Everything related to Maxwell Render and general stuff that doesn't fit in other categories.
User avatar
By Mihai
#393486
I think that's how it currently works if you merge your V3 and V4 licenses together. Both V3 and V4 will work in this case, just not at the same time - which is normal if you only have 1 license. NL should make a procedure to explain this. But basically I guess it's:

- license V3 as usual
- rename the license file it creates
- license V4 as usual
- open the V4 license file and the renamed V3 file
- copy the contents of the V3 file into the V4 license file, so essentially you have now two licenses in the same license file
- restart RLM server (from localhost:5054)
User avatar
By ababak
#393528
Nice topic by the way.

Upgrading from v3 floating with 10 render licenses on Mac OS to v4 node-locked with slower CPU renderer and no GPU support for 685.00 €? Seriously? It's time to choose another render. It was a nice time here with all of you guys. See you on the other forums.
User avatar
By Rafal SLEK
#393529
Upgrade price for me is also too high. So I decided to invest my money in NextLimit during Black Friday promo. It cost me 247.50 eur, reasonable price.
BTW V4 is slower on CPU ~10% after first tests.
User avatar
By choo-chee
#393530
I used the v4 promo to get v3 and v4. however i can't see any reason to use v4. it's not ready yet for my type of work (arch-viz), and the hardware needed for it to be really good, is really expensive. i really like maxwell and I use it for about almost a decade. I got used to the long render times and it was a true disappointment to discover that they are still here at v4.... so as a true maxwell user that is used to WAIT, i'll wait a bit more.
By feynman
#393532
Rafal SLEK wrote:V4 is slower on CPU ~10% after first tests.
Then, it really does not make any sense to upgade to V4 yet.

What's a recommended alternative for product design visualisations (data from Creo, Catia, Alias so must be OBJ import based) these days? Octane? Thea? Too many alternatives out there : (
User avatar
By Rafal SLEK
#393533
feynman wrote:
Rafal SLEK wrote:V4 is slower on CPU ~10% after first tests.
Then, it really does not make any sense to upgade to V4 yet.

What's a recommended alternative for product design visualisations (data from Creo, Catia, Alias so must be OBJ import based) these days? Octane? Thea? Too many alternatives out there : (
:-) that why I wrote "I decided to invest my money in NextLimit".
When GPU will be ready and CPU will work faster than V3 I decide to switch to V4. If at the end these two procedures will be combined together we will get one of the most efficient rendering engine.
By feynman
#393534
Rafal SLEK wrote:If at the end these two procedures will be combined together we will get one of the most efficient rendering engine.
That's the big question, though - when will this realistically happen? If even CPU rendering is now slower than before, it simply does not make any sense.

It might be better to change render engine, but there are too many out there to choose from...
User avatar
By jwiede
#393558
ababak wrote:Nice topic by the way.

Upgrading from v3 floating with 10 render licenses on Mac OS to v4 node-locked with slower CPU renderer and no GPU support for 685.00 €? Seriously? It's time to choose another render. It was a nice time here with all of you guys. See you on the other forums.
This is pretty much where I'm at as well. Upgrade options are ridiculously expensive, esp. in context of what Mac customers receive, and NL simply shows no interest whatsoever in addressing the various problems in their new portal system w.r.t. servicing past customers' products and licenses, presumably as a further greedy way of trying to force customers to upgrade. Getting more disgusted by the day.

Endless tickets filed, over half of the time the support person doesn't even appear to read the ticket, just issues some form response that provides no answer to the issue filed. Customer support at NL is currently among the worst I've EVER seen. Tickets get no responses, or get marked as "waiting for customer" yet no matter how many times you reply, they just time out. Absolutely execrable support, shame on you NL!

And what is there to look forward to at the end of the process? A substantially slower CPU renderer (never should have been allowed to happen), and despite endless promises to the contrary, a GPU renderer that looks different than CPU and doesn't work/isn't supported on most Macs, current or past. Hooray! Pinch me!

Even if the renderer were perfect and more performant on both CPU and GPU, it still wouldn't offset the support nightmare and all the time that nightmare has cost me. I see no way V4's value can _ever_ offset the ridiculously high cost being asked for it.
By feynman
#393561
jwiede wrote:
ababak wrote:And what is there to look forward to at the end of the process? A substantially slower CPU renderer (never should have been allowed to happen), and despite endless promises to the contrary, a GPU renderer that looks different than CPU
That's the core issue, in a nutshell.

