/Creo/SolidWorks/Fusion 360 data to a very good standard analytical on-white image in around 15 minutes (import, organising, arranging scene, assign materials, some FIRE to check), and the minimal user interface without "node spaghetti" or an excruciating list of parameters like in Blender, as well as the easy to understand camera paradigm, is easy on the novice. I use it a lot in design education for that reason.

Compared to what one must spend for Keyshot, the price of Studio is fair, another benefit of Studio being that it is 3D software agnostic, a huge benefit in the multi-software environments I looked at. There should be a $99 version that students can buy.

Both of you are right.

Andreas Hopf said something i completely agree.

Maxwell Studio is the core Business of this Software.
1) I just use the Archicad Plugin to have a 100% working exported file.
2) I use the fire preview in Archicad just to have a preview of the project before starting the final work in Studio.
i spent 90% of my working time using Maxwell Studio.

3) i Completely hate the Node-spaghetti way some rendering software use to link the shaders. ( lol you got the point here :mrgreen: )

Choo-chee said another truth

Speed is the main problem. But not only computationally speaking. But all the user experience with Studio could be improved drastically with some tuning from Devs.

- GPU performance could be more likely Octane Render, with a near to Real time rendering preview for Maxwell Fire. ( Lumion High quality preview for example)
- A more intense and quality wise output when rendering a still image trough Maxwell Render.
- CPU performance need a huge improvement. A 3990x or 3970x in other rendering software give back better performance.

List of Things that could improve any kind of Workflow :
Some of them could be added soon and fast without any problem.

1) Complete Shaders collection downloadable in one click for local rendering always ready to use even locally.
( With possibility to SYNC and automatically download new shaders based upon preferences)

2) Upgrade Shaders Library with new fast and well optimized Shaders, compatible with V5 ( you could think about a collaboration with Evermotion)

3) Add a complete list of high definition items ready to use within Maxwell Render ( you could start a collaboration with Evermotion too.)

4) Drag and drop Shaders with auto compiled UV channel.

5) Improved stability when changing Shaders on the fly while using Maxwell Fire.

6) Add basic modelling tools ( Box modeling - Polygon modeling )

7) Like in Artlantis Studio, add the possibility to apply different Shaders to the same object (especially when imported as a single entity)
by Triangles / Planes / Parallel / Mesh /Material / and even Magic Wand selection, for intelligent selection of different parts of the same object. Usefull when importing .OBJ files or something to complex to organize with a Triangle selection.

8) Add a friendly user UI to change easy and fast with a slider ( for each shaders) :
- Roughness modifier
- Reflection
- Color changer
- Bump modifier
- Texture Position Box
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400518
still I think that only speed and price matter now. let me give you an example: with maxwell 1, I used to have grass textured then photoshopped a bit. when displacement arrived, used it for grass. than I made some maya brushes grass and converted it to poly so I can use it with maxwell. than with shave and haircut. and finally I have maxwell grass which is the best. however I could get a decent result with all those methods, for the good or worse. but speed always remains an issue beyond my capabilities.
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400521
Price for sure matter a loot.

Speed is the core improvement Maxwell Render need to achieve fast. Professionals don’t have 2 months to make a perfect render.
Usually I’ve less then a week for a commission to realize the project in archicad and realize 10/15 render.

But let’s imagine having a full ready to use library to use with Maxwell.
A full downloadable shaders pack with sync option
A list of pre-set interior scene like the ones you find on Evermotion.

Maxwell would attract many new customers who don’t have time to create new material, spend time importing furniture, or create new scene for close up renders.

A ready to use software for time saving but still great quality output :mrgreen:
User avatar
By Nasok
#400583
Guys .. for sure each one of us has it's own vision of how Maxwell team should do their job and what Maxwell should be capable of. It is absolutely normal to have things you like and things that you think should work / look differently .. in fact it is really great that everyone expresses their excitement and concerns here - it just means that you guys do give a f@ck about Maxwell. And that is very important.

All I wanted to say is that come one people - share a little love. Maxwell is incredible piece of software, capable of doing things that other software will never will be able to achieve. It was 10 years ago and it is now.

Maxwell was never intended for everyone and for every task. None of the other engine are. In fact that's the core principle of every high level tool. It is specialised to do what it was designed for and it does it the best possible way.

Btw, funny how you guys mentioned that you want it faster and cheaper but don't want it to be Node-based - as re-writing the core to be node based is probably the only way to make it run faster and make further development easier (which will eventually affect the final price) ... sooo ..um just saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh and just so that we fully transparent - Maxwell is one of those few left who is still selling their digital products with permanent license. Instead of subscription.

I guess my point is that it is very easy to get swamped with all the negative thoughts and feelings and be sad at the software because it doesn't do what you want it to do or because it requires those few extra steps in order to deliver Maxwell's famous quality. It is not developer's fault that your goals changed, that your workflow changed, that your industry changed, that you changed. I believe Maxwell is one of those who stand true to their legacy and their beliefs of making ultra complex things extremely simple for us artists.
With Maxwell we have a luxury to afford ourselves to stay artists rather than becoming a programmers or tech dudes in order to express our vision digitally.

I've mentioned it many times before, and every time I have this conversations about Maxwell or other software - I always say that it is absolutely fine to have different tools for different tasks. Not every 3D project can benefit from being made with Maxwell.


P.S. - oh and I dunno guys, speed ? Can't say that it is thaaaaat much slower. Try bumping up bounces and samples in Arnie (for example) to get that realistic colour occlusion and complex refraction (which comes in Maxwell by default) and you'll be surprised how Maxwell suddenly is not that slow anymore. If you're having hard time using Maxwell in your project - there is a high chance that you're either using it wrong or you should use something else instead.

Cheers, ❤️
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