Rendering Maxwell
Maxwell is an excellent and powerful photorealistic renderer with a built-in material manager and designer capable of using the thousands of materials available for download from Maxwell's MXM Gallery. Maxwell accesses the render farm through its own built-in render manager; below, we'll go through how to use this software to render on the farm.
Before proceeding, make sure you've created input and output folders for yourself in \\arch-render\renderfarm as described on the "Using the Render Farm" page. Once that's done, copy your Maxwell project into your input folder, making sure to include any custom materials that you may be using, and we can begin.
NOTE: When rendering a single image, Maxwell, unlike 3ds Max, does not have the ability to break up a single image into multiple parts so that it can be worked on by multiple render slaves. As a result, Maxwell image renders will be worked on by only one slave at a time.
If your original file is in Rhino, you'll need to output your file as a .mxs file so you can open it in Maxwell Studio. To do this, open the Maxwell Scene Manager in Rhino by selecting Maxwell > Plugin Windows > Scene Manager.
In the Scene Manager window, click the Output tab. In the Scene Path field under Output Files, enter the path and filename for the .mxs file, or click on the ... button next to the field to select a location and enter a file name, then click Save.
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Next, you'll prepare your Maxwell .mxs file for rendering. You may have created our model with custom materials that are not available to the render farm slaves, which can cause rendering to fail if the slaves can't locate these materials, so you'll need to set your render settings in Maxwell and then move everything to the proper location by following the steps below.
Open your .mxs file in Maxwell Studio, which can be found in Start > Programs > 3D Applications. From the Window menu, choose Render Options and set the following:
Time: the maximum number of minutes the render will be allowed to continue. When rendering a single frame, set this value to a much higher number than necessary to ensure that the render is not stopped prematurely Sampling Level: when the render attains the specified Sampling Level, processing will stop. Set this to 25 or higher when rendering single frames to ensure that the render will not be terminated before an acceptable quality level has been reached NOTE: your render will stop when either the Time limit or Sampling Level you set is reached, whichever comes first CPU Threads: the number of CPUs to allocate for rendering. Set this value to 0 to use all available CPUs for rendering. Low Priority: leave checked; this will not effect your render time or affect its position in the render queue Image Output: enter the full path, file name, and file type for your rendered image, making sure it's in the format \\arch-render\renderfarm MXI Output: enter the full path and file name for the generated Maxwell Image (mxi) file, making sure it's in the format \\arch-render\renderfarm. This can be the same as the Image Output specified above, but with the file extension .mxi Once you've set these options, close this window and save your file. |
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Next, choose Pack and Go from the File menu, browse to your Input folder on arch-render, and click OK. This will bundle all the materials used in your render to a new .mxs file on arch-render, which will prevent render errors caused by missing textures and reference files.
Once your .mxs file has been prepared, launch the Deadline Monitor application to submit and monitor your render job. If Deadline Monitor is already installed on your workstation, you'll find it in Start > Programs > Frantic Films > Deadline Client > Deadline Monitor or Start > Programs > Rendering > Deadline > Deadline Monitor, depending on whether you're on your own workstation or a lab machine. If not, you can install it by clicking on the 
Ghost icon on the task bar and choosing "Install Deadline."
When you first launch Deadline Monitor, you'll be asked to choose a user account to use, or to create your own. If you wish to create your own account so that you can be notified by email regarding your renders, use your net ID as the user name and enter your email address. Otherwise, use the generic students account.
In Deadline Monitor, choose Submit Maxwell Job to Deadline from the Submit menu.
Job Name: enter a name for your job to identify it in the render queue Group: select maxwell Priority: 50. Jobs found with a higher priority than 50 will be deleted Maxwell Files: enter the path to the mxs file in your \\arch-render\renderfarm\input directory, making sure that file paths are in the \\arch-render\renderfarm format Single Maxwell File Job: Make sure this is checked for a single frame render; if your filename has a number in it, Deadline may assume it's an animation, and not having this checked will cause your job not to render Threads: 0 Cooperative Rendering: leave unchecked Output MXI File and Output Image file can both be left blank, as this was specified earlier in Maxwell Studio |
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The other options can be left at the default values. Once you're done, click Submit.
The Submission Results window that opens will display whether your render submission was successful, or if not, why the submission failed.
If you see "Result=Success," your job submission was successful. Otherwise, note the error that's given.
Click OK to close the window, then click Close in the Submit Maxwell Job to Deadline window to return to the Deadline Monitor screen.
Once your job has been submitted successfully, you can monitor the job in Deadline Monitor.
For more information on rendering with Maxwell, please consult the Maxwell Render User Manual or check out Maxwell's website.
For any questions or problems with the above information, please contact the DM Office.