• R&D updates: Maxwell Render :: RealFlow4
• Latest News
• Next Limit meet&greet :: Víctor González
• Skill up! :: Maxwell Render tip
• Image of the moment :: Hervé Steff

• The new, updated Maxwell Render plug-ins for Maya, Cinema4D and 3dsMax have now been released and are available for download from the regular customer download page, which you can find in your license email. You can find full features lists and plug-in videos at www.maxwellrender.com.


• We will continue to release updates, such as 3dsMax 64 bit and Maya 64 bit, to further improve and expand the plug-ins. We are also working hard on all the other plug-ins. Please have a look below for a preview of the soon-to-be-released updated FormZ plug-in.


• The ArchiCAD 10 plug-in for Mac OSX is also ready and has been released. The features are the same as for the Windows version and a list can be viewed at http://www.maxwellrender.com/news/archicad.html. Some improvements in the Windows and Mac versions have been made including modification of the installation, better error reporting and a number of bug fixes.


• We have finished the Linux 64 bit version of Maxwell and Studio and it will be released with the next major update: Maxwell Render 1.2, which we target to have ready for the first quarter of 2007.

• The Cinema4D plug-in for RealFlow4 for Mac has now been released for versions 8.5, 9.5, 9.6 Universal Binary and 10.0 Universal Binary.


• We continue work on the LightWave plug-in for Macintosh but have encountered some issues while testing it. We will solve these issues as quickly as possible so that the LW plug-in can be released soon.


• We continue work and testing on the XSI plug-in. we have come across some problems which have slightly delayed the release.

• Spanish animation studio Keytoon is producing a short animated movie (2:30 minutes), created completely with Maxwell Render 1.1. The movie, called the “Grandfather of Soul”, will soon be up for views at www.keytoon.com, so keep an eye on their website.
  
  

• The new Maxwell Render plug-in for FormZ is in the making and will be released as soon as possible. Some of the new or improved features include:
  

  Render Integration: Full integration as a FormZ rendering engine. Maxwell Render will not be integrated as a palette as in previous versions but as a completely integrated rendering engine inside the FormZ display menu.

  
  

  Maxwell Materials Integration: In the new plug-in the Maxwell materials are integrated in the surface styles palette. Therefore each FormZ style can have a Maxwell material applied to it. The FormZ styles can be converted in Maxwell material files and the Maxwell materials can move their texture info to the FormZ surface styles to display the textures in the viewport to make an accurate texture mapping.

  More features, speed optimizations, and bug fixes are on the way. Thanks to the new features of FormZ 6.1 the integration of Maxwell will be improved and more updates will be released in the future.

• The winners of the second Maxwell Render MXM gallery contest “Summer” have been announced. As usual, it was difficult to pick the three best materials from all the great submissions, but as of now the winners are…..
  
  

  - The first prize – a trip for two to Madrid including a one-night stay in an exclusive hotel – goes to Dr.merman with his amazing material “TheSun_2”.

  
  

  - The second prize – an original Maxwell Render T-shirt – goes to: Paperalessa with his “Fishscales_3” material.

  
  

  - The third prize – an original Maxwell Render T-shirt – goes to: Laszlo with his material “TequilaSunrise”

  
  

  Congratulations! We will contact you and deliver the prizes to your home addresses. Thank you all for participating and voting and good luck in our future contests!

• The new theme for the Maxwell material contest for December is “Christmas” and this month you can win an amazing Apple Mac Mini worth $599! Inside its petite 2-inch tall, 6.5-inch square anodized aluminum enclosure, Mac mini houses an Intel Core processor, a 60GB hard drive, and built-in wireless — all whisper-quiet.
  
  
  So get cracking on some stunning, original Christmassy materials and compete for this fabulous Mac mini. Don’t forget to upload your material before the end of December at http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com

• RealFlow’s official website has been launched in Japanese. Our Japanese users can stay up-to-date with the latest developments and read product information in their own language. Please visit http://www.nextlimit.com/realflow/jp_index.htm
  

• The Next Limit 2006 Sendoff Bundle Campaign has been extended to run until December 31, so you better be quick to take advantage of those great offers. If you are an existing customer of Maxwell Render or RealFlow, you can now buy the other product with 20% off, meaning a discount of up to $550. New customers can buy both products in one go and get $400 off. Check out www.maxwellrender.com or www.realflow.com for further details.
  
