[Steven Houtzager]

Hey I was wondering what people are doing to speed up Maxwell? I know that, in other packages, people are using HDRI images to light up scenes. If you have a high end graphics card, then you can see some real time renderings. I tried that in Maxwell and it does not speed it up.

> I know of the pluggin for Photoshop that takes some grains out.

> I use the sky dome setting by itself to speed it up "without" any emitters.

SH

[Bubbaloo]

Well, what I have done is bought a dual quad core computer. I'm eyeing the new i7's now, though.

Maxwell needs brute processor strength.

[Steven Houtzager]

That is the truth. I have a 4 core intel mac so it is no slouch.

SH

[Fernando Tella]

Don't use coatings, don't use sss and don't use refractive materials if you can. You can get a fast convincing glass using a mirror like layer (weighted quite low) plus a ghost one.
Don't illuminate the scene through dielectrics. Use low poly emitters; if you are doing interior renders try not to use physical sky to illuminate through windows; emitters should work better,...

[Bubbaloo]

One thing I have noticed is that the higher resolution you can render, the better the image quality/noise ratio is. My final renders are always at least 5000 px and sometimes up to 15k.