Parameters

Owned by Systems Next Limit (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 01 Feb, 2022 by Next Limit
7 min read

These are the available command line parameters and their description.

Parameters

Description

Parameters

Description

-alphaopaque: 
[on \ off]

Enable/disable the opaque mode in alpha channel.

-animation
-a 

Specify a sequence of frames to render. This can be provided in the form of individual frames separated by a semicolon (3;5;7) or a range in the form A-B (from frame A to frame B), or a combination of both. 

-dependencies:[path]  
-dep:[path]

-bitmaps:[path] *    
-b:[path] *

Set an alternative folder path for the dependencies location. 
You can specify more than one path by issuing several -dependencies: arguments.

* Note: These commands are kept for ensuring compatibility with older versions, but we advise the use of "-dependencies" or "-dep" for referring to any dependencies in the scene (ie, ior files, referenced MXM etc).

-burn:value

No display and No console view (process completely hidden). Set the burn value.

-camera:name

Specify the name of the camera you want to render from in case it does not match with the active camera in your MXS scene file.

-channel: [channel_name], [yes | on | no | off], [depth (8,16,32)], [format]

This option establishes the different channels that Maxwell Render™ can export and their format.
All the parameters are optional except the first one. This option establishes the different channels that Maxwell Render™ can export and their format.
All the parameters are optional except the first one.

Example:
-channel:alpha,on,32,tif --> will render the alpha channel in tif 32 format

-channel:material -->will render the material id channel

-channel:object,off --> will disable the object id channel if it was enabled in the scene

-channel:denoiser,on → will enable the denoiser in the scene.


Other flags added are:
-zmin:value --> set the zmin value of the zbuffer channel
-zmax:value --> set the zmax value of the zBuffer channel
-alphaopaque --> Enable alpha opaque
-alphaembeded --> Enable alpha embedded
-embedded --> Embeds the selected channel when the output format allows it.

-channelsembedded:
[on | off]

Enable embedding all the channels as image layers if the format supports it.

-color:

Set a color space.

-copyimage:[path] 
-removeaftercoy:
[yes | no]

Specify an image path where the render output will be copied when finished. Very useful for instance to avoid specifying a network path as render output, which can make the render slow. A local path can be set as render output instead, and when the render finishes the file will be copied to the desired path.
If the user also specifies “-removeaftercopy:yes/no”, the original files will be removed if the copy succeeds.

-copymxi:[path] 
- removeaftercopy:
[yes | no]

Specify a path where the MXI render output will be copied when finished. Very useful for instance to avoid specifying a network path as render output, which can make the render slow. A local path can be set as render output instead, and when the render finishes the file is copied to the desired path.
If the user also specifies “-removeaftercopy:yes/no”, the original files will be removed if the copy succeeds.

-defaultmaterialenabled: 
[yes | on | no | off]

Enable/disable the default material.

-defaultmaterialpath:[path]

Indicate the path to the default material.

-denoiseShadow:on | off

Specify whether to denoise shadow channel or not

-denoiseGPU:on | off

Specify GPU usage at denoise process

-denoiseTiling:on | off

Specify if you want to use tiling in the denoiser process

-denoiseMaxTileSize:x

Specify the maximum tile size used for the denoiser process in MB 

-denoiseAutoconfig:0|1|2 

Specify how to let Maxwell to configure channels for denoise. 0 :none, 1: fast, 2: accurate

-denoiseStartSL:x 

Specify SL to start denoise previews (0 to view denoise result only at end)

-denoiseKc1:x

Specify the value of the Color Influence 1 parameter of the denoiser (values between 0 and 1)

-denoiseKc2:x

Specify the value of the Color Influence 2 parameter of the denoiser (values between 0 and 1)

-denoiseKf:x

Specify the value of the Feature Influence parameter of the denoiser (values between 0 and 1)

-denoiseKc4:x

Specify the value of the Final Pass parameter of the denoiser (values between 0 and 1)

-denoiseWindowRadius:x

Specify the value of the Filter Radius parameter of the Denoiser (values between 2 and 50)

-denoiseFireflySupressor:on | off

Specify whether to use the Firefly Remover parameter or not.

-denoisePassthrough:on | off

If active, lets you skip the process of calculating the denoiser while keeping the render running and preserving all the channels and information required to calculate it later (on a computer that can handle it, for example).

-depth: 
[8 | 16 | 32]

Adjust the depth in bits of the image output. It can be 8, 16, or 32. Take into account that the depth will be affected by the format; for instance if you type -depth:32 and the output is in JPG that does not support 32 bits the depth will be adjusted automatically.

-devignetting:value

Values range from 0 to 100 for the suppression of the vignetting effect on the image borders.

-dispersion: 
[yes | on | no | off]

Globally enable/disable the dispersion calculations for the whole scene. 

-displacement: 
[yes | on | no | off]

Globally enable/disable the displacement calculations for the whole scene.

-dodevignetting:
[on | off]

Enable/disable the suppression of the vignetting effect.

