A NEW VERSION OF THE PLUGIN FOR FORMZ IS AVAILABLE: MAXWELL | FORMZ 5.0.2.4
By Forum Moderator – Wed Mar 11, 2020 9:41 pm
We have uploaded a new version of the plugin Maxwell | formZ 5.0.2.4
The four installers have been updated: Mac and Windows and for formZ 8 and 9. It fixes some issues we were having with the latest MacOS versions and when searching the project resource paths.
FIXES:
Workaround issue where Maxwell was unresponsive or crashed upon rendering on some MacOS installations.
Fixed issue where searching project resource paths could crash in some circumstances.
The creative genius with Cinema4D & Corona Render of David Duloy knows no bounds and persists after many years as one of the best architectural illustrators in his field.
David Duloy has provided some of the most creative 3D illustrations done with Cinema4D, with all visualisations usually provided from existing original architects models, created by either ArchiCAD or Revit 3D and supplied by the design architects or developers that want David’s extra special artistic talent, creative imagination to produces realistic images.
David has worked on many large projects with high profile clients, but is always eager to help anyone that requires a quality image.
His talent has expanded with the new speed and capabilities of Corona Render for CPU rendering that works with Cinema4D equally well on MacOSX or Windows 10 and he is now offering his services to a broader spectrum of clients that want to extend their own studio capabilities with his help for architectural or infrastructure visualisation but to product and design studio imaging.
A new service is available here that offers direct contracting or by ‘Clinics’ with Studio designers using these same tools.
Leonardo Giomarelli (ilgioma on the Maxwell official forums), who is the creator of some great materials on MZ (Copper, Brass, Plastic) has been kind enough to give us a glimpse of his workflow in creating these beautiful interior renders of a modern bathroom.
I started working with MaxwellZone for about 1 year producing sets of materials based on photographic references found in the shop of this site. Lately trying to test Maxwell Render on interior projects I have produced a small setting and, talking with Mihai, we decided to share on the blog the main steps on which I based my work.
Choosing a project
Personally I find most of the inspirations for my projects on Pinterest, I think this social media is structured in an exceptional way for those who need to check trends, color palettes, compositions etc. But we must be careful not to remain too faithful to a single image to avoid the replication effect that I do not like. If the project I want to do represents a bathroom, I’m also looking for references to bedrooms, kitchens or anything else from the images of the guidelines for the creation of my work. In any case, for my inspirations I always try to prefer photographic shots to other projects realized in CGI, it is always good to have something real as the first reference.
From idea to 3D
Here there is very little to say… knowing how to model well reproducing details will bring the project to a higher level right away. Obviously for the fabrics you can not do without Marvelous Designer.
Creating good lighting
Choosing the type of lighting is essential for creating engaging images. Of all the known techniques I have always preferred the Sky Dome because it offers me a neutral and very soft light to be used as primary light. Depending on the design and the type of product to be represented I always go to add support lights to enhance certain areas or to have a light complementary to the primary perhaps warmer so as to give dynamism to the shot. The following pictures show the Sky Dome settings and the layout of the lights used in this job.
A little trick: Generally as a basis of the architectonic I always put a disk or a floor to simulate a pavement outside the building that obviously contributes to bring into the room the light reflected by the Sky Dome. On this disc or plane (it makes no difference) I always apply a very simple material with a medium gray color RGB 180, never white. This is to avoid burning too much the areas near the openings.
The materials
Up to this point everything is relatively simple but, believe me, using approximate and “perfect” materials will cancel every effort. Metal materials in particular, can push the image towards photorealism if well calibrated. For my project I made extensive use of the materials available on MaxwellZone, so in addition to steel I also used the Ceramic Zirconia as a starting point for the tub and the elements of the radiators.
When I have to make simple glasses like the vase I rely on the Maxwell Render presets, I find it very easy to use and at the same time effective. For other materials concerning textiles and walls, I used textures on some models purchased on Bentanji. I think this is also a very useful resource for us Maxwell users.
The finishing touches
There is no rendering without post production but it is necessary to prepare well all the render passes. In the image I show which passes I always render out.
As for the Alpha Custom channels, I usually use them only if I have objects that are difficult to select with just MaterialID or ObjectID, in this case, branches and flowers. Below I will show the images that make up the project before and after the adjustments in Photoshop. As you will see, there are images that need very slight adjustments, while others need more work to show their full potential…
This image has been worked on very little, I only wanted to give a warm tone that in my opinion improves the look.
Here, however, the adjustments were more massive, I wanted it to come out an emotional shot and then I pushed on a bloom effect typical of backlighting. To obtain it, simply select the opening area, fill the selection with a white color and then use a blur filter to increase the value until a credible effect is obtained. The original shot was also underexposed, in this case I remedied directly on Photoshop, but I could do it with the Multilight.
