[llaflamme]

I have been waiting for an update compatible with Sketchup, but the plugin looks as if it's been completely abandoned.

[Max]

the whole engine is abandoned, not just sketchup plugin.
i expect the End of line news anytime soon.

[Dmitriy Berdnichenko]

I would not be surprise.....

[Nasok]

Hey!! Come on guys! why so serious ?

It's not that baad Even at current state this engine - is one of the best in terms of visual quality.

Speed... meh .. is just a number of cores.

Just keep in mind that it is relatively easy to make a bad engine do a better job, but it's almost impossible to make already good engine to do even better.
It's like rendering .. right .. you can progress really fast from zero to, say, 90% - but to master those last 10 percent of visual quality in your renders .. it takes more than just a textures and geometry done right. It is that little thing that sets you apart from everyone else in this field - and it is the hardest one to grab.

Me too .. hashtag I mean, I would for sure love to hear more info from developers .. just any kind of info. Not necessarily specifically dates or promises -0 but just generally any sort of response would be extremely appreciated.

What I feel is that Next Limit as a company goes through a pretty hard times right now, and I know how they really really love their products .. their kids .. Maxwell and Realflow (and a step one - Caronte ) - and if they are not actively working on it - I'm pretty sure there is a very solid reason behind that. Maybe they're working on something else which will allow them to work on Maxwell a bit later on.

Just cheer up
Good days are coming

[Dmitriy Berdnichenko]

well number of cores not working any more for maxwell
here is test interior render just 1000 pixels with 6 source of lights and denoiser it take 5 hours to render on i9 - 7980EX -32cores
and i try to render the same at 2500 pixels on 2x Xeon Gold 6148 - 80cores 10 hours , i am not good in Corona but it is only 15 min with denoiser

Speed is the problem for maxwell especially with 3-4k resolution and denoiser
Even computer with 2x Xeon Gold 6148 is slow for interior rendering but it is good for product renderings

i think all render engines will be pointless in near future as Unreal engine and Lumion doing better and better job in REAL TIME RENDER

[llaflamme]

To borrow the parting words of JD Hill, “it’s time for me to move on.”

[Dmitriy Berdnichenko]

I was compare result with corona and maxwell is better and accurate but speed is the huge disadvantages. NL please make it faster.

[PA3K]

I would like to be as optimistic as You Artem, but look at the dates of last posts in plugin topics. Not few hours as it was in golden times, but few weeks, months. I also ask politely for some words in Rhino section, but nothing. I can understand and accept everything, but there is no word. I was so happy, when Luis Hijarrubia started to post, but not anymore. I love maxwell since early alpha. It was unique and everyone else was just trying to imitate it. It is still something valuable. I dont´t understand this quiet stage now. If there are no coders, tell us. If there are no funds for development, tell us. If You do something more important, tell us. If there is some other problem, tell us. If You don´t care about our opinion, tell us.
And if there is something, that I can help You with, tell me.

Patrik

[Dmitriy Berdnichenko]

Totally agree, they need to communicate more and do not be afraid to share even with bad news.

[Nasok]

well number of cores not working any more for maxwell
here is test interior render just 1000 pixels with 6 source of lights and denoiser it take 5 hours to render on i9 - 7980EX -32cores
and i try to render the same at 2500 pixels on 2x Xeon Gold 6148 - 80cores 10 hours , i am not good in Corona but it is only 15 min with denoiser

Speed is the problem for maxwell especially with 3-4k resolution and denoiser
Even computer with 2x Xeon Gold 6148 is slow for interior rendering but it is good for product renderings

i think all render engines will be pointless in near future as Unreal engine and Lumion doing better and better job in REAL TIME RENDER

Hey
First - sweet renders
Dmitriy - Number of cores - I meant render farm Come on man - using render farms isn't that expensive these days. See Maxwell is much better than Corona, Octane, Redshift, Arnold and pretty much any other engine when it comes to color bleeding and light refraction. If that is not a big part of your image - then I understand your struggle. But again 20 buks for a render farm could be easily tucked in to any project's budget.

