CGTalk - A couple of Renders I did today in Maxwell

pnoland

03-12-2005, 12:36 PM

Heya Ric, those do look really nice but I agree that a few hours seems kind of extreme. What was the original render size? That might have something to do with the render time...but if those are the actual render sizes then I'd say something is screwy in Maxwell town.

ThirdEye

03-12-2005, 12:44 PM

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I mean your renders are very nice and all, but is it any different from our stochastic engine? It takes as much as Maxwell and it looks very close to the characteristic Maxwell look, doesn't it? The advantage may be the speed of blurred reflections and caustics, but i still don't catch the fever... Why does everybody stand several hours of Maxwell rendertime but not the same hours of stochastic mode?

tonfarben

03-12-2005, 01:11 PM

What I really like at these pictures is the blur. It is looking like a real camera blur, not that what we have with our dof-posteffect. This is an aspect of the maxwell render making it "maxwellish" I think. I wish I could do these kind of depth of field effects in a render in Cinema. I cannot explain what the difference is, but there is one.

ooo

03-12-2005, 01:24 PM

I understand the main benefit of Maxwell is the photographic effect that can be achieved. The nice renders by Ric indeed show that. But I'm not sure if it's worth to jump in (yet?). When the C4D-link will be ready in a few weeks, we will certainly see more renders and hopefully some side-by-side comparisons.

Will Maxwell become a must-have addition to C4D? I have no idea. Anybody?

odo

anobrin

03-12-2005, 01:26 PM

but i still don't catch the fever... Why does everybody stand several hours of Maxwell rendertime but not the same hours of stochastic mode?

Psychology maybe

after all this is the anxiously awaited **external** render engine.:deal:

mauves

03-12-2005, 01:26 PM

Did you try some to render some animations yet? I was really wondering if the Maxwell renderer flickered easily or not in animation render.

cheers

AdamT

03-12-2005, 02:54 PM

I've been playing with Maxwell quite a bit too. So far it's an interesting toy, but the render times are way too long for production work. It does tend to look like our stochastic mode, but it also has some things that AR doesn't, like indirect caustics, 3D dof (much better than Cinema's), dispersion, 3D motion blur (haven't tried it yet), built-in sky/sun for realistic exterior renders, emitter material with real-world units (watts), etc....

The engine is slow but setup is much faster. Exterior renders are reasonably quick but with lots of glass or indirect light things really bog down. There is film-grain-like flickering unless you let each frame render until the noise disappears.

Maxwell is interesting because it's unique and because it's the only alternative we have at the moment. It's still in alpha so we'll see how it progresses....

I can't remember how long this took, but I do know that it was looooong:

http://www.3danvil.com/Ackerberg_House.jpg

Ernest Burden

03-12-2005, 04:06 PM

I don't understand what all the fuss is about.... Why does everybody stand several hours of Maxwell rendertime but not the same hours of stochastic mode?

I will admit I'm standing in line for a glass of their KoolAde.

For one thing, while Maxwell looks a lot like stochastic, it still looks more accurate for lighting. Cinemas is done with Cinema lights, after all. Which need some improvements, in my opinion.

Also, Maxwell is progressively refining an image, so its probably quite entertaining to 'watch the paint dry', while Cinema stocastic is maddening to watch as that line creep down the screen as your deadline comes and goes.

AdamT

03-12-2005, 04:12 PM

Also, Maxwell is progressively refining an image, so its probably quite entertaining to 'watch the paint dry' It's fun for the first 5-10 minutes when the refinement is pretty rapid, but once you get up in the sample levels it's just ridiculous. The render updates about every three minutes, but the change is so small it's virtually imperceptible.

JoelOtron

03-12-2005, 04:52 PM

On a sidenote, what would the best workflow be if one wanted to do a GI rendered animation? In C44d the immediate options are AR and Maxwell. I'm thinking that this kind of thing is most likely faked in many cases in a real production environment in post. I know there are workarounds in Shake and most likely other solutions using renderpasses in AE or Combustion. Also Camera mapping techniques I'm sure are behind much of the best looking photoreal animation we see these days.

ALso--how do other modules stack up in other apps as far as time and being realistic to use in an animation production environment? I suppose its all relative to the renderfarm you have at your disposal too.

Is Renderman quicker for these type of projects? I know RM is more customizeable in terms of scripting and such.

What would be a good setup for the smaller studio?
Even Sky Captain employed a lot of post tricks to get the job done. They were actually a pretty rag-tag studio--almost resembling a small studio (if you dont count all the help they got from the big boys)

JoelOtron

03-12-2005, 04:58 PM

BTW--I like the trike render at the top. Not so crazy about the moped.
And Adam's render is very nice!

