Maxwell Render | Official public forum

http://sketchupdate.blogspot.de/2012/04 ... tchup.html

i hope this is good news... not sure about it


http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtop ... 15&t=44881

they should rename it "Hot Potatoe"

rusteberg wrote:they should rename it "Hot Potatoe"

As a result of this change I'm more seriously looking into another Maxwell supported modeling application, just to cover my bets... right now I have short-listed a few front runners, but I am open to suggestions/recommendations.

Best,
Jason.

take a look at "bonzai3d" and the soon outcoming "formz7"

Definitely agree if you are looking for a alternate to SketchUp—Maxwell check out Bonzai or FormZ7 (in beta now).

Gary

As a long time Form-Z user I have to tell you, Blender works with Maxwell so much better than form-z works with Maxwell, mainly with scene export. At least with Form-Z 6. Jason, I highly recommend you take a serious look at Blender. The Maxwell Render add-on works so efficiently with Blender. It is still in Development but it works great. Complex scenes export so fast 20 times faster than from Form-Z. The add-on currently is for Blender 2.62.

Form-Z is still in my work flow. Another major difference as to why I really like Blender is that it can handle huge!! poly scenes with a minimal video card. I have a large plant library. Some are very high ploy. One tree makes it hard to navigate in Form-Z I can have hundreds of the same poly tree in Blender and navigate like a hot knife cutting butter. Plus Blender has particles systems, compositing and subD modeling. It is the best!

You can follow the plug-in development here....

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthr ... nder/page4

Thank-you for the recommendations. I have already taken a very hard look at bonzai3d and I am currently testing the beta version of formZ 7.

Blender is unfortunately not an option for me.

Best,
Jason.

Hi Jason,

Would you mind if I ask you what kind of features are you looking for your 3d app?. You said that Blender is not an option to you, does it mean that you need a NURB modeler and none of the 3d mesh app are convenient for the kind of work you do?.

I've been using Rhino for quite a long time and also have tested a few times Bonzai3d and Formz 7, but I always came back to Rhino for that kind of work. The new user interface for Bonzai3d and FormZ are nice, and I understand that for someone coming from SketchUp this is a plus, but my experience with Bonzai and FormZ is that they play nice with simple and small projects but for complex ones is not so good.

Also its maxwell plugin is way way poor than JD's for Rhino (which is one of the best IMO). So, if you are looking for precise and robust modeler I would recommend you to take a look at Rhino.

Hope that makes sense to you, Jason.

Have a nice day,

josé

Hi Jose,

Thank-you very much for the input -- yes, Nurbs are very much a facet of 3D modeling that I have been wanting to expand into for quite some time... SketchUp had a few plugins that mimicked this, but it was not really the same.

From that POV Rhino was very near the top of my short list -- but actually the software I really wanted to make my primary app is MOI. The obvious problem with MOI is the lack of a Maxwell plugin, which is an absolute deal-breaker for me.

What I like about form.Z 7 (the open beta) so far is not only does the interface have a very "SketchUp" feel to it (built on bonzai3d basically), but it has pretty much every feature I want, all in one place. Coming from JD's SketchUp plugin, which is absolutely excellent, may be a bit of a let-down -- but this is hard to say since there is no plugin currently for form.Z 7.

I am able to work within the limits of software's, after all I would not have been able to get so far with SketchUp had I not been able to adjust -- and this is part of the reason why Maxwell Studio is a very valuable asset to me.

Another aspect of form.Z 7 that appeals to me is the new presentation/layout features -- which are very reminiscent of the Layout component of SketchUp Pro, which I would definitely miss... but obviously this has very little to do with Maxwell.

Best,
Jason.