You also get problems that way, but less, and you can actually produce something usufull.ĥ) The maxwell potential was (is?) good. Some projects (very small and simple) are exported in 3ds ok, but others either do not load or end up missing most of the structureĤ) The only viable way is exporting to c4d and then exporting to Maxwell. There, either Archicad is a bad exporter of 3ds and obj or Maxwell is just producing garbage. Simply unusable for serious Job.ģ) Alternatives? Tried 3ds and obj export. What you get is a SINGLE object, and materials are assigned as triangle groups, not editable (locked). and much more)Ģ)The archicad plugin is simply a DISASTER (they have announched a new better one, 3 months ago, but still no sign of it), The current one is simply a geometry exporter, and that would not be bad IF the exported materila was useable. They promised a ton of features (texture baking, displacement maps, procedural materials. I would try to point my negative experience with Maxwell.ġ) Promised alot delivered half. I will post within this thread more info as it become available to me, and I will give you a peek at some of the programs more useful features. All of them working on your images at once. Have you heard about the Quad Core Intel chips coming out soon? Imagine a MacPro with dual Quads. PC will come first (as usual Mac comes next) What's exciting about the Mac development is Universal App - Mactel support. Yup, NextLimit is working hard to create the connections (plug-ins) between ArchiCAD 10 and Maxwell.

Here is the clincher, you can also do much of it from within ArchiCAD 10.

It has a function that takes just 1 or 2 minutes to generate a fuzzy preview. Check Physical Sky and you have just successfully finished the lighting of an exterior. It is extremely architectural, place your crosshairs on the hires Earth globe, think google earth, now position your project with north arrow - specify the year, month and time of day. You don't need to think about Global Strength, Occlusion, Shadow Sampling settings, etc, etc. The reason it is so fast is because it is predictable. Within just a few hours I have been able to come to grips with the interface, navigation and material editor. If you want THAT TYPE OF REALISM in your images, you need to take the jump into the Maxwell universe. If you are interested in a new rendering engine for ArchiCAD, check out Maxwell Render.

Maxwell render materials library