Everything related to Maxwell Render and General Stuff that doesn't fit in other categories
User avatar
By Tea_Bag
#400690
I am really impressed with Maxwell V5 and all the updates. I haven't used Maxwell Render since the disappointing launch of V4 giving me time to try out other render engines and I have to say that Maxwell is still unmatched in quality and the ease of use.

Recently I upgraded my system and started playing with V5. The one feature that really stands out is the Integration of Substance file format (.sbsar) :o - I dont use Substance painter at the moment so being able to buy some really good .sbsar materials and use them in Maxwell is just another level of getting great looking high res materials into Maxwell with no effort at all and being able to tweak the substance material parameters within the material editor to create a different variation is just fantastic :!: :shock:

Here is some screengrabs on a free material I tried:

Image

Image
As for the GPU Engine I haven't used that part of Maxwell Render V5 much as my Graphics card is only a 970 GTX. I cannot get hold of the 30 series RTX cards for my system so GPU can wait until that day comes :D - So I cannot comment on it but I am glad to see that the gap between the CPU and GPU engine is getting smaller. Maybe Maxwell V6 will give us a fully featured GPU Engine? We will have to see.

Using the CPU for rendering in V5 feels alot better than previous versions. We did lose some plugins along the way which is unfortunate and as for speed well technology is helping us overcome that hurdle and I dont think you can entirely say Maxwell Render is slow for the accuracy it provides. The denosier, cloud rendering and render farms help to complete a project when speed is required.

So a BIG thank you to the Next Limit Team for their hard work shaping V5 it is impressive and if v5.2 is the last update to this series I am looking forward to seeing what V6 has to offer :D

Maxwell Render has come a loooong way since V4!! :D :wink:
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400691
Tea_Bag wrote:So a BIG thank you to the Next Limit Team for their hard work shaping V5 it is impressive and if v5.2 is the last update to this series I am looking forward to seeing what V6 has to offer :D

Maxwell Render has come a loooong way since V4!! :D :wink:
If they release a V6 without releasing within V5 what was planned initially for V4, many will leave this software.

They’ve a loot to finish and release before ne next major release.
User avatar
By Tea_Bag
#400692
Hi Matteo,

Yes I am hoping that we will see a few more updates in the version 5 series - The development cycle is roughly ever 3 years for a Major release so V5 does have some mileage in it to get some or if not all of the features supported in the GPU Engine but it will all depend on development speed and what is possible due to the complexity of Maxwell's Physically Correct Engine where some features might have to be implemented before others causing delays as we have seen with Additive layers & Coatings.

Here is a table summarizing the features currently supported or not supported in the GPU engine:

Image
Maybe Hybrid rendering in V6 then :D
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400693
from my (somewhat narrow) point of view I can tell that the only difference since V.3 is the denoiser that by now is less powerful than solutions like TOPAZ. the V.5 demo I tested hardly uses the GPU the way it's suppose to according to the NL site (X25 ?? hardly X1.2 ...) and since I'm not using the cloud or substance, I actually work the same as I worked with V.3 .... I hope the only problem with the GPU - for me at least - is some sort of driver or cuda version issue as I'd really like to have to option to upgrade to a X25 faster Maxwell !!
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400696
btw "Hybrid rendering" can be achieved now with the simple way of rendering a CPU session and a GPU session in the same time, same resolution, same channels... then they can be merged right ? cawanga, Hybrid rendering :lol:
User avatar
By CDRDA
#400697
Tea_Bag wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:54 pm
Hi Matteo,

Yes I am hoping that we will see a few more updates in the version 5 series - The development cycle is roughly ever 3 years for a Major release so V5 does have some mileage in it to get some or if not all of the features supported in the GPU Engine but it will all depend on development speed and what is possible due to the complexity of Maxwell's Physically Correct Engine where some features might have to be implemented before others causing delays as we have seen with Additive layers & Coatings.

Maybe Hybrid rendering in V6 then :D
There are a few things on that list of unsupported features that are of real importance from an Arch Viz workflow perspective. No. 1 is Subsurface Scattering. All my trees, plants and flower models use SSS. It is also vital that Shadow Channels and the exclude from GI/Reflections etc are also implemented. At the moment, rendering a ground plane with a matte material doesn't work with the GPU for example. The speed of the GPU renderings are very impressive when it doesn't run out of memory and I try to use it as much as I can for lower res draft visuals. As I am finding out with UE4, one has to be very conservative with those 8K textures!

The additions in 5.2 are very welcome and hopefully the Maxwell Team can implement new features as soon as possible. There was some discussion here about out of core/hybrid rendering a few weeks ago and anything that can be done to optimise memory usage and that doesn't require a complete re-write of the GPU engine would be most welcome.

Other GPU engines also suffer from memory issues too of course. Plenty of forum comments of various other GPU renderers, of people reverting back to a CPU based version to render final /large scenes for example, so it is far from a Maxwell specific thing. Of course if we all had the cash to buy a high-top end Quadro card, then life would probably be easier...
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400699
From what Fernando ( Maxwell team ) said in a thread about any kind of Hybrid rendering solution, they’ve excluded any kind of GPU + CPU system. ( like happen for example in Thea Render).


What could be done to don’t rewrite completely the core system of MAXWELL RENDER, is using network Node rendering using both CPU and GPU.

But before doing something like that, where multiple renders are merged together, both CPU and GPU must have the same features supported.

Actually the GPU environment miss a loot of them.

Secondly, to be competitive, under my point of view, they need to integrate all the software ( Maxwell Render / Studio / Nodes / manager ) inside Studio.

Pluss the Nodes licensing is a bit confusing.

With V2 I bought Studio

With V3 I upgraded Studio + 10 nodes

With V4 I upgraded Studio keeping 10 nodes

With V5 I upgraded Studio but had the nodes reduced to 6 :?

