The Maxwell plugin

Hi Jonathan

Great detailed response thanks, also appreciated you sending those test renders to my email.

It does seem like an improvement over PhotoWorks, my few attempts at rendering white or black plastic with PhotoWorks have left me with thinning grey hair!

It is quite hard for me to justify spending the money as few of my clients have need of renderings. However I may be able to create a market if Photorealistic renderings are more easily achievable. --- just trying to justify buying it to myself, when my partner (girlfriend) sees the bill on the credit card!

Regards

John Layne

Jonathan,

Does Maxwellrender work with SolidWorks Animator?

John Layne

Your response is valid. Maybe I could have been a bit clearer. Maxwell is a renderer, that's all. I guess that was my point before in saying it is actually a "command line" program with many interfaces to popular animation programs. The "animation" (the things you mention) are handled there (Lightwave 3D, 3dSMAX, Maya, etc.) and then "sent to" Maxwell for rendering.

This in fact was the holdup for using SW with Maxwell: Maxwell has no way to control the "camera" in these apps; it just renders what it's been given. Until SW2006, there wasn't a way to control the camera (very well) so it kindof' sucked. With the new ability to control the camera, you can get some good renders. As for doing animations from SW, off the top of my head I'd have to say no, as I do not know of a way to send individual frames from SW (at least I have never looked into this, so please, someone correct me if there is). My major point (and why I think this thread was started) is that given the SAME time setting up PW vs. M~R, you will get incredible renders from M~R... you'll get "less than incredible" renders from PW...

BTW, with even the "animation" programs (LW3D, etc.) though there are tools for doing compostiting, anyone doing editing and such use a dedicated program for this as well (Adobe Premier, etc.) so it's not really a shortcoming in Maxwell. And, I'm beating a dead horse here, but if you compare (let's say Lightwave, which is the only 3D prgram I have first hand knowledge of) and compare what it takes to set up a glass object, caustics, shadows, radiosity, etc. (which are ALL seperate functions in LW, and are not even available in PW, as far as I know) and then look at how Maxwell does it (there is no setup, you adjust your lights, apply surfaces to your objects, adjust your camera and hit "render" you will see why SO many people have fallen in love with Maxwell...

Mike Tripoli

ok thanks for the clarification, I wasn't really meaning to give Maxwell a beating... I am sure John will have a good understanding of it's capability now. possibly Maxwell isn't particularly suited to animation anyway - going for quality over speed...re editing/compositing- yes ok perhaps that's a bit unfair I was comparing to my experience with Blender...really the question should have been more directed at PW-Animator features. I hope Maxwell gives Solidworks a good hurry up when they get all the bits finished. neil

Thanks everyone for your input. I have decided to spend the cash and will purchase after this post.

After seeing Jonathan's 5 min rendering (even with noise)and reading Jonathan's and Mikes comments. It appears the grass may in fact be greener.

The only disappointment is the apparent lack of integration into SolidWorks Animator.

Regards

John Layne

Ok it's a little bit annoying after entering your credit card info the online response from Maxwell---

THANK YOU!

Thank you, you will receive your license(s) in the next few hours. If you need to contact us please do so at snipped-for-privacy@nextlimit.com

I hate that! When buying software online I expect to be able to download it immediately.

Patience is not a virtue for engineers.

John Layne

They have to set you up with an account and a license number. You'll get an email from them telling you everything...

Mike Tripoli

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 10:06:52 +1200, John Layne online response from Maxwell---

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 08:56:37 +1200, John Layne

Hi Jonathan,

Installed yesterday, had a few problems straight away, one crash one lock-up. I posted this in the Maxwell forum. But it is Beta and the SolidWorks Plug in is still Alpha.

After my first rendering, I figured out the issue with focal lengths needing to be the same. In SolidWorks I had a focal length of 135 and Maxwell had 50mm. It rendered ok but too small, after changing Maxwell to 135 it rendered the correct size but out of focus. Not sure how to fix this as there doesn't seem to be any way to adjust focus.

I will read through all the Help and PDF's this evening.

It would be great to have Lighting library of SolidWorks parts / assemblies with emitters assigned. Would make setting up studios much easier.

See you in the Maxwell forum,

Regards

John Layne

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:42:48 +1200, John Layne

I think this is the way to go, as well as the U and V numbers etc for materials.

I created an SW Studio that I posted in the main Max forum thread

Nothing great but a quick start. You insert your part or assembly onto the origin and then swivel the emitters and reflectors around as they are mated using the Normal sketch line to the origin.

Juan is very helpfull if you hit any problems, and he is keen to get feedback on how to organise the SW plugin for th future, so once you have had a play contibute your thoughts because he will listen.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:42:48 +1200, John Layne