Speed up render time in Maxwell Render

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Permalink Reply by Disgruntled Postal Worker on December 12, 2009 at 11:59am

Randy,

I have the same problem, but I'm just a student and not a pro with Maxwell Render. But I do know I love this render engine. The only thing I know about the render time is that the difference between renderes such as v-ray and maxwell is that maxwell is a unbiased renderer, meaning that it will calculate the true physical path that lightrays will take while traditional biased renderers (v-ray, mental ray, hypershot, etc.) make a good guesstimate on the light intersections. this is why it takes so long to render with maxwell but it is extremely realistic, since it shows the true physical behavior of light.

Like I said before, I'm not a pro. So I don't know much more about it. I have the problem as-well. When I render exterior scenes it take less time to get a clear rendering then a interior scene. I'm sorry I can't help you. I hope you can do something with this info. And if you have gather any more information about this problem. Please let me know.

Good Luck

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Permalink Reply by Michael Edgett on December 13, 2009 at 2:12pm

Maxwell has a lot of different settings, just like a camera. You need to mess around with the "Camera Parameters" settings to arrive at the most clear image possible in any given time. Shots like you've shown are sensitive to film ISO, environment settings and the way you define your material and lights.

For increased speed the best you can do is to have a quad core system and make sure that in "Render Options" you have "0" under "CPU Threads" as well as unchecking the "Low Priority" box. I do a lot of jewelry and so focusing can be a challenge. I typically right click and choose "AutoFocus", picking the center stone on whatever I've made. I typically use either very simple lights or just light the scene with an HDR image, since this is the easiest type of lighting for Maxwell to calculate. Oh, make sure to turn off "Dispersion" on any materials which may have it turned on inadvertently.

I'm invariably in a big rush to get these things finished and off to the model maker and since the hand finish work on these takes less time than doing all the little details, (filleting, rounding, smoothing), in Rhino, I just forgo most of the niceties on the renders and just get them to the stage that I can get approval from my clients. Here's a couple of recent pieces. I think that these renders took a couple of hours and went to SL18 or so. I then post process them and shoot them to the client for approval. Larger scenes or something really complex could easily take a day I'm sure.

Attachments:

• Ron Final Render.jpg, 27 KB
• Tom K Perspective.jpg, 26 KB

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Permalink Reply by Rendy Himawan on December 13, 2009 at 9:59pm

Thank you - Disgruntled and Michael,

Now I am only using dual core processor with nvidia 9 series.I think the first thing should be handled is to leverage my system.

Michael, I have downloaded your attached images. It's a great renderings, and if you're saying that those renders takes few hours - It worth with the final result. Congratulations.

As for the camera matters, if during the renders I adjust the camera settings and (or) environment using multilight tab. Would it increases the render time also?

I have note all your tips and suggestions, Thank you very much :) .

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Permalink Reply by Hooper on December 17, 2009 at 5:24am

Hi Randy,

If you are considering buying a new system, try this company: www.boxxtech.com They make systems just for CAD and rendering and can't be beat. They even offer one system with 32 processors. I can't imagine how blissful that would be to work on. In any case one other option for you might be to purchase an additional render engine for those time crunches. At the company I work for we use both Maxwell and Vray. When we have little time for set up, but can afford more "wait time" (days with lots of meetings for example) then we use Maxwell. Or if we are going to be doing multiple lighting scenarious we use Maxwell. However on days where we need to punch out tons of renderings in a short time frame, we use Vray. Vray has a much steeper learning curve than Maxwell, but you can get terrific quality in a very short amount of time.

These were both done in Vray, the interior took around 40 minutes and the Monitor Kiosk took about 5 minutes. Both were done on a single Quad Core 2.66 Ghz machine, with an original render size of 1900x900 pixels.

