[Miles]

I think it would be useful to have a "Getting Started" forum for basic questions. This would make it easier for newbies to get up to speed.

Miles

[Maximus3D]

Or even easier.. read all the posts on this great forum, people suggest and gives tips and ideas about everything all the time here. It gets u started in no time
Also use that thing which is between your ears hehe it helps..

/ Max

[Miles]

Thanks, lots of useful information on the Tutorials forum but it doesn't seem to be a place to ask questions.

I'm not lacking in initiative, just new to rendering as well as to Maxwell...

I have been reading back through the posts.

Miles

[tom]

ask us miles... go ask your questions... even if they are so simple do not ever hesitate

[Miles]

The tutorial is great, thanks. I'll study it this evening.

My position is this... At the moment I'm learning Alibre Design - it has Lightworks rendering sort-of integrated into it, but the rendering is not very easy to use and is not very well documented.

I'm thinking of preordering Maxwell.

My first question (already asked on the Maxwell Render forum) is:

Does anbody know if the stand -alone version of Maxwell (coming in July) will have the facility to import STEP files? STEP is the native format for Alibre so that saves one conversion. The alternative is to buy Rhino (which I was considering anyway) and import via that.

TIA

Miles

[Miles]

Thanks for your reply,

This is just a hobby, so I have the luxury of deciding what software is right for me. I've used Autocad in the past, 2D and 3D, now I use Intellicad for 2D. Alibre is a very nice program, a bit like Solidworks was a few years ago - it also has the advantage that it uses STEP as its native format. I prefer to work in solids. So, I'm not really in doubt about my modelling program, just considering which way to go for rendering.

I've been doing photography for 30 years so I think that Maxwell might be a natural choice for me.

As STEP 203/214 is an ISO standard it would be nice if Maxwell could import it directly.

Miles

[Thomas An.]

I think Alibre cames boundled with Rhino.
There is a Rhino plugin already available (although still basic and not supporting textures, bumps and some other things)