The
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The core rendering engine offers a complete user interface which is easy to use, flexible and visually attractive. The UI is made of up of different types of panels such as the Render Options panel, the Camera Options panel, the Multilight panel etc. All the panels are dockable so it is easy to customize the interface.
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Image courtesy of Dan Abrams
Re-arranging the layout
- Click and drag on a panel title to place it in another part of the UI. The other panels will automatically adapt to fit the new panel placement
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Menu item | What it does |
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Open MXS | Open a MXS file generated from the plug-ins or from Studio. You can then set the render and output options from the Render Options panel and click the Render button to start rendering. |
Open MXI | Open a MXI file which you can then adjust using Multilight, or add Simulens effects to it, change ISO/Shutter Speed to alter the exposure. |
Save MXI as | This menu option can be used to convert a bitmap to the MXI format for use as an Image emitter in your scenes. For more details, see the Load Image menu option. |
Merge MXI | Select several MXI files that were rendered on different computers and merge them together to obtain a higher Sampling Level. This is normally done automatically when using network rendering, but this option can be useful in case you are using computers for rendering which are not connected in network. |
Merge MXI Sequence | In certain situations you may have several MXI files (i.e. several frames in an animation sequence) rendered by multiple computers, each with the complete sequence of MXI frames. In this case you may want to merge each frame with the same frame in the other computers to obtain the final sequence. This option allows you to specify all the folders to merge (with its “Add Folder” tool), and each frame will be merged with the same frame in the other folders, obtaining a single, complete sequence. |
MXI Batch Processing | This tool allows you to edit a group of MXI files, applying the same modifications to all of them. You can change the ISO, Shutter, Tone Mapping, SimuLens, and Multilight settings. You can also extract the render images and the channels from the MXI files, export the emitters as separated images, and make changes in the emitters intensity (overwriting original files, or not). Simply select the input folder where the MXI files are located, and specify an output folder. You can use the “File Name Filter” to filter the file selection, and use the “View affected files” option to review the MXI files that will be processed. |
Resume MXI | Select a MXI file to resume rendering. After specifying a MXI file, the corresponding MXS file will be loaded in Maxwell Render and rendering will resume automatically from where it left off. Please note that the resume render will not work if you have made any changes in the MXS or if the location of the MXS has changed. Please see the How to resume a render page for more info. |
Load Image | Load an image in any of the supported image formats. It can be useful for changing an image file from one format to another. You can convert a bitmap into a an MXI which can then be used as an Image emitter in your scenes. After loading the image you can use the Intensity settings from the Edit panel (MXI section) to change the brightness of the MXI emitter. Brighter settings will make the MXI emit more light. Use the “Save MXI as” menu option to save the image in the MXI formatSee the Textured emission (HDR emitter) page for more info. Please note that if your bitmaps are in HDR or EXR format they do not need to be converted to the MXI format ; - you can use these formats directly as Textured Emitters. |
Save Image | Save a bitmap of the currently displayed render channel (Render, Alpha channel, Shadow etc). After clicking Save in the dialog, a second menu will appear, allowing you to choose the bit depth. Depending on the format you have chosen in the Save Dialog, you can save in 8, 16 or 32 bit output. Please see the Output formats page for more info about the capabilities of each image format. |
Preferences | Opens the preferences dialog. Please see the Preferences section further down on this page for more info. |
Recent MXS/ Recent MXI | Display a list of the recently opened MXS/ MXI files |
Quit | Close Maxwell Render. |
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Menu item | What it does |
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Load script | Load and run a script file to automate the rendering process. Please see the Scripting chapter for more information about Scripting. |
Scripts | Shows a list of the scripts available in the “scripts” folder in the Maxwell installation folder. For quick access to scripts you should save any scripts you use regularly in this folder. |
Tools
Menu item | What it does |
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Render Calculator | Provides a very useful calculator to obtain an accurate estimation of the time needed to finish a render at certain resolution. It also can output the Sampling Level reached after a given render time. It can work both from a previously rendered MXI, or from a given MXS scene file. |
Run Benchwell | Runs Benchwell, the Maxwell official benchmarking test that allows you to check your computer performance and compare your render power with other hardware configurations. It first automatically downloads the Benchwell scene from the Next Limit server (the next time you run the test, the system will detect if the scene is already present in your computer, and will skip this download). Then it automatically runs the Benchwell test, rendering the provided scene under circumstances, and outputting a benchmark value that represents the rendering power of your computer. You can publish your performance value together with your system configuration to the Benchwell webpage, which represents a valuable hardware comparison chart. For more information, see this page about the Benchwell test. |
Window
Open or close the different panels available (Render Options, Edit, Preview, Console, Script, Multilight)
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You can download the Maxwell Render Suite keyboard reference chart here:
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