Mental Ray Or Scanline Renderer

[doujay888]

Since I've started using max. I never had tried using any stand alone renderer or any other rendering plugins. since I can't afford to buy one.
I've started with Max 6 last year and I like the additional features. However till now I'm still using the default scanline renderer.

Can anyone give me some comparisons between the deafult scanline renderer
and mental ray.

If so where can I find some tips on mental ray rendering?

Thanks,
Dennis

[VelvetElvis]

It depends really. You can get fairly decent renders from scanline, if you know the ins and outs. You can also render faster in cases using scanline over mental ray. Animations tend to take longer using mental ray so if you cannot spare extra time, then I'd stick with scanline.

Mental ray takes some time to learn, esp in the finer points of set-up. If you look at some renderings from mental ray and compare them to a scanline there is very little difference. This is becuase people will use mental ray just becuase it's there and they end up with renders that take 20 hours that look the same as a scanline render that took 2 minutes.

If you have the time and the system power to use mental ray the way it was meant to be used, then I say go for it. Right now I am learning it too. I think for the finer points of a render such as glass, and bump maps using mental ray will really make your images "pop." In this industry anything that makes your images stand out is awesome, as well as you having the knowledge will help too.

[Sirkus]

hey dennis,

musta dyan sa dubai? hindi ba nakakatakot dyan? anyways, in my opinion the default scanline renderer is much simpler than mental ray or any other third party renderer. however, in order to come up with the same effect like that of mental ray, you will have to place so many lights (taking for granted you're not using radiosity or light tracer) see the tutorials by smokestudio in the resources area of cgarchitects. realistic rendering but to the expense of many lights.

as for the case of mental ray and the others like brazil, final render and vray, they have so many parameters that need to be tweaked. however, if you master them, you'll realize that it's far better than default line rendering. also, there's more possibilities with these programs. for help, just search the forum for tutorials. there's many here and many more if you search the internet.

also, third party renderers especially mental ray will kick your hardware to the maximum!!! you need to have good hardware to compensate for eternity it takes to finish one scene.

so bottomline is... stick to what your comfortable with. if your open to the possibility of learning something new, then follow that dream...
okidoks!!!

[Sirkus]

also, i submitted a mental ray exterior rendering in the unchallenge section... there i learned a lot about the necessary adjustments in mental ray from the masters who use it.