-doscattering: 
[on | off] 

Enable the lens scattering for the render.

-extractlights: 
[on | off]

Save each light in a separate file if Multilight is enabled.

-gamma:[value]

Set the gamma value.

-idcpu: 

By default the render is initialized to a random value when the rendering starts. It is useful for rendering the same MXS file on different computers that are not networked together.The resulting MXI files of each render can be copied manually to the same computer and merged in Maxwell using File> Merge MXI. Each resulting MXI must have a different starting seed for the noise pattern to be slightly different in each MXI, otherwise, the merging of MXI files will not work correctly. 
The user does not have to set this parameter unless they want to render with the same idcpu on all computers, in which case all the MXI files will have the exact same noise pattern.

-licenseinfo

Prints all the license information in the console and exits the application with the following error codes:
* 0 = license Ok
* 1 = critical error (application error)
* 2 = license error

-licensepath:[path]

Set the path of the license file.

-mintime:[min]

Set the time (minutes) to impose a minimum time for saving MXI files to disk. It works like the new preference “Min. Time for saving to disk". In the case of wanting the render to be saved only at the end and don't save files during the process, set this parameter to a high value (it has a maximum limit of 30000).

-motionblur: 
[yes | on | no | off]

Globally enable/disable the motion blur calculations for the whole scene.

-multilight:
-ml
[off | intensity | color]

Set the Multilight mode. Values are “off”, “intensity” or “color”.

-mxi:[path]

When rendering, Maxwell writes a special MXI file that contains information about the rendering process. This file allows the user to resume a previously rendered image. If this command is not used, the MXI will use the same name and path as the MXS scene.

-mxs:[path]
-scene:[path]

Specify the full path and name of the scene file to render (in MXS format).

-nomxi
[-nomxi:off]

Force Maxwell Render not to save an MXI file but just the output image file. Or, -nomxi:off for always writing the MXI.

-norenderifdemo

Avoid the render to start if the license is not valid.

-output:[path]
-o:[path]

Specify the full path and name of the image file. By default, Maxwell saves a file “default.tga” in the output folder of the installation path. The file name can refer to any of the multiple graphic formats supported (tga, jpg, tif, png, exr, etc). In case of sequences, the output files will be numbered with a four digit suffix.

-overridematerialenabled: 
[yes | on | no | off]

Globally enable/disable the override material.

-overridematerialpath: 
[path]

Override all materials in the scene using the material indicated in the path.

-pass:0-5

Set the render pass. It can be: 

“0” (all)
“1” (diffuse pass) 
“2” (reflections pass)
“3” (refractions pass)
“4” (diffuse and reflections pass) 
“5” (reflections and refractions pass)

-region:type,x1,y1,x2,y2

Specify if you want to render the full frame, a region, or blowup a region, specifying also the coordinates of the rectangular marquee. Type is: 

"full"
"region"
"marquee"  

-renameoutput

When this flag is used Maxwell Render does not write the MXI file directly in the given output path; it writes a temporary file and when the writing process finishes it renames it to the final path.This can be used by 3rd part job managers to ensure the MXI file is not being written when they try to access it.

-res:WxH
-r:WxH

Specify the resolution of the render in pixels (W=width, H=height,   i.e -res:1920x1024).

-resume:[path]
-res:[path]

Continue a render from a previously saved MXI file. To resume a previously rendered image and update the MXI file, this flag must be added. Note: The MXI file is useful to resume the rendering process later, to use Multilight™ (when the Multilight™ option has been enabled) or to use it as a light emission map.

-sampling:
-sl:

This value establishes a quality level for the render. This value is useful when you want to render a sequence of frames using different hardware configurations. If the quality level is reached before the “maximum render time”, then the render ends. Alternatively, if the maximum render time is reached before the sampling level, the render also stops the calculus. 
To get an idea of the image quality during the render process, you can take a look at the command line window, where the sampling level is continually updated.

-scattering:value

Values range from 0 to 100.

-script:[path]

Load and run a given script.

-slupdate:[seconds]

Force the engine to refresh the sampling level info at the given ratio instead of doing it automatically. It can be useful when launching renders from external process to query info about the render progress.

-time:
-t: 

Specify the time (in minutes) that Maxwell Render is allowed to use to render every frame. Maxwell Render can render the scene in a specified amount of minutes, providing the best possible quality.

-threads:
-th:  

Specify the number of threads (N) that Maxwell Render is allowed to use. Normally this should be equal to the number of CPUs available in the system. By default, N is the number of CPU s found in the system except in cases where hyper threading features are available.

Note: When N is 0 (-th:0), Maxwell Render™ uses the maximum number of CPU available.

-trytoresume 

Maxwell will automatically resume the render if the MXI file exists, without asking the user if resuming or not. If the MXI file is not found, it will render from scratch without asking the user.

-zmin:value 

Set the minimum value for the zbuffer channel in meters. 

-zmax:value

Set the maximum value for the zbuffer channel in meters.