Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/6960
February 2010 43 Review n n n n High�Performance CameraTracking Use SynthEyes for animated critter insertion,»xing shaky shots, virtual set extensions, making 3D movies, architectural previews, accident reconstruction, virtual product placement, face and body capture, and more. 32-bitonly�$399 Windows-32�/Windows-64�/�OSX-32/OS�X-64 See the website for details of the latest version! material. Model that material into a shape, and you have a very realistic neon sign. Maxwell Render also has built-in environmental lighting, such as skies for outdoor scenes. ese can be configured with realistic param- eters, such as the amount of ozone or water in the atmosphere, as well as its turbidity. Additionally, Maxwell Render has the ability to create HDRI-based lighting to match existing footage. Cameras in Maxwell Render are very close to real-world cameras. Parameters such as f-stop and the type of diaphragm on the camera shutter make for highly realistic lens effects. You can even do tilt-shift effects with the camera to simulate advanced lenses used in architectural and product photography that correct for perspective distortion. Once everything is set up, you can start rendering. Rendering can happen a frame at a time within a render window; it can also happen using a command line or in a batch render. e render window has some unique op- tions. One of the things I really liked was the ability to set a specific time for each render. You could tell Maxwell to take one minute to render a frame or up to 30 minutes. e more time you give Maxwell, the better the image, but you can also speed up a render for testing or to get things out the door. Maxwell Render also lets you adjust the exposure during the render, or even after the render has finished. ere's also a feature called MultiLight, which lets you change the intensity of lights after the scene is ren- dered. e nice thing is that the results are full-quality, which certainly tops many other interactive renderers. Of course, the final quality of the renders is what really matters. I found the images in Maxwell Render to be about as real as I've ever rendered anything. e nice thing about Maxwell Render is that it's fairly easy to use. I didn't have to figure out obscure values, such as photon energies or global illumination parameters; I just added light to the scenes, set up and adjusted the camera, then rendered. It was almost analogous to real-world lighting and photography. I would highly rec- ommend Maxwell Render for anyone needing high-resolution, highly realistic renders. n George Maestri is a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World and president/ CEO of RubberBug animation studio. He can be reached at maestri@rubberbug.com. Maxwell Render is great at creating natural light, as evident in this image.