Maxwell Render, is it dead?

Rendering
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Does anybody know the status of Maxwell Render? Has V-Ray assassinated Maxwell?

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I notice the latest blog post is from July, 2018, but the @MaxwellRender Twitter account is still posting.

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Maxwell Render is going strong but the Rhino 6 plugin is still not available. Latest post from Next Limit on this is currently 21st Jan 19. They have had problems resourcing the development and there is still no release date.

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Sounds not good, how should V-Ray did it? My impression of Maxwell was - very nice Rhino 5 plugin, but to slow for my need. I suppose so Octane and Maxwell could be rivals.

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Thanks for this bit of news. May they be successful in development!

Haaa, ‘assassinated’ with tongue in cheek, as it were.

Everyone seems to use V-Ray over here, so I became worried that Maxwell had conceded the fight. I have only been using Maxwell and love it dearly, due to the logic and language of photography Next Limit has prioritized. I dearly hope they continue with the development of the software and plugins for Rhino.

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I have a seat of Maxwell, I tried it a few times but I’ve found it sooooo slow that the results that created really just didn’t matter. Their licensing scheme was also stupid IMO. You could have to throw a bunch of computers for making it run half-slow, and they wanted lots of extra money and complication for that.

Thanks goodness for competition.

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Absolutely. I wouldn’t recommend Maxwell to anyone but madmen like myself who love slowness when there is a choice. When there is not a choice and one must be fast, one may well need a different toolset.

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I used Maxwell for many years and still have a licence, but haven’t wanted it lately and won’t be able to use it if they don’t support Rhino 6. They formally stopped supporting Modo last year, and while I hope Rhino won’t be next, I wouldn’t be too surprised.

Yeah it’s very slow but it looks really nice, and the physics-based approach made more sense to me than shaders ever did. It’s really like taking photos.

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Maxwell development is very slow especially after many developers left the team.
i see Maverick render (old name Arion render) and now support GPU only and looks very fast

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10

Definitely not dead!

I tried out the integration of Maxwell v5 in Rhino mac v6. Faster speed, better integration, easier workflow. I will definitely upgrade my license of Maxwell to v5!

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Not “Maxwell”, but
Bella for Rhino

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I don’t think it is a replacement for Maxwell, is it?

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Alternative to


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I personally think it’s a replacement :sunglasses: I also really like Diffuse Logic’s philosophy and the guys behind Bella.

Philip

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Not now , maybe in future

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As far as I understood it will be just a competitive product next to Maxwell, Maxwell will keep existing as it’s from a different company.
There is still a very long way to go for Bella to become an alternative. If you want to render exotic caustics it’s going to be nice. Other than that it will be just another unbiased renderer that (at this time) hasn’t got any other USP.
If you look at the current market of mature renders (with a massive feature set), it’s going to be a difficult battle for Bella to gain market share.

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For Mac Rhino that market is wide open. Besides native Cycles for Rhino and as far as I know there is only Maxwell V5 ( still not fully developed last time I read about it) as an integrated plugin for Rhino. And then you have Keyshot( super expensive and industrial design oriented) and Twinmotion connected via live links but not integrated within Rhino. Also, Chaos seems to show not interest in developing Vray for Mac rhino.

As a long time Maxwell Render user, I no longer use it as I lost confidence on the company, I’m pretty sure that Jeremy will not disappoint us with his top notch support and commitment to develop the tightest integrated plugin for Rhino. But I agree with you that is not going to be easy for them to gain that market as Bella is still very young and the quality is not the only or most important aspect of a render engine nowadays.
If you are listening Jeremy, please focus on an intuitive and easy to use tool with very good assets, at least that’s what I look for when searching for a render engine this days.

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Exactly!

Yep


Yes, me too.

I have the same feeling :wink:

Philip

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19

Well, I think the implementation of Maxwell 5 into Rhino 6 is a big step forward. On the mac you have now FIRE working, the material editor is better integrated, the renderer is faster and Multilight is a revelation. You are able to generate a light animation or multiple lighting setups out of just one render.

Many companies have issues inside, that is normal. But Next Limit was the first company to make their render plugin avalible for Rhino Mac. And that was my personal reason to switch from V-Ray to Maxwell.

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Right !
The soul of Maxwell is where the core developers Oscar Cano and Albert Martinez are. Currently, the spirit of Maxwell is in “Bella”.

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