Step aside Photoworks, Maxwell is here

After 10 years why is PW still not easy to use? Along comes Maxwell
and shows the way? Actually I am with Mike Tripoli on this - maxwell
appears to be trying to model light as accurately as possible, so in
order to get good renderings out of it one needs to be a good
photographer and paint with light - I don't think there will be any
short cuts with Maxwell. Take for example - 'Shadow Blur' - In PW
you can set this independantly to suit what you like. The blur of the
shadow in Maxwell is purely the result of the following factors -
distance the lights are away from the subject, type and shape of light
emitter and surface and other properties of the material in the
'photo' etc - real world factors. I don't think there are any plans
to implement a 'shadow sharpness' slider that would by-pass this..
Reality is their aim - not to make an easy to use renderer. Other
'features' like 'Contour renderings' I think wwill be missing from
maxwell.

Anyone can take a picture and reality is captured - but it DOES take
an expert to take a 'good' photograph consistantly and this will not
change with Maxwell. In an outdoor scene, one will have to set up
'fill in' flash lighting to get the details in shadows etc. In fact I
am looking forward to using Maxwell because I understand photography,
but I do realise it is not a silver bullet solution, especially if
they don't get the rendering speed up. I can see a whole market of
'virtual' camera aids being modelled and macroed to include -
Flashguns, slave flashguns, lightmeters, diffusers, vaseline lenses!!
;-) eiks !! filterholders, star burst filtes etc!!!

Not so sure.;-)

TTFN


jonathan

 

How many light sources can you use in Maxwell. PW is limited to 9 or
something and many settings have many more lights.

 

Not sure that there's a limit. As light sources are any object in the
scene, I think you can as many as you like. These are not OpenGL light
sources, just objects that can cast light. Recommendations are that
you use as few poly's as you can for a light source, and only use what
you need to keep the render times down.

Mike Tripoli