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Seeing how Maxwell can be true to life, the main focus shifts towards the modeling detail. One of the main factors of a good looking and realistic render is the sharpens of geometry edges (or rather how much they aren't that sharp).

Modeling this in a big scene can be very tedious and not always necessary for wide shots. If Maxwell would have a feature that handles edges, be it via texturing methods or actual geometry manipulation will be a great addition and is the line of reality approximation.

Please share your views about this issue.

Cheers all…

I don't know......I prefer to have manual control of my bevels. Some things need a lot, some just a tiny bit. Even on one object you might want different bevel widths. It would be almost just as tedious to assign different bevel settings from materials as doing it by modeling.

For specific things you can do it your way... but why not have an option of doing it via Maxwell... remember that it will be a standalone application and I don't know how the workflow will be. Maybe having this option independent of the geometry will be a better way to handle these things… when you already left the modeling program.

Other opinions out there ? ? ?

something like f-edge perhaps

renderman has some nifty features using displacement mapping to round the edges of polys

it was used to create the webs for spiderman, we turn a flat ribbon into a tube

extremely fast rendering as well as low poly counts on the models, i would personally vote for a displacement method for beveling edges

let the shader do the work . . .

I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been a greater interest in this particular feature. For all the photorealism Maxwell is able to achieve, I think the "geometric sharpness" of many otherwize realistic models in the gallery is such a giveaway.

If possible one can bevel the geometry manually, but sometimes the models are just too complex for that. And if you're working with CAD-models from an external source, then it is likely you are totally out of luck in this regard.

Here's an example from a project I'm involved in. I had to abandon Maxwell due to the fact that I wasn't able to use the plugin F-edge. I think the model looks relatively dull and flat in Maxwell without f-edge - plus it loses some of it's definition.




Thomas

I have been wanting this for a number of 3D programs for a long time. This along with a number of micro detail elements like sub pixel bumps or sub pixel displacment.

... and the beauty of it is that it doesn't cost anything extra in rendering time.

T

This would be a nice option

Yes this would be great.. if we could chose an object automatic-bevel size in nm or mm ... as well as bump/displacement in mm/nm.. would be very useful!

great idea - gets my vote.

I'll add my vote to this one too. We want it please!

/ Max

we wants it ! WE WANTS IT ! MY PRECIOUSSSSS !

* * *

deadalvs

I also would love to see this feature! For those, who work in product-development this could be very handy. Then one could not only use Maxwell for testing different surface-finishes and materials, but also in order to try out different levels of edge-rounding. In a quick and nondestructive manner: Not all programs are able to suppress fillets/bevels. I as a Rhino-user always need different models, one which get rendered (and has fillets) and one master file which remains unfilleted for quicker model-changes. I prefered to just need one file.

Holger

Yes, I'll vote for this.