New Features in Maxwell Render 3.2

Did you know? Next Limit have added 32 brand new features since the release of v3!

Here are some of the most recent features and improvements included in v3.2..

Virtual Reality stereo lenses

Gear up for a camera traveling in virtual reality (VR) systems such as Oculus. V3.2 comes with two new lens types: Lat/Long and Stereo Fish Lens which make this possible.

More speed – Subsurface Scattering

Maxwell V3.2 comes with super speed improvements when using subsurface scattering. Remarkable quality, now remarkably faster!

Nested Dielectrics

A major improvement, especially for anyone rendering fluids. Interacting dielectrics render much better now in Maxwell V3.2 with its new Nested Priority method. It is now possible to render complex water/glass/ice surface without numerical issues – just simply add a small overlap between geometries.

PSD Output support

Maxwell V3.2 can now save the render in PSD format in 8, 16 and 32 bits. It supports multi-layered PSD’s so channels and light buffers (when Multilight is enabled) can be embedded as separated passes.

Extensions API

Third party developers can develop their own procedural geometries, geometry modifiers, procedural textures, camera lens, etc.  The possibilities are endless!  This API extension is included with the main package and is free for both personal and commercial use.

Procedural Emitters

With V3.2 it’s now possible to apply emitter materials to entities that are not triangle meshes – such as hair/fur, particles and grass.

Separated Reflection & Refraction channels

With V3.2 there are more channel combinations – such as “Diffuse”, “Reflections”, “Diffuse + Reflections”, “Refractions”, “Reflections+Refractions”.  Rendering the diffuse and reflective components separately allows for greater flexibility when compositing.

New ‘Reflectance’ channel

This new channel shows plain colors without the influence of global illumination.  It’s very useful for achieving “self-illuminated textures” when used in combination with custom alpha channels.

Improvements in Multilight editor 

In V3.2 you can now select and edit multiple emitters at the same time, and there is a new “Sort by name/type/intensity” function.

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New ‘Asset Reference’ extension

You can now reference many different file formats as the geometries are no longer pre-converted to MXS. Instead, Maxwell now works with them directly and they are loaded at render time. A great workflow improvement – especially for 3D platforms with no supported plugin.

Some of the supported formats include OBJ, FBX, Blender, Alembic, DAE, STL, LXO, 3DS, LWO, 3D, etc.

World-Y Grass

This new percentage allows you to define the overall growth direction of your grass blades towards the world-Y axis (sky direction) – giving you more realism in one simple click!