What is wrong with MentalRay??

[archkre]

What is wrong with MentalRay, native 3DSMax6/7 Renderer?

Why a lot of people besides the price of Max pay are buying for Vray?fRender/Brazil,etc ?

[Fernando Lino]

I use fR and Vray...I've tried MR a couple times and it's too slow for me

and more difficult to learn it.

 

VIZ- $1,895...I paid 1,300 + 245 subscription program ( I don't need MAX features)

fR & Vray 1,600...but I paid 460 stage-0 plus 175 for the upgrade...and Vray I bought it with 20% off.

 

Anyway ... it's cheaper than 3ds MAX

[mbr]

One reason is the licensing. You have to pay at least $1000 per MR license, if you want to put any on a render farm. fR, VRay, and Brazil (with optional package) you can use on several computers (for network rendering).

 

THis is a HUGE deal, monetarily, if you plan on using more than one computer.

[KiboOst]

Beside licensing, fR is indeed more complete, more intuitive, and a LOT faster ! I was a big fan of mr in old days (2.1 version), but now we do all our rendering with fR. Keep in mind that fR is also fully compatible with max medit, render elements, rpf/g buffer, etc.

 

Kib

[joske]

Beside licensing, fR is indeed more complete, more intuitive, and a LOT faster !

 

Kib

 

i'm sorry but i don't agree

Mray is as fast or faster then any other render package out there

Only it will not work fast if the settings are not 'spot on'.

So it is less 'forgiving' for settings that are not setup right.

but it is not 'slower'... if it is, it is because the person who is using it does not know how to make optimal use of the possibilities Mr has...

 

So Imexp the only reason for not using Mray would be that you need a big renderfarm, then the licenses are way to expensive

[KiboOst]

LOL ! if you want ...

[MegaPixel]

Joske and KiboOst both sound like they have good arguements in favor of each. But I think that MR's lack of intuitive usability & high learning curve shys many of the new users away from MR, despite it's industry standard capabilitiy. Everyone wants "push button" results or as close as they can get to it anyhow and even though fR, Vray or Brazil arn't quite "push button", they certainly seem to have the learning curve advantage over MR it seems.

 

It does seem silly though, that owners of MAX 6 or 7, who allready have the power of MR, don't take a little more time to figure out how to use it, rather then spend another $grand or more to get something that's a little easier to use, and not that much better.

 

These are just my thoughts as of today and perhaps they will change if someone here stipulates on behalf of one renderer or the other. I'm sure the debate about "which renderer is better" will go on and on for ever.

[KiboOst]

I've work more than a year with max+mr, then tested vray/brazil/fr. Now my studio use exclusively fR.

I'm not a "push button" fan, and that's why I was in love with mr, because it give you control. But mr miss some really important things, and quality/speed isn't there anymore. Vray is fast, push button, but GI looks flat, or to get nice result (in my quality criterions) you need to learn more and push params, and it become slow. Brazil didn't convinced me for both quality and speed, but it has improved a lot in time. So we choosed fR, simply because it is the one that give the more controls everywhere, and once you know it, you simply do what you want, and damn fast. BUT, fR is maybe the more complex one to learn, that's why not many people know it (or don't spend time to explain it as they have other things to do) and so many give wrong opinions on it. We now render animations full GI with 3d moving characters, 3d trees/cars, and this would be simply impossible without fR in these quality/speed criterias. Due to GI but also many many others aera, where fR allways give you control. I must admit that default params in fR aren't the best, but it isn't a push button renderer, so who cares defaults, advanced users know the technics behind and know how to use it (is prman a push button renderer ? lol)

I've wrote many articles on mr for max, but sorry I've remove them (was mr 2.1, and miss some host space :/)

If you want to know more about fr : http://www.kicrea.com/articles/index_us.php3

 

 

my 2cents

Kib

[joske]

rather then spend another $grand or more to get something that's a little easier to use, and not that much better.

 

I'm sure the debate about "which renderer is better" will go on and on for ever.

 

i agree with this

 

what some people keep forgetting : there is no 'better renderer'

everybody has one favorite, what is best for his(hers) workflow

So saying this one is faster or better is just plain bull*^@%...

Because it allways comes down to the person behind the PC not knowing the software, not spending enough time learning the tricks and bits to push the software that much further to achieve that little extra

 

So saying this one is slower or faster for your workflow, kind of work could be completely correct. But that doesn't mean this goes for everybody and all kind of work (character animation, architecture, landscapes...)

 

So the real thing to consider is here is :

which package is cheapest and can be learned fastest

and then it is up to you to find that last one out

 

Mray is clearly the cheapest here (comes with Max which you need anyways)

but it is harder to learn, and is not at all cheap when you want more server nodes to get a complete renderfarm if you might need that.

 

that said :

Now in max 7 you can render to texture in Mray so for architecture stuff (read 'non moving scenes with not lots of character animation') you have everything you need if you wanna spent the time learning the stuff.

