Mental Ray vs VRay

[Trevor Tizard]

Hi,

 

Am fairly new to radiosity etc and am hearing alot about a free piece of rendering software called Vray. I am using Viz 2005 which has Mental Ray included. Can someone tell me if there is a reason why so many people are usin Vray - is it better, is it a different tool etc.

 

What I really need to know is should I consider Vray for my images.

 

Thanks

 

Trevor

[AJLynn]

VRay is pretty easy to use and it's fast. The free version doesn't include all the features of the commercial version but does do a lot. mental ray is (IMHO) somewhat more difficult to learn. The version of mental ray you get with Viz will do more than the free VRay (for example, it has caustics - which is light going being reflected or refracted then hitting a surface) but it can be very slow - getting your global illumination lighting to be smooth can take hours. Also, the version that comes with Viz 2005 is not the newest and it doesn't have the new distributed render system, if you're into that kind of thing. Neither does the free VRay.

 

If you're just starting out, download the free VRay and give it a try, you'll be doing good stuff pretty quickly though not with the same capabilities of VRay Advanced, which is what a lot of the people here are using.

[ipdesigner]

Hi,

 

Am fairly new to radiosity etc and am hearing alot about a free piece of rendering software called Vray. I am using Viz 2005 which has Mental Ray included. Can someone tell me if there is a reason why so many people are usin Vray - is it better, is it a different tool etc.

 

What I really need to know is should I consider Vray for my images.

 

Thanks

 

Trevor

 

*It shows from the render outputs. Check some of the images posted here. Me, I prefered Vray.