Next limit MAXWELL RENDER DATASHEET

Maxwell Render™ is an unbiased rendering engine based on the mathematical equations governing light transport, meaning that all
elements in the scene are derived from physically accurate models. The software offers a straightforward user interface, quick set-up,

and an effective workow through plug-ins to a wide range of 3D, CAD and Postproduction applications.

Due to its very nature, Maxwell Render enables users to create accurate and extremely realistic images. Maxwell Render is a
recognized standard in architectural visualization, product design, jewelry, lm production, scientic research and other high-end

rendering markets, and the leader in render quality.

KEY BENEFITS TO USERS

• QUICKSET-UP

Maxwell Render’s approach to rendering is based on real-world units and settings, eliminating strange concepts and exhaustive
lists of parameters in complicated terminology. For example, the settings of the Maxwell Render camera work and adjust just like

the settings of a real camera. Creating and rendering scenes is straightforward, and setup times are extremely low compared to

other renderers. Features such as Multilight enable users to edit scenes even after rendering has been completed.

• GOODVALUE

A Maxwell Render license not only gives you access to the most realistic renderer on the market; you also get free plug-ins to a
wide range of popular 3D and CAD applications (see below for a list of available plug-ins) so you can use Maxwell Render while

staying in the comfortable environment of the modeling software with which you are already familiar. You will also have access to

an online library of over 3800 free and ready-to-use materials, skies, illumination pre-sets, free tutorials and community support.

• UNRIVALLEDREALISM

The technology behind Maxwell Render is physically correct and unbiased, enabling users to create materials, set lights and
cameras, and render scenes, all in a hyper realistic manner resulting in images that are indistinguishable from photographs.
Maxwell Render’s physically correct creations and data can help architects, designers and VFX supervisors understand what

lighting inside or outside a building would look like once realized, or what a nal product would look like in production.

KEY FIELDS OF APPLICATION

• ARCHITECTURE&INTERIORDESIGN

Maxwell Render is the perfect solution for the high end,
photo quality visualizations that architects and designers
need. The physically correct simulation helps to envisage

how natural and articial light will affect their creations, and
high-level integration with many of the major 3D and CAD
applications provides a fast and straightforward workow.
Innovative features like Multilight enhance the workow

even further.

• INDUSTRIAL&PRODUCTDESIGN

Used extensively in the automotive, jewelry and product
design industries, Maxwell Render offers a complete
package for designers. While it is possible to create
unlimited numbers of physically correct materials, the
software also comes with a library of thousands of free,
ready-to-use shaders. Maxwell Render’s physically correct
lighting enables designers to create images that look like
photographs, saving high expenses of studio shoots and

giving a clear idea of what the nal product will look like.

• FILMANDTVPRODUCTION

Maxwell Render is a new render option for the VFX production
industries, offering extremely realistic and easily variable

lighting solutions for advertisements and lms as already

seen in several high-end productions. Maxwell Render’s
robust and easy to use network system provides the speed
and control needed in the complex pipelines and demanding

environments of high-end lm and TV production.

Markus Otto - www.winzenrender.com

Cary James - CONTACT www.contactdesign.cad

Meindbender - www.meindbender.com

KEY FEATURES

• Multi-processor,Multi-platformandExtensiverangeofplug-ins

Maxwell Render can exploit all the processors available on your system, is compatible with Windows (32 and 64 bits), Mac
OSX and Linux (64 bits), and connects via plug-ins to the most popular 3D, CAD and Postproduction applications. Currently, 14

different plug-ins are available for free with the software.

• Multilight™andColorMultilight

Don’t re-render – adjust the lights in real time.

The Multilight feature removes the need to re-render images when light changes are required. Multilight™ allows the user to
change intensities of individual lights and multiple scene emitters during and after the rendering process, eliminating the need

to run various renders to tweak the lighting set up. A recent addition to this is Color Multilight, which enables users to edit the
color of emitters in real time. These features give users innite possibilities saving numerous different lighting versions of the
same scene without rendering it over and over again. The Multilight feature is the rst of its kind in a commercial render engine

and it is extremely powerful.

Hervé Steff - www.insideko.com

Benjamin Brosdau

Pure - www.purerender.com

• MaxwellMaterials

Based on real optical properties, creating unrivaled realism.

The Maxwell Material Editor offers real-life parameters that dene the materials in a natural and accurate way. It is possible to
create Sub-Surface Scattering effects (see below), thin layers, light-emitting materials and advanced stacked materials.
A material in Maxwell Render can consist of several components, one stacked above the other much like layers in an image

editing application. This makes it very easy and intuitive to create interesting and complex materials, such as a rust material

showing through a car paint material, or applying a logo on top of a combination of different materials. A large library with

thousands of free, ready-to-use materials is also available.

Brick 02 by archSTUDIO Distressed gold frame by jason_maranto 100 windows facade by Luca_StudioAltieri Outdoor table V2 by Luca_StudioAltieri trick by Artem80

• Networking

In high-end productions, it is often necessary to distribute a render job over a number of machines in a farm to quickly obtain
all the frames needed for a sequence or to calculate a very large image. Maxwell Render’s networking capabilities are very

powerful (more computers equals more speed in a very linear way), and very exible - networking is multi-platform allowing a

mixture of Windows, Mac and Linux systems to be connected together. The software’s wizard system makes setting a network

job a straightforward task. With networking, you can tell Maxwell to render the same image on all your computers (cooperative
rendering), or each computer can render one frame of an animation.

• PhysicalSkySystem

The Physical Sky system in Maxwell Render uses a novel approach, offering a wide range of real-life and physically correct

parameters to control the look of the sky and the subsequent lighting in the scene. Results range from common Earth values to
exaggerated fantasy skies. Users can create pre-sets of sky settings to quickly load a new sky, or share their pre-sets with other

users. It’s also possible to save the current sky as an HDR map.

