Maxwell is out for ArchiCAD

[Andre Baros]

Bummer, I just got this from Next Limit

Dear Maxwell friends,



We have just uploaded an updated plugin that supports ArchiCAD version 9 and 10. You can download it from:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/qetuomb...ownloadmx.html

No username or password is required to access.

Please see list of improvements:
- Maxwell rendering: ArchiCAD add-on is fully integrated with ArchiCAD as an optional Photo Rendering engine. All Maxwell related parameters are integrated into the Photo Rendering Settings dialog of ArchiCAD and they are available as soon as Maxwell is selected as ArchiCAD's preferred rendering engine.
- In addition to automatic conversion of ArchiCAD materials there is support for Maxwell MXM (file based) materials integrated into ArchiCAD. MXM material can be associated with ArchiCAD material (interface is part of Material settings dialog) allowing the full power of Maxwell materials directly in ArchiCAD. ArchiCAD's Material settings dialog also allows easy direct access to Maxwell's native material editor (MXED) - thus Maxwell materials can be created right from there.
- Maxwell add-on provides full access to all Maxwell rendering parameters from Photo Rendering Settings dialog:
§ Engine parameters: project directory, scene name, image type, render time, multilight support
§ Camera parameters: shutter speed, F stop, ISO, film width and height, pixel aspect ratio, diaphragm, number of blades, angle
§ Environment attributes: sky dome (intensity, colour is taken from ArchiCAD's background), physical sky (project location, date/time, turbidity, ozone, water)
§ Layers/Channels: channels - render, alpha, zbuffer, objectID, materialID, layers - direct, indirect, direct reflection, direct refraction, indirect reflection, indirect refraction
§ HDRI parameters: background, illumination, reflection, refraction
- ArchiCAD 9 and ArchiCAD 10 are supported.

For any further technical information about this plugin, please contact http://www.nextlimit.com/tech_support.htm

Thank you,
Next Limit Technologies team
www.maxwellrender.com

[truevis]

Jealous

New workflow: Revit > IFC > ArchiCAD > Maxwell render?

Still like AccuRender, though.

[mmodernc]

Has anyone compared it to Accurender 4?

[Andre Baros]

Maxwell SMOKES Accurender 4. I am very sympathetic to the easier workflow with Accurender, but for image quality Maxwell has no equal. Maxwell also beats most other renderers for ease of use and only looses some points to Accurender because of the automatic material assignments coming from Revit's own Accurender. That said, I'm only comparing photo-realistic styles... if you're looking for something more stylized there are better choices than either one.

[Brian Myers]

Maxwell is talked about often in another Forum (SketchUp related) I visit... it really is a good product. Yes, it's not 3DStudio, but its not as expensive or difficult to use either and the images look GREAT for what they are used for. It's worth a look.

[dpasa]

Maxwell is talked about often in another Forum (SketchUp related) I visit... it really is a good product. Yes, it's not 3DStudio, but its not as expensive or difficult to use either and the images look GREAT for what they are used for. It's worth a look.

Maxwell is not a 3d app, of course it's not 3dStudio. Maybe you missanderstood the name Maxwell Studio, this is just a GUI for manipulating MXS (Maxwell scene file) from some modeling apps that don't have Maxwell plugin. Geometry creation is not possible in Maxwell studio.

I own Maxwell from beta stage and I can say that it is getting better every day although we had some problems in the past. It would be great to have a Revit plugin but as I have said many times it will be quite difficult to make all those nice images we see from MAX because Revit lacks modeling capabilities. Compare for example the ugly furniture 3d library of Revit with Evermotion archmodels. I guess the first step is to send the revit model in MXS format and then through Maxwell Studio add OBJ files for 3d content.