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Permalink Reply by Rendy Himawan on April 16, 2010 at 7:07am

Hi Hooper,

I didn't catch you images when you reply to this discussion.
Both are very great renderings. I really got your point, it is a very good idea to master both vray and maxwell, and doing your scenario :) I have explored vray quite a lot recently, and just like Patro said below, set up time will take some time, even if we do have a good settings :) . I have browsed boxxtech, and I'm really not sure that i can afford those engine for decent time :( . So I might just keep them bookmarked for this time ;)
Anyway, thanks a lot man... :D

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Permalink Reply by patro on April 16, 2010 at 2:47am

hi,
to accelerate rendering speed with maxwell there is a simple trick!!!!
you must buy a more robust platform... a great amount of ram!!!!
people that work with it use pc with a minimum of 8gb Ram.... for complex scene...I'm talking about interior or exterior scene.
the rendering time still remain about 6 hour for each frame.
the only trick to speed up is the material setting....
complex layered material slow down the render...
using multilight-color slow down drastically the render...
using lamberitian or very rough material slow down rendering time.
maxwell is an photo realistic unbiased rendering engine.... that's mean that it does no use any trick to simulate light interaction. you will never see splotches in your final render.
while vray, mentalray etcc... are all biased renderer, fast efficient... but you must use an great amount to trick out it's inefficient in light simulation... this mean that you must put a great amount of light in the scene... and tweak and re-tweak, the scene to achieve the correct final result... and must put attention to trick out artifacts.
maxwell is superb and slow like any other unbiased rendering engine... for more info google it loking for biased and unbiased.
people say about unbiased: click and render... and wait,

unbiased (scene set up 5 min + render time ?) = ( scene setup x (X) + render x (X)) for biased

probably the time is near by the same considering all steps for the two type of rendering engine... but with maxwell you are sure to have a realistic render.
patro

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Permalink Reply by Rendy Himawan on April 16, 2010 at 7:41am

Hi Patro,

I got the points :) Thanks man.. I have an exterior renderings trial with maxwell, just like you said, set up is very simple and fast.
But, it seems that I still have difficulties concerning how to apply good materials in Maxwell. I frequently leech materials from their official site. When I apply them directly in my scene, it doesn't seem work as what the preview :( . Look at the grass. i directly applied the material, edit them in rhino texture editor, and hit render...

I will explore this deeply :)

Thanks man :)

* image with no editing, just finish render from maxwell studio.

Attachments:

• Preview.png, 4.9 MB

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Permalink Reply by patro on April 16, 2010 at 8:12am

well,
first impression:
incorrect day light or incorrect gamma value
tree out of scale, scaled child plant?
grass subdivision mapping for displacement to increment.
and save image as jpg instead png this is time speed-upping

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Permalink Reply by patro on April 16, 2010 at 8:54am

by the way... I'm looking for a rhinoceros script-er community because
I'm trying to find some one with rhino knowledge in geometry exporting!!
Luxrender at Luxrender.net... is a free open-source unbiased rendering engine...
and the guy are looking for a someone that want join the project and develop an exporter to bridge Luxrender with Rhinoceros.

http://www.luxrender.net/gallery
http://www.luxrender.net/

by the way.... Luxrender internal code support directly nurbs geometry... I think that is a good think, I also know that all other renderer for rhinoceros.... convert the nurbs geometry in to mesh for rendering it. I think that this kind of difference is a great win.

thanks in advance
Patro

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Permalink Reply by Bert Edmonston on April 19, 2010 at 5:48pm

I am also a jeweler and use Maxwell exclusively. I recently upgraded my PC to an Intel core-i7 920 processor with 8gb ram. Huge difference in render times.

Most of the renders I do don't require huge sizes. If you can get away with it decrease the film size. While you experiment with your setup do "test" renders at the smallest size. Then go up to the size you need.

Also hdri with small accent lights are the way to go. Multilight function is your friend. You can adjust the sliders during the rendered with little effect on time.

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Permalink Reply by Hamed Tabatabaee on April 23, 2010 at 3:58am

hello ...
friends....i have some problem by sampler...im tired of testing...some body help me plz...what number of sampler is correct...it's depend on what ? ... i like maxwell so mach but im wasting my time so mach !!!
there is no pefect way to reduce render time ? .... :cray: lol

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Permalink Reply by patro on April 23, 2010 at 4:41am

the way is simple... set sampling or sl to 30
and than when the render look great stop it.
speed up? there is only one way skip to unbiased render

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