Mental Ray Sky/Daylight System Won't Render Correctly (Black/Gray Background)

[lapetitelapin]

Hi All,

 

This is my first post, so bare with me if the solution seems obvious. In any case, when I go to render a scene, the background is gray or light blue, if not black. The physical sky is will not render. I'm not sure what I may have done, but even when I open a new scene, I am plagued by the same issue. When I go into the background settings to get the background to show in the scene, I end up with a completely black background-- no sky!

 

I tried to find a thread with my issue, but I couldn't. Please do not chastise me if one already exists (although I would feel much better knowing I'm not the only one!) I am running 3ds Max 2009 32bit on a Windows 7 Boot Camp partition.

 

Cheers,

VA

Edited March 12, 2010 by lapetitelapin
supplying image

[Stan Zaslavsky]

Hi Virginia and welcome to the forums,

 

do you have a ground plane with a material attached?

and what about Daylight system with a Sun positioned right?

 

good luck and keep working at it,

[pixelperfectg]

In the render you attached the camera is looking down at the objects. No sky would be visible when you're looking down. The gray background you see in your attached render is simply the default gray ground color that's assigned to the mrsky.

 

FWIW I've compiled a list of answers to some of the most frequently asked mental ray questions here: http://jeffpatton.net/forum/index.php/topic,4.0.html

 

Might be worth a read in addition to the tutorials that ship with 3ds Max.

[lapetitelapin]

In the render you attached the camera is looking down at the objects. No sky would be visible when you're looking down. The gray background you see in your attached render is simply the default gray ground color that's assigned to the mrsky.

 

Thank you, pixelperfectg *picks face off floor*! My frosh year profs would certainly have a chuckle, had they known the silly mistake I'd made! My camera positioning was TERRIBLE! Thanks for pointing out that obvious solution.

 

And StanZ, thanks as well, as you were the first to address my issue, and I am extremely grateful that you took a moment of your time to take a gander.

[mattclinch]

FWIW I've compiled a list of answers to some of the most frequently asked mental ray questions here: http://jeffpatton.net/forum/index.php/topic,4.0.html

 

Fantastic resource Jeff. Thanks. My turn to pick my face off the floor...

[lapetitelapin]

Indeed! But I still have another question... the environment in the viewport is still black. What other silly thing could I be missing?

[pixelperfectg]

See #10 in the FAQ I linked to earlier.