I’m learning an ID and PD modeling and design and looking for a good and accurate render for photo-realistic render. now I’m using KeyShot, but the final results are great, but slightly plastic and not photorealistic. I heard that Octane is fast and pretty good render for ID and PD, but Maxwell will give more photorealistic results. yes, maxwell is slow maybe, but time is not problem for me. for quick result I can use KeyShot. but for realistic shots which of Octane or Maxwell more suitable? tnx for response and sorry for my english 
IMO for product design you should be able to get great results out of keyshots. Plasticy looking materials are going to be a result of your specific lighting and shading setups. Improving the lighting, using a reflective environment, or tweaking the shaders can help improve the visual quality.
Maxwell is much more thorough, but you’d be better off learning to get the last 10% of quality out of Keyshot then starting a whole new tool and workflow.
Both Octane and Maxwell can produce outstanding results, and both of them have a serious learning curve. It’s about workflow, etc. Download the demos for each of them and make your own decision; neither of them is “higher quality.”
Short opinion- As an ID rendering tool Keyshot>Octane>Maxwell
Long answer: Octane and Maxwell both create great results. Octane is really FAST but only with a good video card- so there might be an additional investment you have to make in a good Nvidia gaming card if you choose that route. I find in professional work that workflow trumps realism. Keyshot is annoyingly good enough and pervasive because it is easy to use.
So although Octane is really fast, Keyshot has a render queue which allows you to walk away after setting up some decent renderings. If you had to choose between Octane and Maxwell you might want to see what plugins are available for your software of your choice. Maxwell doesnt charge for plugins but Octane does.
I prefer the quality of renders and shadows that are easily created in unbiased renderers like MR and especially Octane but begrudgingly I use Keyshot to get things done quickly. If you are looking add some more pop to your renders have a look at HDRLight Studio as a supplement to Keyshot to really fine tune your lighting setup- HDR Light Studio Live for KeyShot
Also this webinar has some good material creation suggestions to tweak your plastic settings to make them more realistic.
Right, as a professional you’ll need to decide where your time is best spent.
As a student I played a lot with mental ray, watching DVD’s and reading books on how many final gather rays I would need, how to properly calibrate global illumination, how to build shaders. It was a good learning experience.
Now my boss shows up and tells me I have a presentation in 30 minutes - I need renderings that will look convincing enough, and fast. Keyshot lets you bang out quick renderings when you need it, and if you are willing to invest the time to really tweak your lighting and shaders, bake the render with good quality settings and most importantly - post process the image.
Remember rendering is similar to photography - you don’t need to get perfect results straight out of the camera. Photoshop can help you adjust the levels, add depth of field, glows, motion blur, and lots of other effects to get a really rich image. Keyshot has some great tools for generating passes (Depth passes, clown passes) which make it really useful for post processing images. A little depth of field applied in photoshop is all you need to make a rendering really pop, and it’s much faster and more accurate to do it after the fact than in the rendering engine.
Investing in some good HDR environments and learning how your lighting will effect your shaders is also critical to getting that last 10% of quality. But you can get 90% of the way to where you need in about 15 minutes with Keyshot.
I’m not profi in KeyShot too, maybe this is a reason why I get plastic shots, u right, I must play with environments and light, I’m a photographer too and I love playing with light, but in renderer it’s bit harder but in studio or nature. and in Keyshot I find one more problem when working with solidworks. I cant import decals or cuted(splited) surfaces to KeyShot. is there any solution for this? Google not helped me a lot. I cant find the solution for this problem.
…and if only to help add more fuel to the fire throw in…
Logoa http://home.lagoa.com/
Neon https://rendering-gallery.360.autodesk.com/projects/popular
I prefer to focus on designing and improving the details of the product instead of dealing with the lighting and environment.
Thats I why I would recommend Keyshot. It is fast and easy to use.
I use modo for my furniture stuff, which borders on Archviz.
Also use keyshot for my 360 degree spinning models on our website.
I’ve found that once you know modo, its as easy to get quick, white background results as keyshot, and as I’ve heard, but not tried - the XSR plugin.
There’s also high level UV mapping, and insane lighting tweakability in modo. Steep learning curve though.