[choo-chee]

well, I have to say... I don't really think ver. 2 worth the fee NL charges. why?
1) I cannot use my older 1.71 maya scenes - they crash it most of the time. Why pay lots of dollars for a NEW version that makes you re-work all your hard collected data?
2) Too many bugs. I also get the black strips on some of my scenes ( http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 13&t=33078 ) . I've noticed that the material wizard is full of wrong paths to things that are probably the paths in NL computers so I have to re-do many materials. Some materials are wrong in the wizards (like AGS with 0 attenuation) . Lens effect are not working as good as before and I got black image a few times.
3) NOISE. Sorry guys but my oldest 1.1, 1.2 renders are cleaner - and I'm sure about that. Maybe then I didn't had disp. and good SSS but I got better-than-vray images.
4) so actually I think it would be better to get-for the same money-another engine and have more choices than an upgrade that can't run as it should.
well this is my opinion, I'm sure that a better maya plug-in and bug-free render will make a huge difference but one cannot wait an overnight render to see it's full of problems.

[Mattia Sullini]

I believe that if you would give 2.0 some chance to show what it can do, it will appear instantly clear that is far worth the expense.
Those are minor problems comparing to the evident increment in terms of pure quality.
I have completed around 10 projects with v2.0 until now and i've used v1.x daily, and from this base i can tell you that there is simply no chance that you would regret to have upgraded.
Don't let yourself get scared by the bugs, maxwell simply is the best render engine on the market. Period.

[micheloupatrick]

Maxwell 2.0 really had many bugs, but 2.0.1 corrected most of them (only one month after initial release!) and renders are definitely much better now, speed and quality-wise, compared to 1.7.1.

[choo-chee]

well I think I'd better wait for a better version of the maya plug-in (I have 2 years of scenes and objects I cannot use!) and those bugs are are rendering ver.2 almost unusable (none of my clients like black strips on his images)....

[JTB]

@choo-chee : I'm sorry MW2 is not good enough for you... I use Max and the difference is obvious...
I would still pay for the upgrade even if there were only two things new... The material system and the speed.... But you have also better bump, better SSS, IES lights etc....I can understand that these features are sometimes useful for arch rendering but you can't ignore them...
Also, the improvements to how Maxwell mats and maps appear to my 3d app viewport...

[Mihnea Balta]

1) I cannot use my older 1.71 maya scenes - they crash it most of the time. Why pay lots of dollars for a NEW version that makes you re-work all your hard collected data?

Why would you want to re-render existing scenes? I can understand reusing meshes and materials that you already have, but entire scenes? Or do you get crashes when using parts of existing scenes in new scenes?

2) Too many bugs. I also get the black strips on some of my scenes ( http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 13&t=33078 ) .

I don't have an objective measure for judging this, but I think the bugs in this version are tolerable. I could even argue that, compared to previous Maxwell releases, this one has the least number of problems, and NL has been pretty quick at addressing the reported issues.

I've noticed that the material wizard is full of wrong paths to things that are probably the paths in NL computers so I have to re-do many materials.

I suppose you mean the MXM materials in the gallery. The next version of the Maya plug-in will look for missing textures in various predefined locations, which will fix the problem.

Some materials are wrong in the wizards (like AGS with 0 attenuation) .

And why is that a bug? Which other wizards are wrong?

3) NOISE. Sorry guys but my oldest 1.1, 1.2 renders are cleaner - and I'm sure about that. Maybe then I didn't had disp. and good SSS but I got better-than-vray images.

I think this is subjective and depends on too many factors, so I won't argue here. I'll just say that a lot of people seem to find that 2.0 produces cleaner images than 1.x in the same amount of time, and they can't all be wrong.

well this is my opinion, I'm sure that a better maya plug-in and bug-free render will make a huge difference but one cannot wait an overnight render to see it's full of problems.

Not that I wrote it or anything, but I for one think the Maya plug-in is pretty good (and so are the other plug-ins). I think Maxwell's integration in Maya is at least on par with any other renderer (I would be very curious to see another publicly available Maya plug-in which has something similar to the material tree). So far, you have reported two minor issues with the plug-in on the dedicated forum. Obviously, there are a lot of things which could be added to make it better, and we are working on them, but I think it's pretty usable as it is.

As for the bug-free renderer, if you find one, go for it.

[choo-chee]

don't get me wrong. I really like MR and it took my portfolio to a higher level.
however....
1) I re-use furniture blocks, sometimes a set of lights+sofas+dining table .... and they crash ver. 2 too many times. I re-applied materials on some of my stuff and it worked so it must be a plug-in bug (and I sometimes have to re-open an old project like many of us...)
2) That is a very very bad bug. imagine rendering an image and 15% of it is plain black ! I buy a render engine upgrade to have better images not bigger problems... and I think that a released product cannot have annoyances like wrong paths - in a newer "better" wizard and library. Most of it is an engine that should be physically correct - you can't have wrong attributes in the materials wizard...
3) lots of noise - I was sure I'll get much cleaner images after watching the teasers ! but maybe that's also depends on the fact that I just tested v.2 before upgrading and had all those bugs I mentioned and couldn't get a decent image. After seeing the teasers I was sure I will need only one strong PC to get clean images
4) I used to use mental ray before maxwell, and I think the plug in is great - but the problems I mentioned prevent me from enjoying it...I don't have the time to re-do scenes again because of plug-in errors...

