[fuso]

Nobody forces you to drive a Ferrari if you think it's drinking too much Gaz...

Didn't expect a comment quite like this from you Hervé. Also I think my point is still missed by far, so I give in. The last
thing I want is to kick lose an avalanche of criticism here. All I wanted, is to share a couple of thoughts and vent out
that hint of frustration. Let's just wait and see what 2.0 is gonna be like and how it will perform...

@ tokiop and Kami: Thanks for your replies, you seem to be the only ones so far who understood my point and share
my attitude, I can certainly identify with what you said. Cheers for that guys!

[Hervé]

don't worry.. it is not criticism... it's just a fact... I mean quality takes time.. on all aspects... from the user as well as from the render app... that's all.. nothing more nothing less..

also.. don't think your comments are forgotten... NL reads every line of this entire forum.. including wish lists...

Maxwell is special... Maxwell is a VERY complex piece of software... this is why it might take a little more time than other rendering apps... besides.. Next Limit does not have the money other big guys have like Adobe or Autodesk...

... But if I read between your lines... I can see you love Maxwell.. and like you say.. otherwise you would not even bother posting... am I right Fuso..?

Fuso... you will LOVE Maxwell 2... trust me on that !

[fuso]

... But if I read between your lines... I can see you love Maxwell.. and like you say.. otherwise you
would not even bother posting... am I right Fuso..? Fuso... you will LOVE Maxwell 2... trust me on that !

Hervé, yes you're right, and also you got me right at the end. I wish more people had the ability to read between lines
and notice my totally unbiased love for Maxwell. And I still believe Mawell's future is bright! Ok then, I will tame my
impatience now and take your word for it. Now, I'll get on with my work and send off some renders...

[numerobis]

...
I chose Maxwell because of it's approach so close to reality and because it just created the best images. All this is still true!
I chose it, even though it creates a lot of following costs (for hardware especially) and I certainly do not mind if it gets faster, but the speed is not the reason I bought it.

But there is still a lot to be achieved. A professional software should be STABLE and USER-FRIENDLY. ...
...
But there are so many little things that are still bothering me. A few examples:
- sun through glass !!!
- intersecting blocks !!!!!!!!!!!!
- caustics behind glass (or water)
- no hdri's with sharp shadows
- weird bump mapping
...
- no clear error message when crashing
...
- displacement and sss not really usable doing archviz

I know, a lot of that will be fixed in 2.0, but it's really disappointing that I'll have to pay a lot of money for a new version, even if the other version is not stable and has a lot of missing featuers.

Enough rant ... I still use and love maxwell, but sometimes I got the feeling that all those useful things posted in the wish list and bugs section never get fixed, which is a shame, because all those users you got here on this news board would give a very good feedback.

cheers, kami

+1

and as said before bumpmapping was working very good in alpha/beta stage - one point of maxwell that impressed me much 4 years ago... don't know why this quality is gone now. and now we have to pay again for this new feature...

[fuso]

and as said before bumpmapping was working very good in alpha/beta stage - one point of maxwell that impressed me
much 4 years ago... don't know why this quality is gone now. and now we have to pay again for this new feature...

Gosh, there's the avalanche I was so worried about! On the other hand, it's a fair point and I have to agree with
numerobis. BUT I guess re-writing and re-configuring a new version brings up new problems and side-effects.
Pandora's box!!

[brodie_geers]

I'm very excited about the improvements!

I can understand what was commented on before regarding the color change but I, for one, am looking forward to it. I very often, have to up the saturation in post-production as there seems to be a "film" washing out my colors. I assumed I was doing something incorrect until I saw the same "film" in the 1.7 version of the color update announcement.

The HDR shadows are a terrific fix as well! I wonder, then, if there will be some 'in between' that can be reached? As in, slightly softer shadows, rather than either too washed out or too crisp.

