Maxwell V2 is out

Stinkie · 9 Oct 2009, 08:05

Yeah ... I've always found it rather surprising how, well, sad Maxwell's SU plugin looks next to SkIndigo. Takes NL ages to correct stuff, too - probably the most cost-effective approach. For them, that is.

That Modo plugin looks sweet, though! Still - I am not very willing to shell out € 345 (VAT not included) just because the plugin spews out files that aren't compatible with 1.7! (This I find ... baffling. How many lines of code would it take?)

This is where NL and myself part ways, I'm afraid. I'll be giving Thea a spin as soon as it's beta is available.

Richard · 9 Oct 2009, 08:22

Yeah me too! Just found out that most 1.7 materials aren't compatable with v2 so if I need to completely rebuild my material library I might as well do it for another application!

Just found about another 6 glitches that don't function.

Man I wonder do they pass this the beta to one guy stoned off his head scratching his arse, burps and says "yeah mate she'll do - cranky it out there! Let the tossers work out if anything is wrong!".

I've just been reading a thread where one chap has tested about 10 scenes to find in each that v2 performs slower! Their answer but try it with an SSS material and you will notice it is faster! Great one type of material - big f.....g deal!

Though that said on one scene that I tried from 1.7 it actually did crank it's head off! The scene was about clean in 30 min. and the colour multilight mixer was enabled so that was rather impressive! Bump also has been really tunned!

Plus some workflow features have been improved but hard to justify all the whohar amongst all the increased issues!

Stinkie · 9 Oct 2009, 08:56

@richard said:

I've just been reading a thread where one chap has tested about 10 scenes to find in each that v2 performs slower! Their answer but try it with an SSS material and you will notice it is faster! Great one type of material - big f.....g deal!

Yeah ... I read that thread. If the upgrade price won't put you off, those tests certainly will.

Knurrebusk seems to be back with a vengeance, though! I've always been a keen reader of his musings.

NewOne · 9 Oct 2009, 10:33

@richard said:

...Just found out that most 1.7 materials aren't compatable with v2 ...

What kind materials aren't compatible?

Richard · 9 Oct 2009, 11:11

@newone said:

@richard said:

...Just found out that most 1.7 materials aren't compatable with v2 ...

What kind materials aren't compatible?

Mate form my quick tests it seems to depend much on the mood maxwell wakes up in, one one test all materials rendered matt, on another metals rendered black, on another all emitters were replaced with soemthing else, on another most materials switched to addative mode so scene went spastic.

So the short answer ????

Richard · 9 Oct 2009, 11:14

Mind you in most of my later tests the watermark has disappeared! Thats cool!

frv · 9 Oct 2009, 14:31

Richard, you are not on OSX are you.
I would love to know why I can't use the new plugin with autoMXM turned on. Its simply stalls and I have to resort to the previous version of the plugin.

I find Studio 2 better to work with. But I have a 30" screen....
I do not understand the hiarchy of panels and windows in Studio. Typical Spanish engeneering style, would love a more Danish aproach, simple and clean.
I think its very wise to wait half a year with the update. Although I do not mind helping NL to perfect their product. We also tested the Modo plugin but there is a lot not working there yet either. No replicators for example, could be expected though.

I tried most of the new cheaper renderapps. They either need a lot of tuning to come up with proper results to be compaired to Maxwell or are slow or very limited. The only one now interesting is Vray to me. I saw the work of Alex Roman http://motionographer.com/2009/08/16/alex-roman-thethirdtheseventh/ and was very inspired. Rendertimes 1,5 hours max. as he seems to state in this article. I think Maxwell isn't an architectural tool. Too slow and too complicated. I need a modeller like SU and a renderer like Vray.

frv · 9 Oct 2009, 14:34

Oh, and Richard, for as long as the bugs are not yet resolved, could you set up a different photo for your profile. You look like a its all perfect for you now. We might send the wrong message to Nl ...

Richard · 9 Oct 2009, 23:20

Mate I'm not on OSX, PC!

I know what you mean about maxwell in comparison to the cheaper apps, it is hard to break away from the devil you know, particularly when it actually works!

I recently did a stack of renders for a project home builder, he would come to my office and I would model his facades with him, testing various configurations and material tests, I would push out maybe 20 different tests in a day all flawless and all eye catching to the client (albeit without landscaping). For that purpose it was and still (1.7.1) the perfect solution!

Initial tests with V2 are proving that the quality is vastly improved and given the previous quality thats hard to imagine! Bump response thankfully is just so much better now.