[choo-chee]

btw... I think the black strips bug is related to older 1.7 materials - the old scenes that don't crash ver. 2 has it a lot...(the strips)

[WillMartin]

I've gotta chime in here. All the improvements in the new Maxwell -- and the relatively tiny amount of bugs that came with all that work as Mihnea said -- and all you simply conclude is that starting a thread like this is worthwhile: "well, I have to say... I don't really think ver. 2 worth the fee NL charges, here's why." (Aaand your problems are seemingly largely stemming from using 1.7 work straight into 2.0, something that was never promised to be nonproblematic, a general thing that virtually no one every promises won't be problematic! That's why it's a version leap, right? So, not really something to slam NL over, is it?)

Might I suggest that being part of -- and having a little patience with -- the process of tackling the problems you've come across is a better approach than doing what you are here with starting a thread like this. Concerns are always addressed if not outright fixed by NL, which you should know directly from your other threads you started in this very forum, no? The great update we got within single-digit release weeks of Maxwelll 2.0 has already been mentioned... So for you to lay down this virtual attack like this,

Maybe I'm being a little overly defensive for NL here, but I don't think you're being very fair...to the degree that I'm going to say that I am very impressed with NL's work on the new Maxwell (and plug-ins), and for me the upgrad was absolutely worth every penny. It's speedy and elegant and smart and powerful, and we all know that it's just going to get even better, maybe more quickly so if we can avoid throwing stuff like this thread at NL regarding the addressing of hiccups we users might come across.

At least that's my words on this.

[choo-chee]

well as I said before I like Maxwell very much. I only want to say - maybe v. 2 isn't finished yet or something - because upgrading to a newer better product should not invoke problems like those I have. I would like to have more speed and better quality but if results are buggy than they are not worth a penny - no client will accept images with big black areas, or longer rendering periods because I have to re-do his scenes, or whatever. So I like Maxwell but not at that cost (and I mean the lost work)

[AndreD]

well as I said before I like Maxwell very much. I only want to say - maybe v. 2 isn't finished yet or something - because upgrading to a newer better product should not invoke problems like those I have. I would like to have more speed and better quality but if results are buggy than they are not worth a penny - no client will accept images with big black areas, or longer rendering periods because I have to re-do his scenes, or whatever. So I like Maxwell but not at that cost (and I mean the lost work)

if you are upgrading cinema e.g., you will lose the most of your plugins..
so, will any scene render correct at this?!..
tweaking some materials for MW2 is not that big (for me, at least)..

Let´s come to your crashing problem:
are you using phong shading with a high angle limit?

[WillMartin]

I had a 1.7 scene that always rendered fine (in 1.7 of course). I rendered it in v2 and suddenly noticed these strange, vertical drop-outs from the lights, like nothing I'd ever seen before. But I swapped the old 1.x frosted glass that was around the emitters to new (v2) frosted glass and all was fine again. Was I angry that I came across that weirdness and had to put a bit (smidgen) of time to correcting it? No, because that kind of thing is to be expected here. And if that's really the only kind of thing you need to do to get your renders going great again then I personally don't think you're really justified calling v2 unfinished or the like. This isn't a small slide up from 1.7.1 to 1.7.2 or 1.8. 100% backwards compatibilty was surely virtually impossible to implement with all the other things they were packing into v2. As I'm sure has been said, if it was a choice for v2 between full 1.7 compatibility on materials or the new stacking/layered materials, the near unaninmous vote for would have been for the latter (at the cost of the former).

Are you creating scenes from scratch for v2 and getting horrible messes of renders, or it is pretty much just using older stuff opened in v2? Because I'm cruising along with nice results personally.

Edit: I gotta take off now, so I relinquish to the helpful AndreD here.

[choo-chee]

well the main problem for me is that: I've been using maxwell for about 2 years. Many of my models are fully-textured and ready to move from one scene to another (like street objects, luminaries, sofas, tables....) and now almost everytime I import them to a new scene I start from scratch - v.2 will crash. I can't try to find the problem in each block... So for me it's better to wait a bit more and see if NL release a better maya plugin (I use maya) that will prevent those crashes and save my older objects. for example, I really like HT materials (my previous birthday gift from NL, this year I got nothing ...) but it seems they do not work good now. I also mentioned in another thread that making the user click many buttons to get to the material lib. or wizard-in maya-is bad and no one I knows applies a materials and starts to play with BSDF - you wanna select one from your lib. or create with the wizards... that's why I think that the maya plugin isn't ready yet. I must admit that getting a better viewport preview is great !

[Brett Morgan]

I would consider it unwise of anyone to expect seamless backwards compatability, for any piece of software, perhaps remove all the materials from the old scenes you want to use, or start a new MW 2.01 tested and working materials folder.

[Bubbaloo]

As for the title of this thread, I'll refer you to a great quote I once read; "A conclusion is where you end up when you're finished thinking."