Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

Anonymous · ‎2006-10-03

If you are interested in a new rendering engine for ArchiCAD, check out Maxwell Render.

Gallery at:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/

If you want THAT TYPE OF REALISM in your images, you need to take the jump into the Maxwell universe.

You might be thinking it is difficult. I used to think that way. Guess what? It isn't all that difficult. Within just a few hours I have been able to come to grips with the interface, navigation and material editor.

"But isn't it Slooooooooow?", you quip... No. In many ways it is actually fast. The reason it is so fast is because it is predictable. You don't need to think about Global Strength, Occlusion, Shadow Sampling settings, etc, etc.

It is extremely architectural, place your crosshairs on the hires Earth globe, think google earth, now position your project with north arrow - specify the year, month and time of day. Check Physical Sky and you have just successfully finished the lighting of an exterior.

It has a function that takes just 1 or 2 minutes to generate a fuzzy preview. Very fast and useful.

Here is the clincher, you can also do much of it from within ArchiCAD 10. Yup, NextLimit is working hard to create the connections (plug-ins) between ArchiCAD 10 and Maxwell. PC will come first (as usual

Mac comes next) What's exciting about the Mac development is Universal App - Mactel support. Have you heard about the Quad Core Intel chips coming out soon? Imagine a MacPro with dual Quads. All of them working on your images at once. The future is looking kinda bright.

I will post within this thread more info as it become available to me, and I will give you a peek at some of the programs more useful features.

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-26

I have been looking on the maxwell site and wanted to ask a couple of questions but it said I need 'special access' to post anything.
I'm having good success with learning the materials, just need to know how to rotate tiles 45 degrees, anyone know?
I'll post something constructed in Archicad and rendered in Maxwell, when I have something worth posting. Hee hee.
Thanks

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-26

Yep,
Rotating textures is done thus-ley...
Select the object (with the material you want to adjust) in the 'objects' list. Scroll through object parameters to UV sets & highlight the projector (Usually projector 0). Under UV Parameters then, you will see it's 'type' or how it was applied, probably 'locked' as default. Change this to 'cubic' & the variables for adjustment become available below. Position, rotation & scale... If you change the preview mode for the 3d window to 'textured, decal' you can see the effect of your adjustments on the object.

Same issue with posting to the Maxwell forums, I'm not the purchaser, just the 'user', so without the correct username & password, I can only lurk & hope someone else has the same questions...

Anyway, hope this helps...

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-26

Thanks for that, it helps a lot. Not having access to the forum is quite a problem. If you don't mind I have some other questions.
I primarily use Archicad is it possible to rotate a material (a tile) 45 degrees in Archicad?
I am having troubles with displacements. I have seen the thread on the Maxwell forum but what they are talking about doesn't make sense to me, any suggestions on where to find 'displacements for dummies'?

Thanks

David Maudlin · ‎2008-03-26

rslt wrote:
I primarily use Archicad is it possible to rotate a material (a tile) 45 degrees in Archicad?

rslt:

Yes. In the Material Settings dialog box, look at the Texture panel for the Internal Rendering engine, and look at the Texture Space part in the LightWorks Shader Settings panel for the LightWorks Rendering Engine. If you do much of this, Dwight's book is a good investment.

HTH

David

David Maudlin / Architect
www.davidmaudlin.com
Digital Architecture
AC27 USA • iMac 27" 4.0GHz Quad-core i7 OSX11 | 24 gb ram • MacBook Pro M3 Pro | 36 gb ram OSX14

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-26

Sorry David

I think I completely misworded my question.
I meant, is it possible to rotate a Maxwell material that has been asigned to a object in Archicad as opposed to doing it through Maxwell Studio? I hope that makes a bit more sense.
This is an image done in Archicad. I want to reproduce the colours/materials with Maxwell materials assign them to objects through Archicad and render in Maxwell, thus the tiles on the driveway are at 45 degrees and that is what I want to reproduce.

I have Dwights book and can't speak highly enough of it.

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-26

Without sounding like a babbling idiot, I have done it through the texture box like a normal material in Archicad. As suggested by David, I must need a coffee or something.

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-27

rslt, the above rendering was straight from ArchiCAD, what does the same render look like in Maxwell, so we can see what's not working. Would it be possible to just make a new texture map 45 degree, repeating?

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-27

I'll do a decent rendering tonight, I'm leaving the office in about 20 mins.
Some of the colours are different and the tiles havn't transfered over.
What I want to get from Maxwell is the displacement/textures that add the extra bit of realism.

Anonymous · ‎2008-03-27

The Green Line trees create a convincing entourage element, but if you go straight from ArchiCAD to Maxwell you can see that the bitmaps render in reverse. Look closely the branches grow from mid air. I wonder where this can be fixed?

Eduardo Rolon · ‎2008-03-27

Invert the Alpha Channel?

Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
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Maxwell Render - The Light Simulator

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