Still little adjustments to even out the tonality of previous shots.
In the presence of metal details, I like to include some chromatic aberration in the renderings. It is an artifact present on the photos. Here’s a link where it’s explained how it is generated in photography and how to do it in Photoshop.
I hope you enjoyed this short making-of, maybe in the future we can deal with more specific aspects related to some processing phase.
A list of all the current V-Ray | form•Z for both Mac & Windows. The current release version of V-Ray is 3.6.3 and uses the latest v5 V-Ray server and as such much of the special rendering capabilities may be also described in V-Ray for 3DStudio Max and V-Ray for Sketchup discussions.
V-Ray for form•Z image nominated for CGArchitect Architectural 3D Award
Congratulations to TILTPIXEL on their nomination for a prestigious CGArchitect Architectural 3D Award. Their stunning image of the Harbin Opera House by M.A.D. Architects was modelled in form•Z and rendered with V-Ray for form•Z.
V-Ray for form•Z brings unprecedented rendering capabilities to form•Z with superior re-sults in less time. V-Ray for form•Z is integrated naturally into the form•Z interface allowing rendering to be a part of the creative process.
V-Ray for form•Z features GPU and CPU based rendering, a vast material library, stunning lighting effects, stereo and VR headset support, multiple rendering channels, powerful de-noising and so much more.
Maxwell Materials are the key to great renders with Maxwell Render 4
Mihai Iliuta at maxwellzone.com has just released some great results using the advantages of having great materials
Hi Maxwellians,
Just wanted to quickly show you some renders of a new set of brass materials created by Leonardo Giomarelli (ilgioma), which I think really demonstrate one of the most important things to understand about Maxwell – if you take the time to create realistic materials, the rest just becomes so much easier. And conversely, if your materials are crap, then your render will most certainly also be…crap.
Also, *DO* use the Maxwell material assistants to quickly give you realistic materials.
In these renders I just used one my HDRs and the “Advantix 100” tonemapping preset.
AutoDesSys is excited to announce that the award winning V-Ray renderer now available for form•Z offers versatile and intuitive modeling capabilities and V-Ray’s powerful rendering capabilities to create quick and solid designs with astonishing, cutting-edge visualizations in a single solution. The unprecedented integration with V-Ray allows for rendering and lighting to be an integral part of the design process, not just a final step.
V-Ray for form•Z feature highlights:
Powerful hybrid rendering – You can render on NVIDIA CUDA GPUs, CPUs — or a combination of both.
Material library – over 550 realistic, physical based materials, such as glass, coated plastics or metals, wood, stone and etc.
V-Ray grass and fur – Realistic grass, fabrics and carpet now possible with V-Ray fur.
Denoiser – With V-Ray’s denoising technology, you can automatically eliminate noise and cut render times by up to 50%!
Aerial perspective – Add realistic atmosphere and depth to your renders with V-Ray’s new Aerial perspective controls.
Virtual Reality – Verify designs at 1:1 scale in popular VR headsets like Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR.
Cutaways with Clipper – Render sections and cutaways with ease using the V-Ray Clipper.
Powerful light calculations – the V-Ray Adaptive Lights algorithm will speed renders up to seven times faster on some scenes.
V-Ray Frame Buffer – Fine-tune your render’s color, exposure, and more directly in V-Ray’s frame buffer.
Additional product information and sample images created with V-Ray for form•Z are available at:
form•Zpro and form•Z jr. An evaluation version is available allowing users to experience all of the V-Ray for form•Z features for 30 Days for free.
About form•Z
form•Zis a potent 3D modeling and design application featuring a variety of modeling personalities and tools with a distinctively easy to use interface. It is a most intuitive and versatile professional-grade 3D modeler that is based on advanced 3D solid and surface modeling methods. They maintain accurate representations that allow you to progress from conceptual sketching to detailed design, photorealistic visualization, construction drawings, animation, and fabrication. The current version of form•Z is available in three varieties: form•Z free, form•Z jr, and form•Z pro.
formZ PRO has in the past used a third party renderer called RenderZone that has had development cease due to limitations in support of new technology. It is now being replaced by V-Ray internally that offers more capabilities, much higher speed rendering straight out of the box and the ability for significant improved results with subtle ‘tweaking’ for amazing results that can be further accelerated with support new nVidia based GPU cards.
Older users of formZ can upgrade their pre- v 8.5 versions to the latest versions by order online.< discount on Add to Bag >
The power of Academy Award winning V-Ray rendering is now available for form•Z. We have integrated V-Ray seamlessly into form•Z so that you will find your way around very quickly and get instant high quality renderings “out of the box”.For more information Click Here.
