[zman]

[zman]

Thanks Burginger,

I am pretty handy at Artlantis Studio which does a very good job and is easy to use and fast... however there is a fascination with using a more scientific approach. I also use 3D studio, but if I am going to put that much work into a rendering I prefer to go all the way with Maxwell as the renderer.

As an architect I am of course concerned with light ("what slice of light does your building capture?" kahn?). This is a model of my apartment and my personal project is to model it accurately and set up the correct lighting, and then compare renderings to actual photos for lighting quality.

Despite long rendering times and lots of noise (to me looks like grainy photos from using the wrong ASA film) I like the results and so far they are convincing to me for how I have actually experienced the space. If I were a lighting designer I think I would be very excited at this point in softwware/hardware technology. I played with the multi-light yesterday and I will post the results in a little while to show how I experience the space through lighting.

As for materials, they are a mixture of ArchiCad and Maxwell materials. I think Maxwell converts the ArchiCad materials as part of the translation process to approximate the correct physical properties, however I did choose some Maxwell materials (glass) as they looked better in comparison. Also I downloaded a bamboo floor similar to what I have in the apartment from the .mxm site, but I found it was better to use the material wizard and re-create the texture to match my floor, which is a little glossier (takes only a minute or two to make a texture if you have good bitmaps).

I hope you like the multi light post - watch for it. Also please post some of your experiments. I have seen some great architectural renderings in other maxwell forums and with a little practice I hope to do the same!

Regards,
Albert