V-Ray vs. Mental Ray

[erickdt]

I'm wondering which one is better. I know that this is a nebulous question that will likely result in alot of "it depends" answers so here are some specific criteria:

 

-Ease of use and scene setup, lighting etc.

 

So far it seems relatively easy to use. It's very benificial to be able to use standard materials with fake reflection glossiness etc.

 

-Length of rendering time

 

It seems to take much longer than VRay takes to render.

 

-Final product realism

 

Looks pretty good to me though I would say that for some reason it has more of a "cartoony" / illustrated look (which is not necessarily a bad thing)

 

Thanks for everyone's help in advance!

[manta]

Well normally I would say Vray, but I have heard good things about Max 9 and MR 3.5, so I would download the trial and give it a spin if I were you...

[Hao La]

I would rather learn both, knowing more is not a bad thing

[erickdt]

I was wondering because my company (an exhibit design company) is contemplating using VRay as our rendering engine after they've seen the renderings that I've produced (not that they hold a candle to some of the truly amazing work posted by some of the VRay users here). They're currently using scanline for all of there renderings and it's just not cutting it anymore.

 

We have Mental Ray already (it came with VIZ 2007) and I'm not sure if that's the right way to go. We normally have short turn around times (around a day) so efficiency of rendering time is crucial as is ease of use since my co-workers in the design dept. are rather old and sort of neo-ludites (anit-technologists) and would rather just go back to marker rendering than change rendering engine.

[AJLynn]

Comparing the mental ray that ships with Viz2007 to Vray and needing fast turnarounds, yes, it's probably worth it to go to Vray.

[erickdt]

Hmmm... I didn't realize that the version that came with VIZ is different than the (what I guess is) the full version.

[C.Vestal]

Is there a limit on the network rendering on mental ray??

I use v-ray here and remember that being one of the reasons we went this way.

[AJLynn]

The version with Viz07 is the same as with Max8 - and the one with Max9 is the one with the nice new material system, simplified FG, etc. Definitely more learning curve than Vray and with fast turnarounds, you're not going to invest the time in shaders and high-end lighting that will make it outperform Vray for you, because you're not going to need to. Also, you're limited to something like 3 render slaves. (With Max I think it's 8.)

[C.Vestal]

Also, you're limited to something like 3 render slaves. (With Max I think it's 8.)

 

 

Is that new with 9? I am currently running 16 slaves with Max8

(no 3rd party, no mr)

[AJLynn]

I was never able to get more than 8 Raysat slaves at a time with Max8... I thought it was a limitation inserted because of licensing but I don't remember where I read that.

[Justin Hunt]

Yes with Raysat, but not with backburner which is unlimited

 

JHV

[DavidR]

mr is still photon-based, whereas Vray has many lighting modes, including my fave for interiors: irradiance and light cache which is way faster then any mr setup and looks much better too, imo. mr has other advantages, but not for interior arch viz -Vray and Maxwell are demonstrably better for us.

[Justin Hunt]

DavidR - not entrirly correct, you have the choice of photons or final gather or photons and FG. In max9 FG is vastly improved and in many cases there is no need to use photons any more.

 

JHV

[DavidR]

DavidR - not entrirly correct, you have the choice of photons or final gather or photons and FG. In max9 FG is vastly improved and in many cases there is no need to use photons any more.

 

JHV

Hi Justin, I mostly do interiors, and I;ve always founf that a combo of GI and FG works faster and better than FG alone -I get cleaner results with lower settings. FG alone can be fine for exteriors, but it's maybe 3x slower using multi-bounce FG vs GI(photons) with 1 FG bounce. I know there's no correct formula, but this is what I generally find, plus you lose contact shadows with FG. I really have a strong preference for Vray for this type of rendering situation. I find Max9 presets help new users, but mr seems pretty much the same -things that were slow before are still slow, but I love the physical sky, new material, etc., and I think it's very useable now.