Installation and Licensing

This page gives a short overview of how the licensing system works in V4. You may go directly to the step-by-step install & licensing instructions with helpful videos:

For Node-Locked license activation

For Floating license activation

For Maxwell Render V4, we are using RLM License Server system (Reprise License Manager). The RLM licensing system works by installing a small application called the RLM License Server (on the computer of your choice), and this server will "serve" licenses to any computer in your network that connects to it, including the computer that's running the licensing server. If you have a Node Locked license, you do NOT need to install the RLM License Server.

It is only necessary to install ONE instance of RLM in your entire network and NOT on each of the computers that will run Maxwell. Installing several instances of the RLM License Server on your network will result in conflicts and possibly licensing errors.

How the license activator works

For all Maxwell Render purchases you will receive a license activation key (via email). This key is not the actual license serial number - this is generated and written onto your hard drive via the license activation process. This license activator (which will pop-up automatically whenever Maxwell Render does not detect a license) can be found in the Maxwell Render.exe menu: Help>Activate license.

The activation process is done online by connecting to our server which verifies the license key and password information that you provide. It then writes the license file onto your hard disk (or the hard disk of the computer where your license server is running). See below for the folder paths.

There is also an option to activate your license offline if you have no internet access, or if you want to activate a license on a computer other than the one you are using. For this option you will be required to enter the Host ID of the computer - to find this ID you can check in the SYSTEM INFO readout of the Maxwell Render console panel. Open Maxwell.exe and if the Console panel is not visible, go to Window in the top menu and make sure "Console" is checked. You may need to scroll up in the panel until you see the Host ID.

Where the license files are stored

For Floating licenses

Click here to expand...

If you have a Floating license your main license file is named "maxwell_suite_floating.lic" , and will be placed in:

Windows

C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses

OSX

/Users/Shared/NextLimit/rlm_nl/licenses

Linux

$HOME/Maxwell (in the Maxwell folder inside the user home folder)

For Node Locked licenses

Click here to expand...

Your license file is named "maxwell_license.lic" and will be placed in:

Windows

C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses

OSX

/Users/<username>/Maxwell

Linux

$HOME/Maxwell (in the Maxwell folder inside the user home folder)

A second type of license file will be present on each of the computers (including the one running the server). This license file is named "maxwell_license.lic" and will actually only contain a single line of text. This line tells Maxwell on which computer in your network is running the license server, and on which port it should connect to, in order to be issued a license. This line will be similar to this:

HOST mylicensecomputer ANY 5053

The "host" in this case is the computer name where the RLM license server is running. Maxwell will try to connect to it using the default connection port of 5053 (note that this is different than the 5054 port mentioned below). In Windows and Linux this file will be placed in the same location as mentioned above. In OS X it will be located in /Users/<username>/Maxwell.

If you are using Windows it may happen that you can't find the folder mentioned above. It is because that folder is hidden by default. If you want to make it visible you have to tap Windows key and write "Folder Options" to search for that panel. Open it and activate this option in View tab, then click OK:

Custom location for the license files

It it possible to change the location of this file by setting an environment variable named nextlimit_LICENSE=port@host. For example, if you want a rendernode to point to a license manager that has the IP 192.168.0.19 using the port 5053 you have to set an environment variable which looks like this: nextlimit_LICENSE=5053@192.168.0.13

Virtual Machines

The RLM license server can work in virtual environments, i.e VMWARE, Amazon cloud, Parallels or other virtual environments, but the licenses have to be enabled for that in Customer Portal when generating the license. You will find that checkbox in second step of the license generation process like shown the image below:

Installing Maxwell in silent mode

Maxwell allows a silent installation of its components via command line on Windows. To do so, simply type /S when invoking the installer on the command line prompt:

maxwell_render_4.1.1.1_win64.exe /S /D=C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell

The additional arguments are:

/D=dir (to indicate the folder where Maxwell will be installed)
/MATERIALDATABASE= dir (to indicate the path to the materials database folder)
/SHORTCUTS=on/off (creates desktop shortcuts to the application. By default it is disabled)