Maxer

I receaved this e-mail this morining from Next Limit, it looks very promising!

Dear customer,



Next Limit Technologies is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Maxwell Render 1.5. The release, scheduled for mid-May, will bring a great number of improvements, new features and enhancements for new and existing customers.

Some of the features of this release which have already been published through newsletters and forums include:



- Core enhancements: Key parts of the engine have been rewritten, resulting in many fantastic improvements, bringing the quality of rendered images to a completely new level. Memory handling has been greatly enhanced. This version uses much less memory than version 1.1, making it possible to render at very high resolutions (for example at 8000 x 6000 with less than 2 GB of Ram) without losing quality. High-res images are just a mouse-click away now. As a consequence of the core enhancements, memory-intensive tasks such as glare, Multilight with a lot of emitters, large geometries and a lot of heavy textures are improved. Additionally, MXI files can always be re-rendered and the size of the MXI files is around 3,5 times smaller in the new version.

- Maxwell Studio and Maxwell Material Editor: Both have been rewritten resulting in massive improvements in usability, performance and better “look and feel” and workflow for the user.

- 32 bits output: It is now possible to set the output image format to HDR directly inside Maxwell Render.

- Network: Maxwell Render’s networking option has been vastly improved and optimized, making it more stable and faster, with the possibility for users to see a coop preview image and to select machines by name or IP.

- Linux version: A Linux version will be available with 1.5. In addition, Maxwell Studio and the Maxwell Material Editor have been re-written from scratch to implement optimizations and improvements of the highest level.

- Plug-ins: All our current plug-ins are compatible with Maxwell Render 1.5, and many of them have been further improved. Especially the Lightwave plug-in has seen major optimizations.



Why 1.5 ?



This is a significant upgrade to Maxwell Render 1.1 on many levels and this release deserves to be positioned accordingly. “1.2” just doesn’t underline the importance of this release. However, Maxwell Render 1.5 naturally remains a FREE upgrade for existing users to reward them for their support and loyalty.



Many parts of Maxwell Render have been improved and re-written. The core Render Engine has seen key enhancements in some of the most important parts. Maxwell Studio and the Maxwell Material Editor have been re-written from scratch. The feature list has been extended and improved, including more innovative features for realism and render quality, and new plug-ins. Huge optimizations have been made in memory handling, and the performance, stability and usability have all been enhanced. Pricing has been maintained but we have radically changed the licensing policy to embrace current and future hardware trends. Collectively, these result in a significant upgrade from 1.1 and we are proud to name this version Maxwell Render 1.5.



Next week we will follow up on this announcement, providing information about the new licensing policy and a more detailed feature list. In the meantime, if you have any queries, please feel free to ask me.



All the best,



Next Limit Team



April 20th 2007

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CHE

Great News! I am looking forward to this upgrade. However, it looks lile we are going to have to re-learn the software again. I wonder what changes in the licensing policy were made.

Ernest Burden

Rather short on specifics, as usual. But no shortage of superlatives.

We have new features, and new licensing, which we will tell you about later.

6000 line hi-res is just a mouse-click away. Well, that's good. A click, a coffee break and a trip to Paris away, perhaps? Maybe they did speed it up, good if they did.

With unbiased rendering, there should be one solution. The right solution. Maxwell is slow because its doing everything the right way, we've been told. So what is going to bring quality to a new level? What does that say about the level MWR does now, which was supposed to be so amazing?

OK. Pardon my skeptical post. Soon, in some days, we'll be amazed. Maybe actually and for real.

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AJLynn

If they've managed to make it a lot faster (I've alreay written more than once on why I think that's impossible, aside from improving the efficiency of net rendering) that would improve render quality - a less grainy image in the same amount of time.

Maybe that's the most significant thing about this - a better net render system and a license policy that allows more nodes (e.g., 4 computers per license, not 4 cores). If I were to use my 2 licenses to set up an 8-node farm with the new Core2 Duo boxes in the office, and it rendered at production quality overnight, that would be a vast improvement over what I've got now, though still not a "real" fix since it relies on my having a lot of computers.

Maxer

I don't think they are going to be able to increase the speed by adjusting the code, they have already said that the only real way to speed it up is by using network rendering. So I'm guessing that the adjustment in the licensing is going to reflect their realization that without X number of licenses creating production work is to expensive for the average user. I was very involved in the development of the new Network rendering system, the preview image was my main push but I would think most of my recommendations made it into this release. I'm glad to see that they have decided to go with a 1.5 update instead of a 1.2 which hopefully translates into much more advancement and a better feature set.

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manta

Does Maxwell have displacements now, I saw that Fryrender does...

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Adehus

It's worth recalling that the last time there was an announced 'speed increase', it was in the form of network rendering... that's right, add hardware, go faster.

I wouldn't be surprised if they tout the revised licensing policy as a so-called speed increase as well- more cores per license equals more speed. Or something.

The whole 1.5 deal is interesting... and gives me a sense of deja vu. It increases expectations tremendously. Will they deliver on the hype as poorly as their history would lead us to believe?

I'm sure it comes as a surprise to nobody, but color me skeptical.

Maxer

Well they haven't actually released what any of the 1.5 features will be so it's anybody's guess as to what will be in there. I'm also tempted to agree with Adehus about how NL would define a speed improvement because in the past they have used Network rendering to speed up rendering instead of the software actually getting faster. Having said that though the e-mail does specifically say “Huge optimizations have been made in memory handling and the performance" which would lead me to believe that in rewriting the core render engine they were able to speed it up.

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Adehus

My guess would be that your answer is right there- they've made performance enhances related to slowdowns caused by poor memory handling in the current release. Not sure how that nets out in the end, but I'm tempted to guess it'd only be of importance if you were rendering out a mega million poly model at huge resolutions (maybe related to the hd function?)

Or... maybe they've added an alert that says, "add ram to increase rendering speed!"

jackb602

They have certainly used a lot of superlatives in their announcement, but even Next Limit make absolutely no reference to speeding up the rendering engine. They are usually not shy in describing the virtues of Maxwell, so I think it's safe to assume there has been no improvement in rendering speed.

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