luis.hijarrubia wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:17 am
We have planned a 5.1.2 patch for September, but we are not going to release it. The main reason is that we updated to Cuda 11 in order to support RTX 3000 series. The thing is that Cuda 11 no longer supports Windows 7 and 8. So we have to make 2 windows versions of maxwell, one for Windows 7,8 with Cuda 10, and other one for Windows 10 with Cuda 11. We were not comfortable doing this with a patch, we prefer doing it on a proper version. And we need to work on portal to allow having more than one windows version.
So, we are skipping 5.1.2 and going ahead to 5.2, that will be out in 2 months. With 2 windows versions. We will be posting the features of 5.2 in this thread when we can show them working.
I want to be really straight forward in quoting and comment your decision.
Considering the low communication we had in the past especially with V4, and the incredible resources literally wasted by the old team behind the V4, maybe a direct confrontation could bring some positive ideas.
1) considering Microsoft is leaving completely behind the support for Windows 7 and Windows 8, spending time, financial resources to make a Windows 7/8 version make no sense. You’re wasting money.
Maxwell render is a rendering suite dedicated to Professionals using mid-high range hardware, and considering the recent exponential hardware evolution, a base requirement has to settled up in minimum requirements both for hardware and software.
Personally a Windows 10 / Pro 64 bit version has to be the minimum requirement. Speaking of Windows environment of course.
2)
LACK OF CPU PERFORMANCE
Maxwell Render CPU performance in a rendering environment need a huge rework to improve the performance per Cores/thread/frequency.
Especially with a wide variety of AMD threadripper cpu available on the market.
Actually Maxwell render could bring more performance within cpus like the old 2990Wx, 3970x and even 3990x.
And Zen3 is coming soon so..
3)
AMD GPU SUPPORT
with the upcoming Big Navi AmD GPUs, bringing big performance on the market with a relatively low price, working on Open CL to start supporting AMD gpus would be a better investment over working on Windows 7/8 version of Maxwell Render/Studio.
Sticking only to Cuda could be a backslash for your company. Especially on the long run with Amd increasing their market share.
4)
New selection tool
especially when working on .obj files seen by Maxwell as a single identity, would be awesome having a selection tool to create new shaders/object group like in Artlantis Studio.
Actually you could select only by triangles in
Maxwell Studio. ( over object and UVs)
Having the possibility to select an object by:
Planes
Parallels
Mesh
Magic Wand - intelligent way to select section of the same object.
Would decrease the time spent in other software especially when using some .obj not exploded previously to being imported.
MAKING studio a more useful tools.
5)
Increase constantly your shaders library quality over quantity :
Maxwell have an huge shaders library, but many of them are just old entries with low performance ratio.
Adding more shaders with high quality and performance ratio, would make easier for professionals just focus over modeling and setting up the scene.
Creating new shaders in Maxwell its quiet easy but time consuming especially when you’ve a strictly timeline delivery.
Come on you don’t have a Mirror shaders in all your online library. No problem I created mine, but that’s hilarious.
6) DRAG & DROP texture.
Some rendering software give you the opportunity to drag and drop a texture directly inside the viewport.
It’s useful for example when you’ve to create easier and fast a Canvas for an interior rendering, or you don’t need an high quality shaders with bump and many levels of details.
You just drag the texture in, modify the size and the position of the texture and you’re done.
7)
Embed Multilight inside Studio Workflow
Multilight is a wonderful and saving time tool, so good chaos group decided to add something similar to Vray, directly inside
Vray. Check how your competitor work and do it better. In fact they’ve done the same with your Multilight.
Denoiser
You don’t have control over the denoise effect.
Denoiser sometimes even remove or “wash away” texture and details.
You could add inside Maxwell Render and Maxwell Studio ( even for FIRE ) a specific section with DENOISE options to modify the render when it’s finished.
And maybe on the fly too.
Denoiser from TopazLabs work much better then yours.
These are just the 10% of the ideas that could improve Maxwell Render in the near future.
Maybe even a collaboration with Evermotion to bring some high quality objects/furniture inside Maxwell Studio, would attract more professionals to your side.