Ric535

03-12-2005, 05:25 PM

Yeah yeah blah blah Cinema can do that, cinema's the best we dont need any other render engine we'll use cinema till the day we die and never look at any alternatives

Seriously guys im not using Maxwell instead of Cinema's render or AR but as an alternative, its not a competition.

Third Eye you say thats the same as stochastic mode well let me just say that the tricycle at the top took me only a few minutes to set up and then i hit render and waited, within 1 min i could see what the output was going to be like and then i waited the extra couple of hours for the noise to reduce, in Cinena i would have wasted that amount of time setting the lights and scene up to begin with

Right now i am happy using Cinema to render my characters and scenes and get a nice painterly look out of them, look at carles piles work - its great all in Cinema but its not Photorealistic

as i said Maxwell just an alternative and one im happy to use, its render times may be unworthy for production use but im not using it currently for production use and if my render takes all night to then so be it as long as the end result is good!

Oh and thanks to the people who gave compements :) (im not so keen on the moped render either)

martinp - yeah that blurring is strange. its something which i didnt notice with the previous Aplha, i'll have to investigate

Ernest Burden

03-12-2005, 05:41 PM

On a sidenote, what would the best workflow be if one wanted to do a GI rendered animation? In C44d the immediate options are AR and Maxwell.

Supposedly we have stand-alone or plug-in version of vRay to look forward to. I haven't heard much about that in the time since Maxwell has been 'on the radar'.

This is typical of my GI rendered animation work...before Cinema. So far I don't have one for Cinema yet, I'm still figuring it all out. This scene was rendered with Lightscape and post in Photoshop to ADD the niose that you all want to see gone from Maxwell. Or maybe I added the noise in Premiere, I forget. Anyway, this rendered at twice this size in 30 seconds to 2:30 minutes per frame:
Lightscape GI animation (http://www.oreally.com/temp/MC-ET-half.avi)

AdamT

03-12-2005, 06:15 PM

What codec did you use, Ernest? I get sound but no picture.

Ernest Burden

03-12-2005, 07:21 PM

What codec did you use, Ernest? I get sound but no picture.

Indeo® video 5.10 Decompression Filter

SeanL

03-13-2005, 12:01 AM

Blurring in the trike image -- I have seen this happen before if the computer is bumped during rendering ;)

tcastudios

03-13-2005, 12:19 AM

I'm just about to get Maxwell but need to ask some fundamental things..
-1 Maxwell seems to be out for OSX. Is it then a standalone app that I import things in?
Like obj, dxf etc objects and then apply materials and lights.
-2 What will the Cinema plugin do? Does it export the Cinema scene with materials and textures and lights?

Cheers
Lennart

AdamT

03-13-2005, 04:33 AM

Hi Lennart,
Neither the standalone nor the Cinema plugin have been released yet. NL says the C4D plug should be out in a couple of weeks. I assume it'll work like the Max/Maya plugins, where you assign the Maxwell materials, environment, and camera, and then launch M~R from within Cinema.

michaeli

03-13-2005, 04:35 AM

3dg

03-13-2005, 05:14 AM

This scene was rendered with Lightscape and post in Photoshop to ADD the niose that you all want to see gone from Maxwell.

The reason we want to have noise-free renders is so we can control how the noise looks when we add it in. This is a necessity for anything that's going to be comped with video or film.

AdamT

03-13-2005, 05:16 AM

The reason we want to have noise-free renders is so we can control how the noise looks when we add it in. This is a necessity for anything that's going to be comped with video or film.
Exactly, and particularly if you have to match the grain of real footage.

nycL45

03-13-2005, 03:02 PM

Is V-ray Mac friendly? If not, a stand-alone or plug-in doesn't matter and MR is the one for Macs? Yes?

xeno3d

03-13-2005, 03:57 PM

I like the look of these renders a lot. I'm awaiting my licenese of maxwell render and I understand that the c4d connection is coming very soon.

lllab

03-13-2005, 03:58 PM

well this is the speed, i meant in another thread....

congtratulation vray/ chaos group, guess i have to spend some money on this this year,hmmm...

cheers

lllab

rocarpen

03-13-2005, 11:53 PM

Very interesting, it seems that Vray has counerback, I can't believe that it react so fast!
The latest Vray update 1.46.15 released yesterday provides a new unbiased GI algorithm---Progressive path tracing, which Vray's developer Vlado claimed to be as the same GI algorithm as the Maxwell uses, and it seems render much faster and rocks!

