Page Comparison

Start / Stop Rendering

When Maxwell Fire is disabled, this button is yellow, and reads Fire. Clicking it in this state will perform an export if necessary, and begin rendering the scene in Maxwell Fire. If, on the other hand, Maxwell Fire is currently rendering, this button is red, and reads Stop. Clicking it in this state will disable Maxwell Fire. To completely unload Maxwell Fire and its data from memory, close the Maxwell Fire window.

Lock

Usually, it is desirable to have Maxwell Fire updated whenever something changes in the scene. However, when a final image is being rendered, it is desirable that inadvertent actions, for example, scrolling in the SketchUp viewport, be ignored, so that the rendering is not interrupted. This may be done by enabling the Lock button; when the rendering is locked, you can even proceed with working on the model, though it is important to understand that when rendering is subsequently unlocked, all changes made in the interim will be pushed into the scene, and rendering will be begun again.

Re-export Scene

This button is only shown after the scene has initially been exported. Clicking it will cause the data currently in memory to be released, and a new export will be performed. It is necessary to do this when objects have been moved, material assignments changed, or UV coordinates modified.

Save Image

This button is used to save the current image to disk. It is only shown when an image exists. Maxwell Fire supports saving images in 8-bit RGB formats only. The format written is determined by the file extension specified, which can be any one of the following:

• .bmp

• .tga|.targa

• .jpg|.jpeg

• .png

• .tif|.tiff

• .jp2

• .ppm

• .pbm

• .pgm

If no extension is specified, the image will be saved as .png.

Engine Settings

Shows the Engine Settings window, which is used to control various Maxwell Fire settings.

Actual Size/Fit to Window

This button toggles the Maxwell Fire image display between showing the rendered image at its actual size, and fitting it to the current size of the display area of the window.

Maxwell Links

This shows and hides the Maxwell Links panel, which contains useful shortcuts to information on using the plugin (i.e. help, tutorials, etc).

HUD

This button toggles the visibility of the Maxwell Fire window’s upper and lower heads up display panels.

SL

Sets the sampling level at which rendering will be stopped.

Threads

Sets the number of threads which will be used by the render engine, where zero means auto-detect.

Max. Res.

800x800

1920x1080

Sets the actual size of the largest dimension of the rendered image in Fire. The aspect ratio of the output is determined by the aspect ratio of the Output Resolution of the currently-rendering camera. Please, notice you can always launch bigger renders in Maxwell Render.

Extensions

Globally enables & disables render-time effects such as Maxwell Grass, Sea, and Volumetric.

Engine

Allows you to specify whether rendering be done using Maxwell Render's Draft or Production render engine. While both engines are entirely unbiased, and will eventually converge to produce the same image, they use very different calculation strategies, which are suited to very different purposes.

Draft

This is the default engine used by Maxwell Fire. It gives a basic idea of the final image as soon as possible, and also updates very frequently, in order to provide responsive real-time feedback.

Production

While the Draft engine is very good for real-time work, it will not, in fact, render a finished image faster than the Production engine, in many cases. This is especially true in situations which involve more complex light interactions: caustics and indirect lighting, heavy depth-of-field, etc.

Physical

This class includes changes to geometry (topology or location), assignment of materials, alteration of UV coordinates, etc.

Conceptual

This class includes changes to materials, cameras, environment, output settings, and so on.