For instance, I do use other Render engine when I don't really need that Maxwell quality or when I'm prototyping. Or when I need some procedural information
I feel that it is not fair to assume the Maxwell is perfect for any occasion. Not it's not. It is a very specialised tool.
And also, everyone compares pure render time - but no one compares set-up time. In Maxwell there is almost no set up time - and good luck calculating the bounces and samples in other engines.

Unreal Engine ? - right - but then no refraction, no SSS, no ray tracing (in real time). Game engines use path tracing to emulate what Maxwell does. Let's not forget that PBR is just a better name for old Phong and Blin algorithms (Spec gloss and Metal Rough, respectively).
Visual graphics in UE4 is very good and get's better every year but it will unlikely to reach Maxwell's level of color feedback and refraction.

UE4 is fairly solid for Arc Viz - but for product design or anything else where the surface details play the main role - nuuh, it is quite far for that.

@PA3K - I see no point being pessimistic I do understand your frustration regarding the quiet wall. I feel the same. I really wish someone would just talk with us ) Literally, so we would know that people are still, kinda, there All I'm saying, we all know that Maxwell is made by fanatics and very passionate people. They could've easily pick a path of v-ray or corona - but they stay true to their beliefs and values - it's not the easiest thing to do. So I think there is a reason.

Cheers guys

P.S. - gonna refresh gallery soon with another Lightsaber

[choo-chee]

Hope your're right as I'm using Maxwell for more than a decade. Can't see any other engine doing the same.
Speed is a problem, yes, especially the "lack of" speed development takes now...
I don't even think too much about new features - just make some crucial BUG fixes (like can't save a 32bit denoised HDR).
I truly hope NL will understand they made a big mistake with the path it took for version 4 and perhaps change their pricing strategy to make
Maxwell free or cheap and get the funds they need to continue with this great engine. It will be a shame to just toss it.

[Raphael Tobar]

The silence is probably something with NDA, or a change in management which puts development in limbo. This is similar to what happened with Newtek's Lightwave. There was a serious silence for a few years and the community was getting impatient to the point of switching 3d apps. It turned out there was a management problem and also a rumored buy-out which they couldn't disclose for business reasons. It's possible that it's either a serious business problem or worse case scenario lack of funds. The fact that plugin development has been getting cuts seems to be pointing in that direction. I really don't want to think about lack of funding since Maxwell should not be thrown out. If the Maxwell Team needs to save money they should just flesh out Studio and work on the core engine to be much more efficient. It's too good of an engine.

Now before the GPU interest it was expected that CPUs would gain more cores exponentially but the market between Intel and AMD didn't really go in that direction and became stagnant. So naturally, with the trend of GPU accelerated rendering it would appear that should've been a new paradigm. Recently, though, the new EPYC CPUs by AMD could start a resurgence for Intel to release newer chips with much more cores at more competitive prices. That would just "fix" the speed problem of Maxwell all on its own. Ideally, of course, for it to be efficient it may need hybrid integration CPUxGPU somehow.

[Dmitriy Berdnichenko]

I have felling that it could be lack of funds, if so they should go for monthly payment option as the rest of render engines.
My personal opinion they should improve CPU speed + Use GPU for Denoiser in the same time (RT)

[LadleSky10]

Since I was curious to know (as a new user) just how bad it is, I took a quick look on Wikipedia and found the following:

Windows release schedules:
Windows 3 in 1990; Windows 95 in 1995; Windows 98 in 1998; Windows ME in 2000; Windows XP in 2001; Windows XP-Pro in 2005; Windows Vista in 2007; Windows 7 in 2009; Windows 8 in 2012; Windows 10 in 2015.

Maxwell Render release schedules:
Maxwell 1.0 in 2006; Maxwell 2.0 in 2009; Maxwell 2.6 in 2011; Maxwell 2.7 in 2012; Maxwell 3.0 in 2013; Maxwell 3.01 in 2014; Maxwell 3.2 in 2015.

So, I guess we now expect updated software every three to six months which, might be a reason for so many bugs. How times have changed.

