NEXT LIMIT: Please tell us a bit about yourself: who are you, where are you from, what do you do?

TIM ELLIS: “My name is Tim Ellis, I'm 32 years old. I come from Leeds in North Yorkshire in England.
I currently work as a Maxwell Render specialist at Cityscape 3D in London. My hobbies include all things 3D/CGI, writing, teaching, producing and engineering music. I also run and race my own purpose-built drag car.”

NL: You’re an avid Maxwell Render user. Why did you first start to use Maxwell Render?

TE: “I first found out about Maxwell due to Tora's renders using the Maxwell beta, when they were shown on CGTalk.com. I really thought someone had taken some photographs and tried to pass them off as renders. After some internet digging (which proved how wrong I was, forgive me Tora) I found out about Maxwell and bought the beta immediately. I was becoming frustrated with the lack of realism in my images and suddenly here was a package that did what I wanted. My first few renders with Maxwell Render were a bit hit and miss, but once I had a grasp of the system I was and still am amazed at the quality of Maxwell Render’s output.”

NL: Please tell us a bit about your work at Cityscape.

TE: “Cityscape 3D creates animations, still images and media for skyscrapers, office blocks, apartment blocks and other smaller scale projects. I mainly work in the lighting and animation department, using Maxwell Render. I produce presentation and marketing images for use in brochures, adverts and on billboards. I have also started rendering planning views for planning applications with Maxwell.”

NL: What is your workflow?

TE: “I use Maxwell Studio for 99% of my work, because I find I have much more control over the Maxwell features than using a 3D application and the plug-in.
My workflow at Cityscape usually follows one of two paths depending on the project;

1: Using LightWave to export 3D cameras via the Maxwell plug-in. Our company workflow requires the same cameras to be used on many visuals, in different applications. So, using the Maxwell for LightWave plug-in to export the cameras to Maxwell Studio means that other elements of a visual can be matched if they are created by another department.

2: Via Blender 3D. I use Blender to load LightWave objects from our assets department and export them as Wavefront.obj files. This gives me much more control than using LightWave and the Maxwell plug-in, as I can export models split into separate objects based on materials. The plug-in can often create few objects with many sub-materials, which can be a hindrance when you have to swap out or create over two hundred materials. Using .objs means I can have few materials but many objects.”

NL: What is in your opinion the best feature of Maxwell Render and why?

TE: “Its unbiased application of light. Almost everything else is supported or offered by other renderers, but Maxwell's light distribution and calculation is the best. With respect to the features offered by Maxwell, I think the displacement implementation is excellent. Also, the Multilight feature is one of my favorites. I use it to show clients lighting solutions, which help to finalise lighting layouts for buildings. When used in conjunction with accurately modeled lights, it's possible to see how a room will be lit and it allows the client to change the layout prior to building.”

NL: What’s your opinion of the Maxwell Render community? Do you admire any particular user?

TE: “The Maxwell community is fantastic. Everybody is willing to offer advice and guidance, which is an indispensable resource for new Maxwell users. I admire all the Maxwell users, irrespective of their abilities, although there is a selection of users whose galleries I always check for new updates. If I have to name-drop, in no particular order: Tora, Nico, the Stack Studios team, SandyKoufax, Kentarofj, Hyltom and Tom.”

NL: How do you think Maxwell has evolved over the years?

TE: “Maxwell has evolved incredibly over the few years I've been using the system. From the beta stage through to the current development releases, which I help test with the other beta testers. I enjoyed the birth of MXST and all its new features that have been enhanced and added since, like the Multilight feature and SimuLens system. The introduction of the displacement system was much anticipated and greatly received and without giving too much away about future releases, the upcoming additions and improvements to the sky and MXM system will make Maxwell Render even better.”

NL: What further improvements or implementations would you like to see in future versions?

TE: “Further improvements to Maxwell's render time calculations, although I think this is probably one of the most requested features.
Texture baking: we use the unreal 3 game engine for full building simulations, allowing clients to move round the whole building. If we can use Maxwell to bake the textures, the next step of realism would be achievable.”

NL: Please describe your experience with Maxwell Render in 10 words.

TE: “A pleasurable, rewarding, inspiring, immersive, intuitive experience, at the cutting edge of rendering.”

NL: THANKS TIM !!!.

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