So in fact I can’t use all my 10 workstation for node rendering together :mrgreen:

Said that, if they will integrate a sort of NODE RENDERING where CPU and GPU cooperate, I hope they will consider the workstation as the same NODE, and not each single GPU as a node, or at last consider a limit of 4 GPU for each workstation.

But before doing something like that, MAXWELL RENDER team have only one thing to do:

Copy what Lumion and Twinmotion is doing right now.

Increase exponentially SHADERS and Assets ( object/ scene/ ready to use stuff) to make The final user dependents of Maxwell Studio.

More time you spend inside a software, more time you will become familiar within this ecosystem.
More you will prioritize using it instead other platform.

When the final user have a loot of juicy ready to use stuff, then Developers would have more time to focus over the core system of the software.

And Comunicate more within the community especially on the forum where the core clients of this software write and share their knowledge. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
User avatar
By Mark Bell
#400700
Matteo wrote:
But before doing something like that, MAXWELL RENDER team have only one thing to do:

Copy what Lumion and Twinmotion is doing right now.

Increase exponentially SHADERS and Assets ( object/ scene/ ready to use stuff) to make The final user dependents of Maxwell Studio.

More time you spend inside a software, more time you will become familiar within this ecosystem.
More you will prioritize using it instead other platform.


Spot on! - there's scope to expand on Maxwell's rendering/lighting analysis and include ready-to-use-assets and other time saving features that will cut the overall output time down so there's less focus on just render time.
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400701
That’s what I’m constantly saying.

They can just add ready to use assets/high quality shaders to improve our workflow.

The time you can’t ( actually ) save while rendering, you will save before setting up the scene/project.

Plus it’s a perfect way to increase the value of their software.

It’s something they can do in less then a week.
User avatar
By Max
#400703
Matteo Villa wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:49 pm
That’s what I’m constantly saying.

They can just add ready to use assets/high quality shaders to improve our workflow.

The time you can’t ( actually ) save while rendering, you will save before setting up the scene/project.

Plus it’s a perfect way to increase the value of their software.

It’s something they can do in less then a week.
frankly i dont think they have the manpower to do that. Else it is completely and very strange they havent done it so far.
User avatar
By Mark Bell
#400704
Max wrote:

frankly i dont think they have the manpower to do that. Else it is completely and very strange they havent done it so far.
[/quote]

I think what's being said here is to create a type of public shareware for assets and materials hosted by NL similar to the materials library where users currently download NL materials as well as what materials have been uploaded by various users. Perhaps something along similar lines allowing other users to share what they have in exchange for something already uploaded? You need to upload something in order to download something in exchange?? I agree, to create a database of render-ready assets covering interior, exterior, people and landscaping is a big task and that's maybe where community input might bridge the gap?
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400706
The first problem I feel now, like in the past, communication between Maxwell team and customers on the forum is almost non-existent.
Having a weekly reports from devs would be nice. :mrgreen:



The problem with assets/objects/items uploaded by users is :

1) you don’t know if they’re license free
2) created by someone else, under copyright
3) 100% compatible with Maxwell Studio.
Some object seen by Studio as a single entity are a pain in the ass to texture :roll:

So the solution for Nextlimit and Maxwell Render team would be easier start a collaboration with groups like EVERMOTION, MEGASCANS etc etc.

And integrate their assets inside Maxwell.




For the Shaders the solution is easier.

1) like many old customers I’ve over 10GB of shaders from V1 and V2.
Some of them work well and faster even with the 5.2 version.
Uploading them would contribute for the whole Maxwell Community ( free of charge ) and there isn’t any kind of copyright infringement.

2) considering the recent compatibility between Substance Paint/Designer with Maxwell Render:
- just the free shaders alone could contribute to increase the Maxwell Render library.
- any kind of shaders created with SUbP and SubD can be freely shared.
User avatar
By choo-chee
#400709
They already have tons of assets that are used in their "Roombox" app.
As much as I want more speed (but since hardware improves...) I'd also like to have perfect trees, plants, cars etc. for my work (that can be placed in a scene like other MXS references) instead of getting those almost always with bad materials suited for other engines, esp. as I don't see any major speed improvement in the GPU rendering of the latest version (tried the demo with a new RTX 3060 card, instead of much faster all I got was about X1.2 speed over the CPU...)
User avatar
By Matteo Villa
#400710
Abvent have done the same.

- Created Twinmotion to compete with Lumion
- left a small % of financial resources to improve Artlantis
- people left Artlantis for other software
- Twinmotion has been sold

- now Artlantis is behind years of development and loosing market share, customers and their improvement is nearly to Zero.

Many people complaint on their forum too.

Abvent is trying to take back a niche, good luck to them :mrgreen:


Maxwell Render, quality wise is far better then Artlantis , Twinmotion and Lumion for interior design. The Engine behind Maxwell can produce far more realistic images.

Another thing that save Maxwell is product design.

But for outdoor rendering, big outdoor architecture, natural environment Lumion is years ahead.

Lumion Team know their engine isn’t the best for interior design, so improved the usability and ready to use experience to attract customers that need a faster workload.

If Nextlimit is focusing their financial resource on Roombox, I feel Maxwell Render could loose more customers on the long run.

Hope Nextlimit will not make the same errors done by Abvent.
By Andreas Hopf
#400711
"Another thing that save Maxwell is product design"

Well... no. Despite a very high price, far clumsier workflow, a dreadful spaghetti "node system" and lower rendering quality, product/industrial/packaging design is mostly Keyshot at the moment. Key reason is wealth of preset materials, wealth of YouTube tutorials and a busy forum.

"Roombox"

Lol. Is anyone actually using that thing?
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