Thanks; I did read the Maxwell vs Twilight so that was helpful.

Oh, one more thing. As I play with the free version of Maxwell, the output is extremely grainy. I see that same graininess in the instructional videos. How do I fix that?

Hi all; trying to choose between the pro versions of these two. I was wondering what people's opinions might be.

My observations so far. Please let me know if I have any of this wrong:

Maxwell:
Even pro version limited to 1920x1280 (why limit it at all?)
All material definitions must be first downloaded from the resources site. Materials may include bump maps. Materials may also be created from texture images.
Clumsy UI, but much more powerful

IDX Renditioner:
$99 version limited to 1MP
$200 version limited to 16MP
Materials chosen from a few dozen built-in materials or created directly from SU materials and then properties such as shininess adjusted.
Material properties set by dragging onto object in preview screen.
Bump maps may be derived from the texture. You can also specify a bump map from an image, but I'm not sure where you're supposed to get it. It can be very hard to apply a material property to a small object when working with the very small preview window. I haven't figure out yet how to edit the properties of an individual light source.

Currently, I'm leaning hard towards Maxwell. Opinions?