Trouble is, there are so very many alternative engines to choose from and one cannot know which one is best suited to industrial and product design studios - all blogs reviewing renderers only show architectural visualisaton or movie/TV animation work.
User avatar
By jwiede
#393562
feynman wrote:That's the core issue, in a nutshell.

Trouble is, there are so very many alternative engines to choose from and one cannot know which one is best suited to industrial and product design studios - all blogs reviewing renderers only show architectural visualisaton or movie/TV animation work.
Perhaps the answer is to cut down the number by leaving off the very new, untested options, and instead focusing on the ones that have enough of a presence in field, and presence in market to allow reasonable review of their stability, support, and value-for-cost. There are a lot of options overall, but that doesn't mean that all the options are production-reliable (f.e. Maxwell V4 does not appear to be remotely production-reliable in either stability or quality of results, even just based on the the discussions here).

Why NL thought going from an exceedingly-stable V3 to a less-performant, less-stable, and vastly-more-expensive V4 would be seen by their customers as an "improvement" is a mystery. I certainly do not see it that way, and judging by the forums and blog responses, neither do many, many of their other existing customers.
By feynman
#393563
jwiede wrote:Why NL thought going from an exceedingly-stable V3 to a less-performant, less-stable, and vastly-more-expensive V4 would be seen by their customers as an "improvement" is a mystery. I certainly do not see it that way, and judging by the forums and blog responses, neither do many, many of their other existing customers.
Too bad. I will remain on V3, which was/is very good, just a bit slow.
User avatar
By CDRDA
#393619
feynman wrote:
jwiede wrote:Why NL thought going from an exceedingly-stable V3 to a less-performant, less-stable, and vastly-more-expensive V4 would be seen by their customers as an "improvement" is a mystery. I certainly do not see it that way, and judging by the forums and blog responses, neither do many, many of their other existing customers.
Too bad. I will remain on V3, which was/is very good, just a bit slow.

It was my intention to remain on v3 until such time that the v4 teething issues are sorted out. Unfortunately I am a Sketchup user and as such, future versions of sketchup, including 2017 which has just been released, will only work with v4. v3 is now unsupported, effectively forcing me to upgrade Maxwell, or stay stuck using Sketchup 2016. However, I have already upgraded to to Sketchup 2017 and would like to start using it obviously. I also note that not all render farms have upgraded their Maxwell versions yet either, adding an extra problem to the list.

Sticking with v3 is fine until the plugin you are using requires an update to work with the latest 3D package you use. Now to get on to Next Limit Customer support to moan about this to them.
#393620
CDRDA wrote: It was my intention to remain on v3 until such time that the v4 teething issues are sorted out. Unfortunately I am a Sketchup user and as such, future versions of sketchup, including 2017 which has just been released, will only work with v4. v3 is now unsupported, effectively forcing me to upgrade Maxwell, or stay stuck using Sketchup 2016.
Here's THE nightmare of 2017: v3 unsupported on next version of [put your 3D app here], but v4 still un-usable.
It will look like a slow suicide for our work: a plan-B is needed! (if no good news arrive from NL)
By JDHill
#393621
CDRDA wrote:It was my intention to remain on v3 until such time that the v4 teething issues are sorted out. Unfortunately I am a Sketchup user and as such, future versions of sketchup, including 2017 which has just been released, will only work with v4. v3 is now unsupported, effectively forcing me to upgrade Maxwell, or stay stuck using Sketchup 2016. However, I have already upgraded to to Sketchup 2017 and would like to start using it obviously. I also note that not all render farms have upgraded their Maxwell versions yet either, adding an extra problem to the list.

Sticking with v3 is fine until the plugin you are using requires an update to work with the latest 3D package you use. Now to get on to Next Limit Customer support to moan about this to them.
I already tried to explain this to you, and there is nothing customer support can do to help. Had v4 come out so near the switch from SU2015->2016, I doubtless would've built a v3-compatible plugin for SU2016, but SU2017 makes too many changes for that to be feasible. Even now, I am building the SU2017 plugin with a Maxwell sdk that doesn't yet officially exist. If you want to use v3 and SU2017, the only way will be to model in SU2017, save back to SU2016, and then render from there.
Will there be a Maxwell Render 6 ?

Let's be realistic. What's left of NL is only milk[…]