Check it out:

news:
http://www.chaoticdimension.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10940

and the comparison:
http://www.chaoticdimension.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10943

Great news - thanks for posting it here! I think that pushes me over into the VRay camp, once and for all. The only question is: if I purchase VRay now, will I get to upgrade to the stand alone for free when it becomes available? Something to look into.

lllab

03-14-2005, 08:41 AM

adam, your example is very nice, is it done in maxwell, the nwe version?

cheers#
llllab

ThirdEye

03-14-2005, 12:31 PM

Very interesting, it seems that Vray has counerback, I can't believe that it react so fast!
The latest Vray update 1.46.15 released yesterday provides a new unbiased GI algorithm---Progressive path tracing, which Vray's developer Vlado claimed to be as the same GI algorithm as the Maxwell uses, and it seems render much faster and rocks!

Check it out:

news:
http://www.chaoticdimension.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10940

and the comparison:
http://www.chaoticdimension.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10943

very nice stuff, nice to see them pushing the renderer further. I wouldn't use a so time expensive solution as ppt, but having it is better than not.

lllab

03-14-2005, 01:14 PM

well if they really relaes a cinema 4d connection for standalone, or someone else release it, its not so expensive anymore, just 799.-.

that is a very good price for the quality you get.

i really hope it will come in nearer future...

cheers
lllab

AdamT

03-14-2005, 01:14 PM

Thanks Ilab. It was done with the previous Maxwell alpha--not the one that was released last week.

lllab

03-14-2005, 01:16 PM

cool!

what where the rendertimes?

cheers
lllab

AdamT

03-14-2005, 01:19 PM

The render time was something ridiculous--like around 38 hours. :eek: I had a useable result in about 10 hours, but it required some pretty heavy noise filtering.

Ric535

03-14-2005, 01:23 PM

the whole vray phenomenom looms great n' all, but i reckon its gonna be a couple of years before we see a cinema connection

lllab

03-14-2005, 01:59 PM

yes its might seem so. but at the other hand , when i look at the speed chaosgroup is working, i guess the standalone version will see day of light this year, maybe with a maya plugin first. so i hope there could be a connection someone in the first quater/half of 2006.
-still very late and unsure....

still i would be the best i think if someone maxon related or if someone who knows cinema very well regarding programming would do the connection plugin. vlado from vray said it would be quite straight forward to do so.

cheers
lllab

Gotrek

05-18-2005, 02:35 PM

Hi Adamt, I would know if you can send me an example .c4d file, to see how works cinema 4d and maxwell materials, because when y render with maxwell i only can see planar materials without textures, THANK YOU VERY MUCH... (If you can my mail is: dragonncillo@yahoo.es)...

Thank you Adam, I have the new plugin and the textures Works, escuse me, and I put some examples in a few hours...

Jonj1611

05-18-2005, 02:51 PM

Hi,

Sorry if I am missing something here, but I can't see the original images, has something happened to them??

Jon

AdamT

05-18-2005, 05:00 PM

Gotrek,
First, if you're on a Mac you have to get the new plugin--just released yesterday. Otherwise you have to make sure you use absolute texture paths in your Cinema materials, e.g., "c:\tex\checkers.jpg" and not simply "checkers.jpg". You can be assured that you have an absolute path if you select the tex, Cinema asks if you want to copy the file to your current project, and you say NO.

If that doesn't do it for you I'll put a little scene together.

kuui

05-19-2005, 06:38 AM

did you see that exterior render of vray? with the cached PPT and then this was built in to the irradiance mapping....

and that in only 3 hours...ok the models weren't that real but the rendering itself is stunning.
i'm on the vray side, too. if maxwell doesnt speed up so that AdamT's scene is rendered under 5 to 8 hours, i won't go for it. vray can do this, and the PPT of vray is faster and smoother than maxwell's and vray is evolving even faster...

so hey maxon, if you would make a plugin to the standalone vray version, you would get so much new customers who dislike max but use it because of vray or brazil...

there would be no need to get the material system of c4d to work with vray, in max it has its own system too, so just integrate it, this would be the big bang.

pwallin

05-19-2005, 05:07 PM

And it's been always easy to say: It's not a software...it's an artist! Well, this proofs it's more of a software than we used to think.

Pasi

kuui

05-20-2005, 06:10 AM

oh i'm pretty sure you could achieve the same with AR, if you got a lot of time and great lighting skills.

still it remains the artist, of course, as techniques that take the lighting work from you are usually somewhat brute-force :), but a great renderer like vray which is fast and produces supersmooth results takes the task of lighting almost completely from you. just look at all the vray tutorials, one omni light as sun and one vray lightportal wwith standard settings in each window, e voila there's your photorealistic interior.