A 3d design/conceptual modeler is nothing without rendering. I am (mostly) VERY happy with CU but honestly the Lightwave renderer is not exactly state of the art. In fact it's pretty boring.

I would really like to suggest to the developers (Tim?) to make Maxwell Render the preferred rendering solution for CU users. How? Make a plugin or enhance export options and sell CU bundled with Maxwell.

Why?

I used Electric Image for 5 years and never got a decent rendering in less than a few days. I bought Maxwell and in less than a few hours I got something very close to realism.

I don't own Maxwell stock but as I have turned 40 years I find that I have not got enough time left in my life to be "expert" anything else than designer. Maxwell lets you throw together objects and lights in a scene, push a button and a "real" picture slowly appears on your screen. Certainly real enough to convince any of my clients.

If you havent tried it, there is a demo download available at maxwellrender.com. Try out the "multilight" feature and you will be amazed. Whith the feature turned on, you can ajust the light intensity AS IT IS RENDERING and even after rendering. It's absolutely unbelivable.

In addition the developers are fairly responsive, the users are helpful and there is a HUGE material database available for download on the Maxwell homepage.

Another important issue is Mac compatibility as well as pc which is also an important advantage of Concepts Unlimited.

All this comes at an expense rendering requires cpu power to be usefull. Still you can set up a scene in a few hours and render it overnight. Anyway the CU/Maxwell bundle would be a winner.

Claus