• RealisticCameraModel

Maxwell Render simulates a real camera with the associated parameters, such as f-stop, focal length, shutterspeed, etc. By using

this type of camera model Maxwell Render can automatically simulate depth of eld, natural 3d motion blur, and other effects.

With Maxwell Render’s camera model, it is very straightforward to match the lighting levels of a real photo with a render. If you
are familiar with photography you will feel right at home!

• MaxwellDisplacement

Displacement is a powerful texture-driven tool that can help users to create real geometric detail on objects on-the-y while
rendering. As opposed to many other displacement solutions currently available in the industry, Maxwell Render offers you its

very own, unique displacement technology which is capable of simulating any detail without extra memory consumption.

In addition, Maxwell Displacement has very few parameters and is very comfortable to control.

• Sub-SurfaceScattering(SSS)

Sub-Surface Scattering (SSS) simulates the effect of light entering a translucent object and scattering inside it. It is a crucial

component that allows users to accurately simulate many kinds of materials including plastics, marble, milk and skin. Subsurface

scattering in V2 has a special mode which can handle single-sided geometry. This mode is very suitable for leaves, lampshades,

paper, and curtains amongst others. The new Thin SSS mode also has the advantage of rendering faster than normal subsurface
scattering. The SSS component in Maxwell Render follows an entirely new approach compared to any other SSS system currently
available, offering unprecedented, photorealistic effects in material creation.

Furumaru - http://furumaru.deviantart.com Brian Looney - [e-mail] Brian Looney - [e-mail]

• Simulens™

Advanced bloom and glare controls that bring a new level of realism and quality.
Simulens allows the user to dene a pattern to simulate the shape of the camera diaphragm that will model the pattern of
light reaching the camera lm, creating realistic lens diffraction effects (glare). Users can add a second pattern which denes
‘obstacles’ in the lens such as dust, ngerprints or eyelashes adding to a more realistic diffraction effect.

• MaxwellRenderandRealFlow

Maxwell Render is compatible “out of the box” with Next Limit’s own RealFlow software, giving RF users an option to use Maxwell
as their render engine of choice. Procedural geometry and meshes can be generated at render time, and it is also possible to
render individual uid particles, resulting in an easy and accelerated workow.

Brian Looney - [e-mail] Team Fusion CIS

COMPONENTS

• THE MAXWELL RENDERING ENGINE: This component is called “Maxwell.exe” in Windows, “Maxwell.app” in Mac and
“Maxwell” in Linux.

• PLUG-INS: Maxwell Render connects to the most popular 3D and CAD applications through a range of free plug-ins. See below

for a complete list.

• MXED: MAXWELL MATERIAL EDITOR: Standalone material editor with material browser and powerful, physically correct
materials.

• MAXWELL STUDIO: Sophisticated scene editor with a full 3D environment, allowing the user to manipulate objects, set
up lights, apply materials, specify camera and environment settings and send to render. An alternative workow to employ

applications that do not have a Maxwell Render plug-in.

www.7-t.co.uk Stack Studios - www.stack-studios.com

WORKFLOW

...viaPlug-ins

Platforms supported through plug-ins:
3ds Max (7, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011)
VIZ (06, 07, 08)
Maya (8, 8.5, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011)
LightWave (8.x and 9.x)
Rhino (4 SR5 and 5 X64 WIP)
Cinema 4D (9.6 and up)
SolidWorks (2007 s.p.3.1, 2008 and 2009)
Form Z (6.1 and up, 6.6 recommended)
SketchUp (6 and 7)
ArchiCAD (10, 11, 12 and 13)
XSi (5.x, 6.01 and 7.01)
Modo (302 and 401)
Nuke (5 and 6)
Photoshop (CS3 and CS4)

...viaMaxwellStudio

Import objects into Maxwell Studio to create, edit and assign
materials, set up lights and cameras and send the scene to

Maxwell for rendering. Currently supported le formats are .mxs,
.3ds, .dxf, .lwo, .obj, .fbx, .stl, .xc2, .ply and .dae.

Other Maxwell Render plug-ins developed and/or
availablethroughthirdpartiesinclude:

AllPlan

solidThinking
Houdini

SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS & SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows(32and64)

• Windows XP, Windows Vista, or
Windows Server 2008.

• 2 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 processor,
Athlon 64 AMD or better.

• 1GB RAM minimum. 2 GB of RAM

memory is highly recommended.

• 400 MB available hard disk space for

installation.

• 3 button mouse recommended.

Linux64

• x86_64 distribution with a 2.6 Kernel
and glibc 2.5

• 2Ghz Intel® Core® 2, AMD Athlon 64

or better.

• X server with accelerated OpenGL

drivers.

• 1 GB RAM minimum. 4 GB of RAM

memory is highly recommended.

• 300 MB available hard disk space for

installation.

• 3 button mouse recommended.

Macintosh(32and64)

• Mac OSX 10.5 and up.

• G4, G5 or Intel® CPU. G5 or Intel® is

strongly recommended

• 1 GB RAM minimum. 2 GB of RAM

memory is highly recommended.

• 400 MB available hard disk space for

installation.

• 3 button mouse recommended.

NEXTLIMITTECHNOLOGIES

Angel Cavero 2; 28043 Madrid, Spain
Europe Time zone GMT + 1

http://www.nextlimit.com
http://www.maxwellrender.com

© Copyright 2010 Next Limit SL
Maxwell Render is a registered trademark of Next Limit SL
All trademarks included in this catalogue belong to their respective owners
All images in this brochure have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent fo the artists concerned and no responsibility is accepted by

producer, publisher or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arsing from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made
to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied.