Complete Feature List

Owned by Mihai Iliuta (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 05 Dec, 2012Version comment
3 min read

Image courtesy of Stack! Studios

COMPONENTS

MAXWELL RENDER

THE CORE RENDER application. Maxwell Render can also be launched from the command line, without displaying the Maxwell GUI. This can be useful for automating certain render tasks, although the new scripting capabilities in Maxwell Render version 2 (and further extended in version 2.5) offer much greater control and functions to automate jobs. Please see the in-depth Command Line description on the Command Line page.

NETWORK RENDERING

The Maxwell Render™ Network system allows jobs to be sent individually to each machine on the net, rendering animations or single frames. It is also possible to let all machines render the same frame and merge the images that have been created at the end of the rendering process. Other useful functions include grouping nodes for exclusive assignment or displaying an image that is being rendered by a specific node.

PLUG-INS

Connecting Maxwell Render to the most popular 3D / CAD and post-production applications. For a complete overview, see Plug-ins

MXED

The Maxwell Render Material editor. A versatile Material Editor with powerful, physically based correct materials.

MAXWELL STUDIO

A sophisticated scene editor with a full 3D environment, offering an alternative workflow to work with 3D applications that do not have a Maxwell plug-in.

 

GENERAL FEATURES

  • PHYSICALLY CORRECT
  • UNBIASED
  • MAXWELL FIRE
    • Fast Interactive Rendering
    • Preview scene changes in seconds
    • Integrated in plug-ins and Maxwell Studio
  • MULTILIGHT™
    • Adjust in real time emitter intensity and color, Sky and HDRIs.
    • Keyframe animated intensities and colors
    • Adjustments can be made during or/and after the render is finished.
  • ADVANCED PHYSICAL SKY SYSTEM
    • Aerosols
    • Presets
    • Real-life parameters
    • Sky to HDRI conversion

    • MultiLight™ controllable

  • SKY DOME
  • HDR/MXI ENVIRONMENT SYSTEM
    • Multi-channel control

    • MultiLight™ controllable

  • ADVANCED ILLUMINATION SYSTEM
    • Color + Luminance emitters
    • Temperature emitters (Kelvin)
    • HDR/ MXI emitters
    • Luminary pre-sets
    • Real-life units
    • IES and EULUMDAT support

    • Multilight™ controllable

  • INSTANCING
  • MOTION BLUR
  • RESUME RENDER
  • RENDER CHANNELS
  • COLOR SPACES
    • sRGB, Adobe98, Apple, PAL, NTSC
  • RENDER LAYERS
    • 8/16/32 BITS OUTPUT
    • PNG, TGA, JPG, TIFF, JPG2000, MXI, HDR,
      EXR, BMP
  • COMPATIBLE WITH REALFLOW

MATERIAL FEATURES

  • STACKED LAYERS
    • Stack layers on top of each other
    • Create extremely complex materials
    • BSDF blending (Normal, Additive)
    • Weight mapping
  • SUBSURFACE SCATTERING
  • THIN SSS
  • FRESNEL SIMULATION
  • SPECTRAL DISPERSION
  • ADVANCED ABSORPTION AND TRANSMITTANCE
    • With attenuation distance
    • Mapped (smooth, color)
    • Clipped (explicit, black & white)
  • ADVANCED ANISOTROPY
  • MATTE MATERIAL
  • BUMP AND NORMAL MAPPING
  • COMPLEX IOR FILES
  • COATING LAYERS
    • Thin film interference/ iridescence
    • Thickness mapping
    • Emission layers
  • COMPOSITE EMITTERS
  • DISPLACEMENT
 

 

 

CAMERA FEATURES

  • SIMULENS™
    • Diffraction
    • Lens Scattering
    • Devignetting
    • AA Sharpness setting
  • SHIFT LENS
  • POLYGONAL/ CIRCULAR DIAPHRAGM
  • SHUTTER SPEED
  • FOCAL LENGTH
  • FSTOP
  • DEPTH OF FIELD (DOF)
  • AUTO EXPOSURE
  • Z-CLIP PLANES

NETWORKING FEATURES

  • HYBRID NETWORK support
    • Windows 32, Windows 64, Mac OSX and Linux 64
  • FULL MONITORING
  • Auto-detect RENDERNODES
  • COOPERATIVE/ ANIMATION/ SINGLE JOB MODES
  • BATCH RENDERING/ RENDER QUEUE
  • PRIORITY CONTROL
  • SCRIPTING

 

 

PLUG-INS

All available plug-ins are compatible with the latest version of Maxwell Render. The plug-ins have their own specific user guides, available on this site.

  • 3D/CAD PLUG-INS SUPPORTED BY NEXT LIMIT TECHNOLOGIES
    • 3ds Max, ArchiCAD, Cinema4D, Form·Z, LightWave, Maya, Modo, Rhino, SketchUp, SolidWorks, Softimage.
  • POST PROCESSING PLUG-INS SUPPORTED BY NEXT LIMIT TECHNOLOGIES
    • After Effects, Nuke, Photoshop
  • PLUG-INS SUPPORTED BY THIRD PARTIES
    • Allplan, SolidThinking

For a detailed list of available plugins and host versions, see Plug-ins

For all other applications (AutoCAD, Revit, Blender, etc.) it is possible to bring geometry in one of the supported file formats into Maxwell Studio.

MAXWELL STUDIO

  • FLEXIBLE SCENE EDITOR as an alternative workflow option.
    • Import objects
    • Supported file formats: MXS, OBJ, STL, PLY, LWO, XC2, 3DS, DXF, FBX, DAE.
    • Set up cameras
    • Apply materials
    • Set up sky and lights
    • Send to render
  • HIERARCHY support.
  • FLEXIBLE AND CUSTOMIZABLE UI
  • REAL TIME OPENGL previews
    • Sky/ Sky Dome
    • Environment
    • DOF indicator
  • MAXWELL FIRE INTEGRATED
    • Preview instantly any changes in your scene
  • REAL TIME COMPASS/ SUN position
  • MATERIAL EDITOR
  • MATERIAL WIZARDS
  • MATERIAL BROWSER
  • MXM GALLERY integration
  • ORTHOGRAPHIC RENDERING
  • UV MAPPING TOOLS
  • GOOGLE™ EARTH KML MARKUP support
  • EXPORT OBJ option

ADDITIONAL CONTENT

The following additional contents are included with the purchase of a Standard license of Maxwell Render.

  • ACCESS TO 11 3D/CAD PLUG-INS AND 3 POST PRO PLUG-INS, FREE OF CHARGE
  • A FREE PACK OF DOSCH DESIGN HDRIs
  • A FREE PACK OF ERCO IES LIGHTS
  • FREE MAINTENANCE AND BASIC TECHNICAL SUPPORT for 12 months from the first purchase
  • THE MAXWELL RENDER SDK