I’ve been thinking for some whether to create this thread or not and decided to create it. Unfortunately for me, I’m not a CG expert (and even not an artist) at all (just playing with it from time to time :)).
Recently, I talked with a few (actually, three) CG artists who mostly do product visualizations. One has been using Maxwell Render, the others have been using VRay and started using Maxwell as well and thinking about switching to Maxwell completely. I’ve asked them what’s wrong with VRay and they say that it’s more easier to obtain beautiful and photorealistic (and thus, PBR correct) results with Maxwell (it’s easier to set up a scene in it (materials, lighting settings)… something like that). None of them ever used Blender. So, I’d like to hear opinion of somebody who knows (and maybe uses or used) Cycles and Maxwell: with which render engine is it easier to achieve those (beautiful, photorealistic, and PBR correct) results? What pros and cons of Cycles and Maxwell?
Hi Nazarii,
The question which render engine is “better” depends entirely on the specific use case.
Cycles was developed to have an open source analogue to the Arnold render engine, suitable for the production of animations.
But it can be perfectly viable for product visualization as well.
Maxwell was developed with a focus on image quality and physically correct light transport.
They are designed and optimized for different purposes and that has trade-offs.
For instance, cycles can not produce dispersion without tricks. But you also consider the integration into Blender and that favours quite strongly cycles.
advantages of Cycles:
free, perfectly integrated into Blender, can use cpu and/or gpu, faster than Maxwell for the same scene
disadvantages of cycles:
realistic caustics and dispersion difficult to fake, not well suited for interior scenes
advantages of Maxwell:
bidirectional, spectral pathtracer can render scenes with complex lighting requirements (jewellery, caustics, dispersion),
huge material library, simple render settings, light intensity and colour can be adjusted as a post process
disadvantages of Maxwell:
expensive, comparatively long render times, gpu version does not yet support all features of the cpu version, Blender integration outdated (Blender 2.78 last version which can be used with Maxwell) and not further developed
So you have to take into account the whole picture for your use case (render engine, host software, asset availability (material and model libraries, scenes etc.) Have a look at the galleries of the render engine forums. This gives you an immediate impression of the type and quality of artwork produced and can help you to decide.
Looking at the galleries is a good idea but they’re just collections of professionals’ work (I mean professionals in Blender only or Maxwell only). It’d cool to hear an opinion of those who is familiar with both of them. In which is it easier (for you) to create desirable materials, to do texturing, organizing lighting, etc.?