I found a fair few of my problems were caused by a bad first install, the second install fixed many of the issues though some still persist!

Yeah your right its hard to look pissed off with a smiley face!!!

I've not totally written off the upgrade to V2, I've always stuck by my patience toward waiting till the bugs are fixed with any x.1 release and keeping finger crossed! That siad I will probably still invest in Thea when released, though there it is easy for me to dispell if initial clean up is slow! There in lies my ongoing issue with Indigo, such a great app but initial clean up meant quick testing / tweaking eroded it's worth.

I'd much rather something take twice as long to final quality as long as the initial clean is fast - I'd rather spend less of my time waiting over the pc just crunching in the end!

brodie · 10 Oct 2009, 02:02

Richard,

Which version of Windows are you on? I'm running Vista 64 and am getting ready to make the switch to 2.0. I'm hopping it's not a Vista issue. I'll probably switch to Windows 7 when it comes out though so maybe it won't be a big deal either way.

-Brodie

frv · 10 Oct 2009, 11:00

I need Maxwell for all its options to tweek the settings. If you know what you are doing the proces is actually fast. Proxy components, 2 point perspective (shift lens), rather fast till SL 10 which works for me in most cases and its real light simulation.
I can already get a look and feel of how a design will work in natural light. That means I can experiment with dark or light colors, less or more reflective surfaces etc. Other apps are too much a matter of articficial tricks to get good results. Natural light simulation is a bit like having a studio with with handmade actual buildingmodels available.

I got a mail from NL that they are working on the autoMXM issue under OSX. I am sure it must be a simple bug, MXM reporter also ran into a bug in the way OSX writes a path to the library and he fixed it somehow.

Whaat · 14 Oct 2009, 15:24

@richard said:

There in lies my ongoing issue with Indigo, such a great app but initial clean up meant quick testing / tweaking eroded it's worth.

Hey Richard,
I am surprised at your comment. Indigo's speed has improved drastically in recent releases. For example, if you are rendering an exterior and you have the Tracing Method set to 'Path Tracing' the overall image is clean very fast (usually in a matter of seconds). Of course, areas of indirect light will take longer, but to say that Indigo is not acceptable for quick testing / tweaking is just not fair. The initial clearing for MLT methods take a bit longer so maybe you had been using this setting for your exteriors?

Indigo also supports region rendering, so if you are testing/tweaking, you can render just the region you are interested in and the noise will clear even faster.

Whaat · 14 Oct 2009, 17:52

@kwistenbiebel said:

Also, you can easily launch several renders at the same time (I sometimes launch 5 simultaneously on my octocore using Indigo 64 bit, while still being able to continue modeling!).
Time for new computer!

@unknownuser said:

The fastest workflow I experienced using any render engine,especially in terms of material and light setup!
That's a very strong statement. Any chance we could quote you on that on the Indigo website? (PM me if you prefer)

Stinkie · 14 Oct 2009, 18:25

@whaat said:

@kwistenbiebel said:

The fastest workflow I experienced using any render engine,especially in terms of material and light setup!

That's a very strong statement.

True, though. Kwist is absolutely right.

I own both Maxwell and Indigo, but I hardly use Maxwell anymore. This is due to SkIndigo.

kwistenbiebel · 14 Oct 2009, 18:28

@whaat said:

Time for new computer!

The MacPro (using Windows) that I bought a year ago has proven to be my best investment ever. The 8 core Xeon costed twice as much as the usual 4 core rig, but it easily tripled the joy of working and productivity. I took the thing with me to Australia as I can't miss it.

@whaat said:

Any chance we could quote you on that on the Indigo website?

I meant what I said. Material setup is literally a 2 second thing. I always start with clicking one of those material presets and quickly change some numbers. Done. (I am using Skindigo 1.1.15 for now but I want to upgrade to 2.x).
Feel free to quote . I feel special now

kwistenbiebel · 14 Oct 2009, 18:57

@unknownuser said:

I own both Maxwell and Indigo, but I hardly use Maxwell anymore. This is due to SkIndigo.

I can say the same about Fryrender. Bought it, but hardly ever use it anymore.
Developers should understand that the bridge to the host app (in this case Sketchup) is crucial!
You can have a superb render engine, but with a crippled SU plugin, it's worth nothing.

