choo-chee wrote:well to put things short I believe (after 15 years of maxwell more or less) is that the only drawback remains slow rendering speed. no matter what. everything else is fixable, ppl can get help in the forums, newbs can watch a youtube tutorial... but speed is always the only thing you can't bypass. I recall getting help in here where ppl rendered sessions of a scene I couldn't finish rendering on deadline. all other stuff is like 10% impact on my workflow. speed always the final frontier. make it faster and clients will come again. keep it slow (or GPU with all sorts of limitation that actually means CPU and slow), we are the last users of a once upon a time, best render engine.
Andreas Hopf wrote:"the learning curve and complexity are through the roof"
Late last year, I evaluated Studio V5.1.1.33 from an industrial/product/FMCG packaging designer's point of view (different requirements from "Archviz", a market I have no knowledge of) and posted a list of UI glitches, missing features that would be good to have, and bugs.
I found that with Studio V5 one can get from Catia/Alias/Creo/SolidWorks/Fusion 360 data to a very good standard analytical on-white image in around 15 minutes (import, organising, arranging scene, assign materials, some FIRE to check), and the minimal user interface without "node spaghetti" or an excruciating list of parameters like in Blender, as well as the easy to understand camera paradigm, is easy on the novice. I use it a lot in design education for that reason.
Compared to what one must spend for Keyshot, the price of Studio is fair, another benefit of Studio being that it is 3D software agnostic, a huge benefit in the multi-software environments I looked at. There should be a $99 version that students can buy.
Both of you are right.
Andreas Hopf said something i completely agree.
Maxwell Studio is the core Business of this Software.
1) I just use the Archicad Plugin to have a 100% working exported file.
2) I use the fire preview in Archicad just to have a preview of the project before starting the final work in Studio.
i spent 90% of my working time using Maxwell Studio.
3) i Completely hate the Node-spaghetti way some rendering software use to link the shaders. ( lol you got the point here
)
Choo-chee said another truth
Speed is the main problem. But not only computationally speaking. But all the user experience with Studio could be improved drastically with some tuning from Devs.
- GPU performance could be more likely Octane Render, with a near to Real time rendering preview for Maxwell Fire. ( Lumion High quality preview for example)
- A more intense and quality wise output when rendering a still image trough Maxwell Render.
- CPU performance need a huge improvement. A 3990x or 3970x in other rendering software give back better performance.
List of Things that could improve any kind of Workflow :
Some of them could be added soon and fast without any problem.
1) Complete Shaders collection downloadable in one click for local rendering always ready to use even locally.
( With possibility to SYNC and automatically download new shaders based upon preferences)
2) Upgrade Shaders Library with new fast and well optimized Shaders, compatible with V5 ( you could think about a collaboration with Evermotion)
3) Add a complete list of high definition items ready to use within Maxwell Render ( you could start a collaboration with Evermotion too.)
4) Drag and drop Shaders with auto compiled UV channel.
5) Improved stability when changing Shaders on the fly while using Maxwell Fire.
6) Add basic modelling tools ( Box modeling - Polygon modeling )
7) Like in Artlantis Studio, add the possibility to apply different Shaders to the same object (especially when imported as a single entity)
by Triangles / Planes / Parallel / Mesh /Material / and even Magic Wand selection, for intelligent selection of different parts of the same object. Usefull when importing .OBJ files or something to complex to organize with a Triangle selection.
Add a friendly user UI to change easy and fast with a slider ( for each shaders) :
- Roughness modifier
- Reflection
- Color changer
- Bump modifier
- Texture Position Box