Maxwell Render | Official public forum

I'm usually pretty hard to impress when it comes to software, but I just downloaded the Bunkspeed trial software, and I'm absolutely amazed by this thing. The attached images are screen captures that I took as I simply rotated the model around. These are 100% realtime, on a single dual-core AMD processor, with Bunkspeed materials and default HDRI's. Material changes update within 5 seconds, and color scheme changes are almost immediate, which is huge for industrial designers!!

Now, Maxwell will still be a part of my workflow, but for realtime visualization, I had no idea this kind of software was out there. Plus it's relatively cheap! Extremely cool

Dilbert ..... I'm curious about the HDR backgrounds, ..... do they have pre-sets that are already aligned with the ground plane ? ...or how does that work? ie, ... having the car perfectly sitting on the ground?

thx.

How does this work with arch vis?

ivox3 wrote:Dilbert ..... I'm curious about the HDR backgrounds, ..... do they have pre-sets that are already aligned with the ground plane ? ...or how does that work? ie, ... having the car perfectly sitting on the ground?

thx.

Yeah, it's kinda spooky magic. How they do it, I don't know. Basically, you have independent control over the HDRI environment, and the HDRI backdrop. I just imported my car (in Rhino format as it will open a Rhino file), chose a HDRI environment and a backdrop, and just started adding default materials, and that's the result I got. No rendering, no messing with light settings, just pure realtime on screen visualization. When you rotate the model, there always seems to be an angle that looks perfect against the backdrop, and the shadows rotate with the model.

Given, it's nowhere near as good as a full Maxwell render, but that's not the point. I can show a client a screen capture, make adjustments on the materials and color schemes immediately, get final approval for the product, and end with a full render (if they even need it as a screen capture of this quality would satisfy some of my clients). Right now, I spend hours in the revision process because the clients always want some small thing changed that ruins the render in Maxwell. I can't tell you how many times I've had to rerender a scene in Maxwell simply because the client decided that "I don't like pink anymore, can you make it yellow".

Thanks Dilbert ...... I figured it was all 'pre' worked out, ... somehow. And, ..yeah, .. I understand its type of use, .. just another useful tool in the ever expanding toolset.

Thanks for the explanation.

Hyperballad wrote:How does this work with arch vis?

I'm not sure, but Bunkspeed will open native Solidworks and Rhino files, and also IGES, STEP, OBJ, etc. There's bound to be a format that Arch Vis will be able to export to.

How deep are the materials? ...do they tend to be mostly reflective types?

....also curious about that.

ivox3 wrote:How deep are the materials? ...do they tend to be mostly reflective types?

....also curious about that.

Coming from having used Mental Ray for 5 years, I can tell that they are built on the same principle as that software. There is a standard material library (which I used for this car) which has a basic selection of metals, plastics, glass, cloth, etc. each of which can be edited, and the edited material saved into the library as a new material. There is also a base material that follows the same workflow as Maya, 3DS Max, etc. where you select whether the material is a Blinn, Diffuse etc., and modify parameters such as "glossy", "roughness", transparency, color.... to get the material you need. If you've ever used Mental Ray, it's basically the same interface.

Like you said, it's another tool in the box which is ideal for industrial design. I wouldn't recommend it for a hobbyist, as Maxwell is superior in overall quality if you don't mind the wait. But for guys who have paying clients breathing down their necks, it could literally save a project from disaster when it comes to revisions and deadlines.

I have spent a good bit of time playing with Hypershot and I'll agree 100% that it is an amazing workflow and it's potential is really, really cool.

Chris hit it on the head though - materials are very limited right now. I've been on them to improve the material editing capability as *almost* all of what you need is in there, you just can't get it all in one material - which is highly frustrating. If you just need highly polished plastics/painted metals/glass etc you will likely be pretty happy. other than that you won't be.

It does not provide the level of realism that Maxwell can do - but the time savings for jobs that don't require it are astronomical - potentially.

If we could get even a very rough preview renderer working in Maxwell that would allow the same sort of workflow for lighting and material testing Maxwell would be unstoppable

Last thing: cost is not so cheap unless you only need very lo-res renders. If you want full rendering capacity the current price tag is in the range of 10K. Yep, 10K.

b

Agreed, I think it needs to go through another 6 months of development until it's truly usable for every job. I disagree with you on the price though. The price you quoted is for the pro rendering version. If you just want realtime screen capture ability up to 1920x1080, then the $1000 HD version will do fine. That means you can show your client realtime changes on a 24 inch monitor at full resolution. Screen captures would serve as renders. Why pay for the full rendering version when you have Maxwell for a final render for print production

Why pay for the full rendering version when you have Maxwell for a final render for print production Wink

Depends on your needs and the type of work you generally do - but I take your point.

b

How long did it take for them to return your license file?

Still waiting after a couple of hours.

Maybe I'm a little impatient.

It can be slow - I think they are more than a little busy these days.
b

does it mention how good it will work on a +4M. polygon architectural modes?

from what I saw, they were single like objects being showcase

The issue isn't really polygon count (I had a 4million poly object in there and it worked very well - but more than that crashed it out) but rather lighting. Whatever you stick in there needs to be lit pretty much exclusively by the environment. That means interiors could be trouble as it's hard to get enough light through windows etc. If you can hide walls etc and cheat you will be okay I think, and for exteriors you have no probs at all.

Not 100% on that though - I didn't try room sets as I don't have any to play with.

b