[Nasok]

Hope your're right as I'm using Maxwell for more than a decade. Can't see any other engine doing the same.
Speed is a problem, yes, especially the "lack of" speed development takes now...
I don't even think too much about new features - just make some crucial BUG fixes (like can't save a 32bit denoised HDR).
I truly hope NL will understand they made a big mistake with the path it took for version 4 and perhaps change their pricing strategy to make
Maxwell free or cheap and get the funds they need to continue with this great engine. It will be a shame to just toss it.

Well .. mistake or not - it is just a point of perspective But yeah - I really hope they would start with communication with the client base
Feels like not that many people are really keen to have new features - The engine is amazing by itself - just some fine-tuning, cleaning and maybe optimisation will make it even more solid. - everything else - is just a marketing.

The silence is probably something with NDA, or a change in management which puts development in limbo. This is similar to what happened with Newtek's Lightwave. There was a serious silence for a few years and the community was getting impatient to the point of switching 3d apps. It turned out there was a management problem and also a rumored buy-out which they couldn't disclose for business reasons. It's possible that it's either a serious business problem or worse case scenario lack of funds. The fact that plugin development has been getting cuts seems to be pointing in that direction. I really don't want to think about lack of funding since Maxwell should not be thrown out. If the Maxwell Team needs to save money they should just flesh out Studio and work on the core engine to be much more efficient. It's too good of an engine.

Now before the GPU interest it was expected that CPUs would gain more cores exponentially but the market between Intel and AMD didn't really go in that direction and became stagnant. So naturally, with the trend of GPU accelerated rendering it would appear that should've been a new paradigm. Recently, though, the new EPYC CPUs by AMD could start a resurgence for Intel to release newer chips with much more cores at more competitive prices. That would just "fix" the speed problem of Maxwell all on its own. Ideally, of course, for it to be efficient it may need hybrid integration CPUxGPU somehow.

Now these are some legit points here. I'm pretty sure it is something to do with the NDA and management / business side of things.
However .. looking at recent changes on some Linkedin profiles .. feels like there are some restructuring happening.
Say, Tom and Daniel are not the part of the NL anymore ?

I have felling that it could be lack of funds, if so they should go for monthly payment option as the rest of render engines.
My personal opinion they should improve CPU speed + Use GPU for Denoiser in the same time (RT)

The amount of calculation that needs to happen is enormous. It's not just that easy to improve the speed on CPUs. Since there is a very little to no "assumption" at all. There is not corners to cut. It's a simulation software. And GPU is .. heavily dependent on your Video Card. And on type of video cores, I guess. For instance it works only with Nvidia cards.

In fact, maybe it would make sense to split Maxwell into to directions - Maxwell GPU and Maxwell CPU. et a separate price, and so on.
Just thinking.

Since I was curious to know (as a new user) just how bad it is, I took a quick look on Wikipedia and found the following:

Windows release schedules:
Windows 3 in 1990; Windows 95 in 1995; Windows 98 in 1998; Windows ME in 2000; Windows XP in 2001; Windows XP-Pro in 2005; Windows Vista in 2007; Windows 7 in 2009; Windows 8 in 2012; Windows 10 in 2015.

Maxwell Render release schedules:
Maxwell 1.0 in 2006; Maxwell 2.0 in 2009; Maxwell 2.6 in 2011; Maxwell 2.7 in 2012; Maxwell 3.0 in 2013; Maxwell 3.01 in 2014; Maxwell 3.2 in 2015.

So, I guess we now expect updated software every three to six months which, might be a reason for so many bugs. How times have changed.

there is no mention about Maxwell V.4 ? well ... Companies like Microsoft has tens of thousands of employees, it is not really fare to compare ... and even with all those people behind windows it is still quite buggy )


Everyone seems to be concerned about the speed ... since none of us can change the engine at this point of time -how about us starting a new thread where we would share optimisation tips and techniques - so that it would help us to cut the render times. I'm pretty sure everyone has something to share. And once that "dark period" will come to its end - it would be very handy for NL guys to check it out and see what could be done on their side to make it better for us

Cheers,
Tim.