  

• The relief effort following the Hurricane Katrina disaster could have been different – or at least according to U2 and Green Day’s latest, thought-provoking music video “The Saints are Coming”. SWAY Studio’s contribution to the project has resulted in a flawless combination of existing news footage and photo-real CG elements such as Apache helicopters, Stealth Bombers and tanks rolling through floods of RealFlow-simulated water.
  
  
  

  “The CG elements that were integrated into existing news footage needed to have a very high degree of photorealism to be successful,” said Mark Glaser, Owner and Creative Director at SWAY Studio. “The most challenging was taking a shot of a flooded main boulevard and adding rows of tanks rolling through the water. We developed some incredible techniques to make this feasible.” All of the water effects were done using RealFlow4. 

  See here the whole case study

• Award-winning Digital-Tutors have just released their “Introduction to RealFlow4” DVD, with nearly four hours of project-based training. If you buy an Educational License of RealFlow4 now, you get 15% off the training DVD or if you buy “Introduction to Realflow4” from Digital-Tutors, you get 15% off a RF4 Educational License. It’s the perfect combination for old and new RealFlow4 users. Please visit www.digitaltutors.com or www.realflow.com for more information. This offer runs until December 24, 2006.
  
  

• The very first Next Limit vodcast will soon be available for free at the Apple iTunes Store. The vodcasts focuses on Maxwell Render and is an introduction to the software and the workflow. Check it out!
  

Name.......... Víctor González
Age............. 35
From........... Spain

Education: "Naval Architecture.” 

Work: “I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Next Limit Technologies.”

Best aspect: "Definitely the way we are building a team with common goals and objectives – feeling the talent and passion of the people creating and promoting our technology. Personally I love to be surrounded by such technically talented minds and learning something new from them every day. I like to see how different people can sit together and create new concepts. That is the heart of Next Limit.”

Worst aspect: “The time-consuming aspects of this job that require me to be always alert, always online, and always worried. Many people think that I don’t sleep because I check emails anytime and anywhere. It has also been difficult for me to deal with the complexity of a growing organization and the increasing demand for management. This has forced me to sacrifice one of my hobbies: software programming. But it has been worth it.”

Free time: “I assume you don’t want to hear something related to computers. Uhm, difficult question then…I like to make noise with my electric guitar when I need to relieve stress and I dream of playing rock music in a night club with my friends. I also like to read books, especially science, history, and philosophy, and to walk my dog HAL. Yes, I named it after the famous computer from 2001 Space Odyssey…I had a hard time trying to convince my parents.”

Hi to: “Next Limit is approaching its 9th birthday and many people have helped us along the way. So there is a BIG thanks to all the people who contributed to Next Limit’s growth and success. I would like to specifically mention the people who joined Next Limit in the beginning, when we were just two guys with lots of ideas but no money.”

Future: “It’s clear. We are creating the Matrix!."

This special Christmas newsletter deserves an extra-special Maxwell Render tip on “emitters”. Please download the PDF file by clicking on the link below and you are sure to learn something new and useful!

Download PDF file here

Image details: The image was modeled in Modo 202 and Lightwave 8.5 and rendered with Maxwell Render 1.1. The textures were created by Brigitte Wirion.

Artist details: Hervé Steff, 47, has been living in Luxembourg for 14 years now where he has started a small business together with his friend Brigitte (www.insideko.com). He used to live in Los Angeles and in Paris, directing TV commercials and working as a 2D illustrator for educational books at GTS Graphics in LA. Hervé is currently preparing a DVD with Food Design models in MXS format..

About Maxwell Render: “Maxwell Render has really changed my life. The way you get all these beautiful images is so straightforward; no need to tweak parameters for hours!
It is the perfect rendering software for artists, because you always know what you will get, and you can concentrate 100% on your work. But the best words come from Brigitte. She said: ‘I don't see you doing all your "render tests" anymore…what happened?”