Maxwell Render

Hello,

After a few years of working with 3DsMax & Mental Ray I switched to Rhinoceros & Maxwell. Rhinoceros is really nice, it's the tool I needed. I'm an old-school Inventor user and love the freeform modeling that Rhino offers mee, allthough RP models can be produced nicely.

The reason for this post however is the rendering with Maxwell. I know Maxwell is not the fastest, and I know it's not to be compared with a biased renderer like Mental Ray. I'm at the start to learn Maxwell, but already have a job which I wanted to use Maxwell for. It's an interior job which I modeled in Rhino and wanted to render in Maxwell. The rendertimes are so extreme (12 hours (SL-15) for a simple room with stairs and daylight through some windows), I must be off track. Now I know I'm not on the fastest machine (see signature), but it would help me a great deal to see some Rhino-interior scenes rendered in Maxwell with some info on rendertimes,SL & machine used.
I know that lot's depend om lighting etc. but I'm just curious if you guys can show me some WIP's or finished interiors and share some info, just for the reference.

At this stage I can't share my scene, later on when the project is finished and realized I will post some work.

Hopefully you can help this newbie, it's like learning to ride a bike again

_________________
Rhinoceros v4 / Maxwell render V2.7 (64-bit) / zBrush 4R5 / Blender 2.64a & 2.65a / Windows 7 64-bit
on:
XXODD XNi870cu 17,3"
i7 720QM / 4GB
nVIDIA GeForce GTX285M
Wacom Cintiq 24HD

This question is probably too general for it to get you any very specific answers; your render time may simply be a result of presenting the engine with a very difficult problem to solve (think of trying to light a closed interior by means of a single pinhole in one of its walls), or it may be due to specific aspects of your scene which are in need of specific attention (poorly-designed materials, rendering areas which are not visible, etc.). It is really impossible to say without seeing an actual scene with actual materials and parameters.

Secondly, this part of the forum is intended for addressing plugin-specific questions (i.e. bugs, how the plugin works, etc.), rather than general rendering ones -- for those, you should probably post in the main Maxwell Render forum here: viewforum.php?f=97. Keep in mind that the same things apply there -- if people have to guess about what you are doing, it is much less likely that they will be able to give you sound advice.

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Next Limit Team

JD,

I understand your point.
Your answer did put some light on my question though.... you mentioned "rendering areas which are not visible"

Last question before I go back to do my homework, can I download a samplescene which I can use to see what the rendertimes should/could be on my system? Like a benchmarkscene?
I was fooling myself when thinking I would render the scene without to much knowledge of Maxwell. I just need to take the time to learn this new system. I'm off to the "Think" section

Thanks, next time I'll post my questions in the right spot

_________________
Rhinoceros v4 / Maxwell render V2.7 (64-bit) / zBrush 4R5 / Blender 2.64a & 2.65a / Windows 7 64-bit
on:
XXODD XNi870cu 17,3"
i7 720QM / 4GB
nVIDIA GeForce GTX285M
Wacom Cintiq 24HD

On the question of rendering areas which are not visible, imagine a scenario where you have drawn an entire house, but the camera is in just one room. What I mean is that Maxwell will not ignore the other rooms just because you cannot see them; the light must all be calculated. It may be that a couch in another room might be visible through a window, in the reflection of a mirror in the room you are rendering -- you as a human can decide whether this is important or not, but Maxwell will never presume to make a decision like that for you.

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Next Limit Team

That's the problem I'm facing, I will have to learn how to handle these situations.

I did model a complete building and trying to make a render of just one room

Thanks for your input on this subject!

_________________
Rhinoceros v4 / Maxwell render V2.7 (64-bit) / zBrush 4R5 / Blender 2.64a & 2.65a / Windows 7 64-bit
on:
XXODD XNi870cu 17,3"
i7 720QM / 4GB
nVIDIA GeForce GTX285M
Wacom Cintiq 24HD

There are so many ways you can tweak a scene and there are also so many ways how you can insanely increase your render time.
Interiors are the most difficult to render. If the scene is completely lit from the exterior and the windows are small, the engine has a lot of bounces to calculate.
Which resolution did you chose? SL15 after 12 hours doesn't sound completely wrong. I usually render final images over night, and one night mostly is enough for my images (on a dual xeon with 4x2.93). But there are some complex interior scenes that take up to several days (especially if noise is an issue). I personally don't mind a little bit of noise

You can find all those tips in this forum. Just some of them:
- Don't use glass for interiors, use AGS instead.
- Don't render what you don't see
- Don't use completely white walls (better a grey with 225,225,225)
- Be careful with displacement materials
- Sometimes it helps to use "fill lights" if they don't destroy the lighting

Without an image it'll be hard to give you any tips for the acutal scene.

Thanks Kami,

I just found a post that was extremely usefull to me
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=36085&p=337981&hilit=area#p337981

I'll be posting the scene later on, I allready implemented some advices from this thread and forum. Tomorrow i'll be knowing more than last morning..... let's keep up that learning tempo

Thanks!

p.s. I'll be posting in the WIP-section in a few days/weeks

_________________
Rhinoceros v4 / Maxwell render V2.7 (64-bit) / zBrush 4R5 / Blender 2.64a & 2.65a / Windows 7 64-bit
on:
XXODD XNi870cu 17,3"
i7 720QM / 4GB
nVIDIA GeForce GTX285M
Wacom Cintiq 24HD