1. Introduction - Installation method of Maxwell Render 1.1 and basic operation -
● Install
Let's install Maxwell Render on your personal computer.
First of all you have to download Maxwell Render (version 2) from the following URL.
Render
Then run the downloaded .exe file to start the installation.
Follow the instructions.
Go to: Next Limit -> Maxwell -> Maxwell Studio
Maxwell Studio menu window
In this review I will use the 3ds Max plugin of Maxwell Render and not the
Maxwell Studio interface. But it contain some useful function of the scene
making for Maxwell Render.
Please refer to the tutorial for details.
To enable your license, you have to launch Maxwell Studio.
"Attention
"
If you should encounter an error message when launching Maxwell Studio, your
graphics card driver is most likely an old one. In this case please update
to the newest version available.
To activate Maxwell Studio go to:
Help->License file
And browse to the "license.dat" you received
from Next Limit, Inc.
After that your copy of Maxwell Studio should have turned into a full version.
If you only want to use the trial version keep in mind that each rendered
image will be watermarked with the Maxwell Render logo.
● Add Plug-in
After installing the stand-alone application we will now install the 3ds max
plugin.
The Plug-in exchanges scene data from your 3D application (3ds max, Maya, LightWave,
etc）with the stand alone Maxwell Render that you installed in the first step.
The Plug-in comes free of charge with the stand alone application and you
can also use it with the trial version.
Please download the Plug-in from the following URL:
The installation of the 3ds Max Plug-in is also straightforward.
Just run the downloaded Maxwell Plug-in .exe file and browse to the application
path of your 3ds Max version and you are ready for doing some rendering.
● First Rendering Test
Inside 3ds Max let's first prepare a simple scene to get familiar with the
new render engine and to keep render times low.
First set up a ground plane and add some standard primitive objects to the scene.
Go to the Renderer tab.
If you usually use other renderers like Mental Ray or V-ray you have to get
used to the ability of setting a maximum render time after which the render
will ultimately stop.
Therefore, you have to set the rendering time in the appropriate field and
also choose the desired sampling level.
Maxwell Render will terminate the render when either the render time is over
or the sampling level reached.
This is all you have to set up for your first test render.
● Material Setting
Now open the material edit browser.
Don't be surprised when only Maxwell materials will show up.
This is because
we changed the render engine to Maxwell. No error here.
Select [Standard]-> [Material / Map browser] -> [Maxwell Material]
Each material has specific Maxwell parameters assigned to it.
I will explain this subject in more detail in the next chapter.
All necessary preparations for rendering are now done.
Let's start the render the usual way.
When clicking the render button the Maxwell Studio interface pops up and renders
the image outside of 3ds max.
The plugin transferred all necessary scene data
to the stand- alone application.
Below are the results of the first rendered images with different settings:
[SAMPLE 001]
- Image size 320×240pic
- Last sampling level 10.85
- Rendering time 5min
You can see a little bit of noise.
[SAMPLE 002]
- Image size 320×240pic
- Last sampling level 6.96
- Rendering time 1min
By reducing the render time down to only 1 min the noise is much more visible.
However this image can still be enough for preview purposes.
（Click to enlarge the image.）
[SAMPLE003]
- Image size 640×480pic
- Last sampling level 7.43
- Rendering time 5min
There is a noise in the shadows.
When you want to have for example a sampling level of 10 you will have to
increase the render time.
Below you can download the scene used in the introduction