Stinkie · 14 Oct 2009, 21:09

Hm, yes. At the very least, both NL and RC should implement a material making workflow similar to SkIndigo's. That, I think, would make their respective products far more usable to SU users. Or at least to the ones who, like me, couldn't care less what the IOR of a mat is, or how many layers of varnish it has in real life.

Richard · 15 Oct 2009, 00:44

Yeah I'm probably over critical from past experience with Indigo and admit to not having tested the latest version. I was always waiting for a dumbing down of terminology before I went there again.

I did download the latest version the other day prompted by chris the new zealand distributor so will give it a run again!

I think I gave up earlier (though I liked the results) I couldn't get my head around the material blending setup for including weathering and dirt maps that required me to have all materials in scene and the problems that caused when doing a purge and the inherant issues of large maps in SU! I should investigate more I guess OR just not make niave comments. Hopefully those issues are overcome now!

I do wonder though how without a studio type feature you guys do quick tweaking of materials - does this mean you need to open each material individually in the editor? and how you adjust light intensities without a Multilight type feature or is there one? And how do you handle heavy poly scenes?

Must say I really do like the auto subdivide feature for displacement - one of the benefits obviously of having a good plugin developer!

Whaat BTW have you seen the MXM reporter pluging that a guy posted to the forums here, makes material linking so easy and something work considering in Indigo's workflow!

Kwist? I'm not sure what you mean about distructive? You don't have to use studio, though for me on a recent project it was a godsent (stack of similar renders for one project builder 30 scenes), I just modelled my scene in SU with materials named and then exported the scene out shut down the render and then dragged into a fully setup MXS (studio file) where I had all materials to be used over the range of renders and then just used the "replace all new with existing" feature and then tweaked material colours or drag / dropped alternatives. Really simple and amazingly fast!

I just modelled in SU using feally bold colours or low res B/W bump maps with wild colours added through SU material editor (like blue or red, green etc) so modelling, nav and that darn SU material browser popup (f...!!!) is all kept fast - no linking, no fuss! This I guess is one of the things that I do enjoy about MR the ability to work in a stack of different workflows!

I'm also keen to see now how the material blending works as said earlier just couldn't get my head around it earlier and the distructive issue of the UV's then if the geometry was edited was a downer! Though it is one feature that has it over the others that UV's for each blend map can be assigned in model! Also to see how weight mapping is handled, I've come up with a simple way of making all my lowpoly interiors for exterior scenes use just the one map and one MXM - beats the pants off having multiple materials to deal with!

BTW is there a multilight type feature for Indigo?? These days I'd be a bit lost without that, I've become very lazy!!!

Seriously I'll check out Indigo out again, I haven't gone through the documentations or all the features but clearly from the comments it has seen some major improvements!

@ brodes - mate I've only tested on XP 32bit at this stage, will test on Vista 64bit soon!

I'm blown away by the improvements in Bump map results by the way it's almost like your using displacement now! And the new AGS wizard (although I didn't like it at first) is so cool once you play with it, so easy now to set good glass!

Still I yern for a better way to handle IBL's with respect to location and channel intensity!!!

Not so happy with the conversion of 1.7 materials > 2.0 materials.

And hopefully soon they overcome the bug when using physical sky that the first emitter in the emixer has to be turned off or the scene turns to snow!

brodie · 15 Oct 2009, 04:05

Richard,

Good comments. I'd have to agree that Studio is definately a plus. As you say, one doesn't have to use it (it would be nice if the plugin was such that this were more true than it is) but it's there if you want it. As I've said before, I don't know how one would do an arch-viz scene with lots of trees/cars without it.

I hope vista doesn't have the problems you've had with XP. But you're just getting Vista 64? Man, Windows 7 is coming out in, like, a week! By all accounts it solves a lot of the crap which Vista has.

I am excited about the bump. I haven't had much chance to play with it in the demo but it's exciting that it and normal mapping are working as they always should have.

-Brodie

Richard · 15 Oct 2009, 07:00

@unknownuser said:

I hope vista doesn't have the problems you've had with XP. But you're just getting Vista 64? Man, Windows 7 is coming out in, like, a week! By all accounts it solves a lot of the crap which Vista has.

I am excited about the bump. I haven't had much chance to play with it in the demo but it's exciting that it and normal mapping are working as they always should have.

-Brodie

No mate my laptop runs Vista (grrrrr, shit!) yeah I've been waiting for 7 before I spring for a new machine!

BTW B/W bump maps seem to do REALLY well now too! I think they heard you and I ranting in that long bump issue thread!!!