And of course the improved bump and normal is going to be fantastic! It's quite a statement to compare normal and discplacement, so I'm confident that it's a huge improvement and the example image seems to back that up. I'd chalk that up to another speed improvement since now I won't have to use discplacement where I otherwise would have needed to just to get some proper shadows and shading.

A lot of people seem disappointed that the announcements seem to be amounting to fixes that probably should have been added to 1.x before going to 2.0. I can understand that. That doesn't stop me from being quite excited about the new updates though. I'm not the one who will be picking up the bill for 2.0 though, so I'm a bit biased on that end.

My hope though is that there are still a few very "new" features that are on their way. As I see it, with a series of announcements like this, you'll get complaints either way. If you lead with the big new features people would say, "hey that's great that now you can [for example] swap out materials, but what about the simple stuff like bump maps?" And if you start w/ the basics like speed, quality, bump, etc. people will complain that there are no new features.

-Brodie

[fuso]

@ brodie_geers: I couldn't agree more and I second what you wrote, although I have to say that increasing the
saturation is not an issue I'd be worried about too much. There will always be a certain amount of postproduction
when you're aiming for a photorealistic visualisation. But how about having to render an extensive architectural scene
twice (with and without 'windows') in order to get the sun casting a proper shadow through glass? I strongly believe
that this should have been fixed a long, long time ago. (and waiting another day for the image to clear up is no fix
if you ask me)

As for the HDR shadows I would expect them to 'biased' as everything else. An HDR image with few crisp clouds and a
clearly defined sun should cast relatively sharp shadows as we know them from the physical sky. The shadows cast by
an overcast and cloudy HDR should be rather soft. I hope this doesn't trigger another 'avalanche' of questions but as
you've mentioned it, maybe we can get some feedback on that raised issue?! Pls not too many promises though...

[yolk]

i just ate a cucumber salad

[gadzooks]

i just ate a cucumber salad

.....I think i just pissed my pants!!!!!!......Can't stop laughing.

[Bubbaloo]

There will always be a certain amount of postproduction
when you're aiming for a photorealistic visualisation.

Why should that be?

[Hervé]

i just ate a cucumber salad

The right sentence would be..

Hi, my name is Yolk and I just finished eating a cucumber salad...

a real classic... I like it...

[kami]

Gosh, there's the avalanche I was so worried about!

where's the avalanche?
I sincerely hope there is no harm done, by just letting go a few thoughts I've had for a long time ...

[Maximus3D]

Hehe yolk, you have a funny way of breaking the ice here

Maybe it's best we try to chill down and let NL reveal everything first and once we've seen it all and tested the 2.0 release ourselves then we can judge it better. To claim that it will not be a good release already when we really don't know anything about it ourselves would be foolish. I wish the testers were allowed to post more examples on the forum which use the already revealed features and functions of 2.0, that would calm down many of us between the reveals and also keep the forum active and happy because now the forum dies a bit between each reveal which is too bad.

/ Max

[Hervé]

some words of wisdom from you Max...

[Mihai]

An HDR image with few crisp clouds and a
clearly defined sun should cast relatively sharp shadows as we know them from the physical sky. The shadows cast by
an overcast and cloudy HDR should be rather soft.

Yes, that's how it works in V2. If you have an HDR map which gives too sharp shadows you can blur slightly the map used for illumination to get softer shadows. But regarding HDR maps, I think it's important to realize not all HDR maps are equal in quality, far from it. By quality in this case I mean the range of data it actually contains. Easy way to find out if a map is good quality or not (enough fstops used when taking the photos to merge to HDR) is to open it in something that can read HDR images and can adjust the exposure of it. Lower the exposure to see how the brightest parts react. For example if the sun is visible it should get smaller and smaller as you lower the exposure, just as it would if you took a photo of it with very high shutterspeed/fstop. If the sun instead just quickly gets pale but stays the same size, the map isn't very good. A lot of HDR maps are surprisingly low quality in this regard, and you won't get the sharp shadows you expect from them, even if the sun or other small strong light sources are visible in the map.