Maxwell Render Suite 2.7

Review posted January 4, 2012

We purchased Maxwell Render Suite to be used in conjunction with SketchUp for rendering high quality presentations. Maxwell's quality is unrivaled and setting up lighting and materials is by far the simplest I have ever used.

Next Limit has created a multitude of plug-ins that allows setup of materials and cameras right inside of the interface you are comfortable with. Also, in most applications you have access to Fire, Maxwell's real-time rendering window. This makes setup even easier.

I have heard several complaints about speed on Maxwell's part and I have to say that render times are a little on the high side, but you do make up some of it with the time saved on setup. Also, multilight allows you to quickly tweak and create both day and night renders from one rendering which allows you to provide this to clients.

Review posted August 3, 2011

I have been using Maxwell since its beta. If you have the time, the renderings are great with very little setup. The network rendering is easy to set up to increase the quality of your renderings in less time. From Sketchup it has become a seamless process and 2.5 integrates the mxm materials great. The mxm library makes it easy to download new materials and start from there to create your own. **notice that most of the low star reviews are from beta or 1 era of Maxwell.**

Review posted December 17, 2009

I've used Maxwell Render 2 for a month and love it. I was able to create some beautiful renderings the first day of use. The interface is straightforward, the lighting simple, and the free online library of materials is awesome. I use multiple CAD packages (Sketchup, C4D, and Rhino for Mac soon). Maxwell works great with them all. That and the fact it was Mac friendly made the purchase choice easy.

Review posted August 27, 2009

Best quality images I got from any rendering engine, even in the first try. The plug-ins for Sketchup and Rhino are totally seamless, fully integrated.
The rendering times are somewhat longer than in other programs, but with the upcoming release 2.0 (free for existing 1.71 users), claimed
to be up to three times faster, that problem will be totally solved.
Highly recommended.

Review posted August 3, 2009

I've been using rendering software for 10 years and this is the best software I for rendering that I have ever come across. Its relatively straight forward and does a fantastic job out of the box. Unlike other render software, there is little to no tweaking and "tricks" you need to use in order to get good renderings. The quality of the renderings are top notch and the best I've seen. I've used Vray, Final Render, Metal Ray, Default rendering packages this is hands down the best. I love that I can go to the MXM Materials website and download pre-made materials from other users. It is a huge time saver. I'm really looking forward to version 2.

Review posted December 6, 2007

I've only used the demo Maxwell Render 1.6 engine for a very short time (like today) and wanted a realistic look for my Sketchup Pro 6 software 3D scenes. Without too much fanfare, I was able to render a few Sketchup scenes and I was totally blown away by the results! The relatively quick results I got in 30 to 40 minutes of allowing Maxwell to do its thing took the "cartoon" look out of my sketchup scenes. This was accomplished without having to bring the drawings into the Maxwell Studio environment which kind of scared me by the state of the art look it has. It looks like a Stealth bomber instrumentation dashboard arrangement. I will be purchasing Maxwell 1.6 soon!

Review posted April 16, 2007

I have Rhino and I was used to Flamingo as my prefered rendering system. Now I tried Maxwell Render and I'm so happy! I can use all my skill as photographer to set up the rendering parameters and I can generate fantasti pictures.

The only major drawback is the speed. Maxwell is slow. But my understanding is that it's because of the rendering algorithms (alias real physical siumulation), not because of poor programming.