Maxwell V2 is out
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From the NL forum:
*"Hi everyone,
We are very pleased to announce the customer release of version 2 of Maxwell Render!
Existing Maxwell Render customers will be able to upgrade their Maxwell Render licenses through the new Next Limit customer gateway, and through the network of authorized Maxwell Render resellers. If you are a Maxwell Render license holder and have not received your customer gateway information, then please let us know through http://www.nextlimit.com/contact_sales.php
Upgrading and pricing
Our aim is to be as flexible as possible with your upgrades. You can upgrade as many (or as few) of your current licenses as you wish. You can upgrade your version 1 Standard licenses to version 2 Rendernode licenses (if you do not require as many GUI/ user licenses but wish to retain them for render only machines) provided you upgrade at least one version 1 Standard license to a version 2 Standard license.Standard license v1.x to Standard license v2 upgrade: US$ 395 / € 345
Standard or Rendernode license v1.x to Rendernode license v2 upgrade: US$ 245 / € 195Maxwell Render V2 will soon become available for new customers, including the demo version.
This major new version brings you an arsenal of new features, enhancements and additions, among others:
• Major improvements in speed and noise reduction with optimizations in caustics, emitters, mirrors, HDRIs and more.
• Significant quality improvements in roughness, color output, light distribution, sunlight and more.
• Stacked Layers: Materials can now be stacked on top of each other, much like layers in a photo editing application. Each layer can hold a number of components and an opacity mask can be used to determine the influence of each layer. The Stacked Layers system makes it much easier to create extremely complex materials and materials that were simple impossible to create in V1.7.
• Thin SSS: Subsurface scattering in V2 now has a special mode which can handle single-sided geometry. This mode is very suitable for leaves, lampshades, paper, and curtains amongst others.
• An easier to use, more robust, and customizable network system.
• Support for IES and EULUMDAT files.
• Color Multilight
: It is now possible to edit the color of emitters in real-time.
• Built-in compatibility with RealFlow, enabling users to generate procedural geometry and meshes at render time, using Maxwell Render.
• A new plug-in for Modo.
• And much more….To see exactly what’s new in Maxwell Render V2 and to take a look at the new website, please see http://www.maxwellrender.com (available soon)"*
Someone toss me € 345 ...
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Tasty. particularly liking the sound of stacked layers, might actually see some proper car paint textures now.
Any idea if any works been done on the SU exporter?
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None, sorry. Maybe have a look on their revamped site? http://www.maxwellrender.com/
Me, I'm hoping a Modo plugin for Indigo will materialize soonish. Would save me from having to upgrade to MW2.
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Stinke, Vue has had these for years:
• Stacked Layers: Materials can now be stacked on top of each other, much like layers in a photo editing application. Each layer can hold a number of components and an opacity mask can be used to determine the influence of each layer. The Stacked Layers system makes it much easier to create extremely complex materials and materials that were simple impossible to create in V1.7.
• Thin SSS: Subsurface scattering in V2 now has a special mode which can handle single-sided geometry. This mode is very suitable for leaves, lampshades, paper, and curtains amongst others.
• An easier to use, more robust, and customizable network system.
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I watched a couple of the tutorial videos for SU/Maxwell today (http://think.maxwellrender.com/first10steps.php). The plugin seems identical from the little bit I've seen on those videos. Hopefully it will have some of the bugs worked out though.
-Brodie
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@solo said:
Stinke, Vue has had these for years:
• Stacked Layers: Materials can now be stacked on top of each other, much like layers in a photo editing application. Each layer can hold a number of components and an opacity mask can be used to determine the influence of each layer. The Stacked Layers system makes it much easier to create extremely complex materials and materials that were simple impossible to create in V1.7.
• Thin SSS: Subsurface scattering in V2 now has a special mode which can handle single-sided geometry. This mode is very suitable for leaves, lampshades, paper, and curtains amongst others.
• An easier to use, more robust, and customizable network system.Yes but they don't produce physically correct results! And as always it's pretty hard to beat maxwell's simplicity for the dumb like me!
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I'm still waiting to hear if they have fixed the issue with instancing! also a clarification if I can install it on both my machines without having to upgrade 2 licenses! If I have to upgrade twice to keep my current workflow I'll probably be out of there! Thea here I come?
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Yesssss! Finally!
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Richard, do you have 2 licenses now?
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
Richard, do you have 2 licenses now?
-Brodie
4 actually mate! I bought one at the beta stage then after that they rewarded with 3 free ones!
A few people have asked whether the instancing issue has been fixed but with no answers so I'm guessing they haven't fixed it!
Must say I'm just about done with Maxwell now, bring on Thea! Done with them introducing new functions when they haven't actually achieved workability of the old ones!
And it really annoys me that they NEVER answers users questions!
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lol. I hear ya, Richard. I have the exact same gripes with NL.
Why wait for Thea? Indigo'll give you all you need.
Or maybe try Twilight? Pete's latest submissions to the Gallery suggests it does great unbiased renders. No, layer blending, though.
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No multilight either!
Yeah I've given Indigo a go a couple of times but the initial renders for me just clean too slowly so quick tests are out of the question, although the final tends to coverge close to maxwell quality. And of course no studio feature = no high poly if exporting from SU!
Twilight looks good but for me given the same engine developer is writing a new better quality and faster engine I may as well wait out!
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@richard said:
No multilight either!
That's what I meant by layer blending. Indigo does it, though.
@richard said:
And of course no studio feature = no high poly if exporting from SU!
Ah, but there is a 'studio'. An actively developed one, too. It's called Blender. Granted, not the user friendliest of apps.
@richard said:
Twilight looks good but for me given the same engine developer is writing a new better quality and faster engine I may as well wait out!
Makes sense. And that one will have a 'studio', if I recall correctly.
But didn't Kerkythea have one too? And doesn't Twilight export to KT?
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Richard, what's with the jones you've got for Thea. I haven't seen much on it. What's it supposed to have that is so good?
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
Richard, what's with the jones you've got for Thea. I haven't seen much on it. What's it supposed to have that is so good?
-Brodie
Mate Thea is the same developer as Kerthy but going commercial, the thing I support and it warms me a bit is that the guy (one guy) replies to every post every day, the same guy developing the engine, interface etc etc! Heck that! And a team at NL cant even work out a proper marketing plan!
Mate even before first launch, he has developed caustics through water, displacement, instancing, thin SSS, multilight, HDRI, fast engine, unbiased and ray trace options, multi layer materials, on and on and on! AND he replies himself to EVERY post in the forum WTF! Does he sleep?
I'm certain he won't launch thea until everything is nailed, not just say "hey it does displacment" "oh but it will take 4x times longer to render! Or "Instancing, it does instancing" "oh yeah but start it today and come back next week to see if the render has launched yet!"
Can you tell I'm a bit jaded today! Man I love maxwell - dont get me wrong! But I just wanted to use instancing and nope, still not working! I just wish they would stop adding new stuff and make the dam thing work! I begrudge paying for an upgrade when they still haven't nailed the main bugs of the last version, I actually find it a bit insulting!
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Do you buy what Juan was saying about instancing always taking longer to render? My understanding was that proxies in 3ds Max with Mental Ray or Vray, for example, didn't just save loading time but saved rendering time as well. I haven't been able to find anything official to confirm that though.
-Brodie
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As I understand it, instancing should save on RAM while parsing the scene.
The render time should remain the same for the same amount of rendered geometry, whether it is instanced geometry or not.The Maxwell story seems to continue... NL never made work of the SU plugin and it seems they never will.
To me, Maxwell is the most overhyped render engine of them all.
I remember some years ago, when we could render SU models using the 'Matador Light' standalone GUI (not developed by NL as a note) that could run the alpha and beta of Maxwell through .obj export, long before there was a Maxwell plugin for SU.
We thought M was revolutionary and the quality was insane (I thought)....Afterwards I realise that most of the so called photorealism was actually the amount of noise of unfinished renders which creates that sense of irregularity and thus realism.
Back then, the Intel multicores didn't exist yet, so I can proudly say that none of my renders ever got crispy clean . -
From what I understood, using instancing reduces RAM usage but increases render time.
@kwistenbiebel said:
NL never made work of the SU plugin and it seems they never will.
I've always thought that the guy who develops it isn't an SU user himself.
@kwistenbiebel said:
To me, Maxwell is the most overhyped render engine of them all.
It's certainly overpriced - given the Studio's clunkiness and instability.
@richard said:
And a team at NL cant even work out a proper marketing plan!
True! I was shocked at how they went about the whole reveals thing! People had no idea when the next one was going to come! Exit anticipation and excitement, enter irritation and boredom! It was absolutely amazing how they could scr*w up such a simple yet effective marketing ploy!! If NL were my company, heads would roll in the marketing department.
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Hi, I actually get a lot of work done with Maxwell for my clients although at times I am utterly frustrated with it.
I bought v2 and just one license to test things first a bit.
The new plugin though does not work yet. With autoMXM on the export fails or takes so long you have to cancel it. I do all my texturing with autoMXM. Who knows how long it will take to get it fixed. I should try to reinstall the old plugin and see how it works with Maxwell and Studio v2.
Will try that later.
Francois
PS
Made this little drawing with v1.7 for a client this week. I can not get this model (2.5Mb) to work with v2. Happy I did not upgrade while working on that project.
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Wow, I love the design purism on that building.
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