[Hillmeister]

Dear NL,

Could you please give us an insight or vision on the development of plugins.
Why would you officially development a plugin for Sketchup, but why not for Blender. What would be the do's and don'ts for such a development / project?
How does NL look to the development of Vray for Blender?

The simpleness of Maxwell is what I also find in Blender, they both have a steep learning curve in common also

I don't know how to count the Blender users who want to get Maxwell for Blender, and I would really be interested to see some users-numbers.

By the messages (around the net) and reading numbers of threads it seems there's alot of attention for it.

Hope someone at NL will comment on this subject.

Cheers

[dariolanza]

Hello Hillmeister,

Basically this is the same question we responded a few months ago regarding Nildar's B-Maxwell plugin. I'm pasting here essentially the same answer I did that tame.

Plugins development is basically a matter of resources (time, basically, as always the most limiting resource).

Currently we maintain 15 plugins for 15 platforms, aside from the maintenance and development of Studio and the main renderer of course. We don't know about any render engine with such a huge collection of plugins.

However, although 15 platforms may sound a lot, there are always many more platform out of this list (i.e. AutoCAD) and we are always thinking in adding new platforms to that list, but we have to consider it carefully, as each new platform supported opens a new branch of complexity to the whole structure (if your intention is to maintain a good level of quality in all the plugins, of course).

For those platforms we can not cover, we provide an SDK to allow external developers in the community like Nildar or Carbon here, to create new tools if they want, obviously always respecting his properly over his work.
In fact, we are very pleased with the quality of the work Carbon is doing in this new plugin and we started communications with him to help him with his development. In fact, if the plugin is stable and good enough, get finally support for Windows and Linux and we all help in testing-debugging it, we could send him tools to easily implement Fire and other features within Blender, which is something we all want to see, but for that approximation we need to maintain a close and confident relationship with him.

So, we've already started a collaborative approximation to help him with this open-source development. Let's see if we can get an strong connection with the Blender community as we all want.

Cheers!

Dario Lanza

[Hillmeister]

Thank you for your reply Dario,

Excuse me for re-asking then, it's this part which regains my thrust that a good plugin will grow and then hopefully continues.

"In fact, we are very pleased with the quality of the work Carbon is doing in this new plugin and we started communications with him to help him with his development. In fact, if the plugin is stable and good enough, get finally support for Windows and Linux and we all help in testing-debugging it, we could send him tools to easily implement Fire and other features within Blender, which is something we all want to see, but for that approximation we need to maintain a close and confident relationship with him."

I know some people call it dumb or unproffesional to use Blender proffesionally and I might be stubborn, but Blender does the job of accepting my creative ideas without complaining or crashing.
In the last few months I established a workflow with Blender and Maxwell and really like it, but when V3.1 came out and coworkers are switching I can't maintain the workflow any much longer.
Hope that an update of N.ildar's plugin would come slowly vanishes. Now that Carbon is steppig in and you say contact is made my fate has restored. I guess I have to find a solution for the time being until a plugin is born to use Blender with V3.1

Because we all know that Blender as well as Maxwell will evolve it's good to know that Next Limit's intentions are to stay connected.

Cheers!

[Asmithey]

Going with Blender was the best decision I made. So much more flexible than the other program I was using for many years. And YES!!! it never crashes!!! It is so stable and it can handle SO much geometry and has great management tools for huge scenes.

Yes, thanks for being involved Next Limit!!!!

[Blazko]

Thank you Dario for your answer.
You said that currently you maintain 15 plugins for 15 platforms. Which is very impressive and as far as I know only Octane Render can keep up with Maxwell in this area!
And yet I'm curious what happens to plugins made for such products like Softimage which are no longer developed?
I suppose that most of its users, soon or later will switch to 3ds Max or Maya... or Blender
So maybe there is a possibility of switching from developing plugin for Softimage to developing plugin for Blender?
I mean, if Next Limit had to develop one more plugin, what are the chances that it would be for Blender?

[AndreD]

3.2 got an onshape integration, I´m really wondering, why there is no official blender integration of MW.

MW is my favorite render but I´m still hesitating to upgrade just because of the lack of an official blender add on.
Even Renderman now supports blender with an official integration, even with interactive rendering.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthr ... or-Blender!

Blender is so powerful and there are new stunning add ons almost each day, it´s the fastest growing client base in the 3d marked, so in my opinion, an official integration of mw is a must for the further success of this beautiful render engine!

Give me an official integration and I will upgrade to V3 asap!!!

Just to show the power of blender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Y6S6ev-Vg

[Blazko]

Yeah, also Thea Render has this feature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J8YV-KlDqQ

I did a bit of a research and I found that most of the rendering programs has official/non-official Blender exporter.
Officially developed plugins: Indigo Renderer, Octane Render, Thea Render, Pixar Renderman.
Non-officially developed plugins: Maxwell Render, Vray (they say that plugin is in development), Corona Renderer.
No Blender plugin: Arion Render, iRay, Keyshot, Arnold Render
Please correct me, if I made some mistake with this comparison.

[AndreD]

Imho, the integration of vray into blender is official..
http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vray_blender.html
Luxrender comes with official Blender support, as well as Appleseed:
http://www.luxrender.net
http://appleseedhq.net

However, the best render is Maxwell and I would love to use MW3 together with Blender!!!

[AndreD]

I would recommend NL, to offer an official Blender integration with a free non commercial version of MW3 and a slightly price reduced Blender only version of Maxwell for commercial use! (Without the delivering of other 3d plugins)

Maxwell Render Suite V3 (Node Locked, Blender only) - 399.- EUR
Maybe a very time-limited introducy offer of 349.- EUR

[AlexP]

There was such license for sketchup right?

[AndreD]

There was such license for sketchup right?

yep..
Such kind of license for Blender would bring a lot of fresh traffic to MW, I´m sure!

[AndreD]

NL should NOT ignore the evolution of blender,
otherwise NL could miss the train, even Disney is using Blender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8tJozrtMvk

Really stunning, whats going on..

[AndreD]

Another one:
http://www.blendernation.com/2015/08/07 ... y-website/

We really need a complete, official integration of Maxwell into Blender!!

[Blazko]

I found also this interesting comparison of rendering engines (including Maxwell) for Blender.
It is quite basic but still worth reading.
http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/ren ... vs-giants/

[ptaszek]

I am also waiting for it.
Blender is a future. Lots of my friends don't want to use Maya, Max or Cinema anymore because of Blender.
With Maxwell? Well.. best combination ever