 

if you don't wanna learn or allready know another package and if you need to do other stuff than architecture rendering you should go for the other renderers. And by spending the extra money, in the end you might be even cheaper off...

[nisus]

Imho MR is not that widely used because it's not advertised in the same way as br/vr/fr... Must be a reason why it's an industry standard though! And don't forget: MR is version 3, br/vr/fr not yet...

 

rgds

 

nisus

[jucaro]

Maybe the reason why MR is an industry standard because back then

when it was version 1.0, there was still no vr/fr/br.

 

BUT I'm a big MR fan. If only they'd lower down the per node license so we can

afford a DR based MR farm.

 

I'm looking forward to its (MR 3.3) GPU based render capabilities.

[KiboOst]

Maybe the reason why MR is an industry standard because back then

when it was version 1.0, there was still no vr/fr/br.

 

BUT I'm a big MR fan. If only they'd lower down the per node license so we can

afford a DR based MR farm.

 

I'm looking forward to its (MR 3.3) GPU based render capabilities.

 

you're totally right, I've learn GI with MR and it was a fantastic renderer at that time. but they didn't progressed a lot since that, and in my mind others renderer are simply better now, apart shader language (fR got it, but I don't know for vray/brazil)

 

Kib

[jayson]

In the past few weeks I have been trying to integrate MR into our work, but I have to say that I have been frustrated by the lack of tutorials or online help. I've seen time and time again comments to the effect of "You need to learn Mental Ray first" and "If you know how to use it, it works well" I would love to learn how to use it, and have been searching for any information about this. I have searched the web, but found very limited resources. Does anyone know where to find information on how to use Mental Ray? In the meantime it's back to scanline. I'm sad to leave MR behind, as I see vast potential and power within. But until I can find some tutorials or examples on how to use it in a archviz project, I'm sticking with scanline.

 

Question for those out there who use Mental Ray: How did you learn to use it? Is it a matter of simply plugging away, trial and error until it works?

 

Thanks for any help.

[joske]

 

Question for those out there who use Mental Ray: How did you learn to use it? Is it a matter of simply plugging away, trial and error until it works?

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Jason, the be short : yes

 

if i'm not mistaken we recieced our upgrade to MAX 6 (and Mray) december 2003.

So it took me 'till now to really get a grip on it in such a way that we can use it faster than scanline setup (which we used untill then), and still have convincing results.

I did mess around a bit with the radiosity/light tracer before that, but never really got it to work fast enough to my liking.

Whitout wanting to sound full of myself : I must say I tend to be a really fast learner when trying out new software and features, so it is possible that others will take more/less time than me...?

 

some stuff you might wanna have a look at to learn Mray :

 

check cgarchitect + Cgtalk forums, do a search

 

also have a look at the Maya tutorials for Mray, they usually work with MAX/MRay also with some willingness

 

test, test, test and test whenever you get the time/opportunity

 

ask other people to have a look at your scenes

 

try other people scene's to have a look at the settings

 

don't expect to learn Mray over night, I still learn new things everyday

and don't give up

[kicks]

[jayson]

Thanks all, this is actually some of the more helpfull advice I've gotten so far. Looking back, I do now remember that it took me almost a full year to get comfortable using radiosity in client work. And to this day I'm still finding ways to improve my solutions.

 

And I've been over to CGTalk, extremely helpful, and Jeff Patton is my Mental Ray material Guru, his help has been instrumental in getting me as far as I am.

 

In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away at it, one day I'll figure this out....

[nisus]

Hi jason,

 

I'm quite a novice MR-user, but it can be handy to tell you how I learned it. It sounds to me that you have the same problem that I had a while ago.

 

Here are some crucial steps that I took to learn MR:

1) Search a way to LOWER RENDERING times first. Only once you have found this, you can start different lighting situations, materials, shaders etc.

This took myself quite some time, because of the lack of reference and the WRONG guidance in the manuals IMHO.

My personal/temporary solution is to stick with ONE type of lighting (I use a daylight system) and to use ONLY FG with extremely low settings (20-50) for test renderings.

 

2) Divide a render into different steps: don't do lighting, materials, gi-settings all at once! Solve one problem at a time! Start with an IDMO* and check your settings (daylight and gi/FG). Find fast (low) settings for testing (FG20) and fast (high) settings for final images (FG+5000)

Next do a lighting study (direction, shadow contrast,...). Only after this I recommend you to do material/shader tests. Make an overal look at low-res first, finish with high-res crop/region renders for testing.

 

3) Don't go straight to the top! Don't push yourself to have brilliant images by the end of the week, take your time and finetune. Don't get frustrated. Focus on ONE issue per project. ,-)

 

 

I hope this helps,

 

rgds

 

nisus

 

 

 

*IDMO: Ideal Diffuse Material Override

[v_wrangler]

Mrs just one of the old boys.

There isnt really an industry standard renderer - Mr or any renderer for that matter. Its like saying San Miguel Beer is the standard beer in the Philippines (well almost) or Colgate is the industry standard toothpaste, or Levis - the industry standard workwear...

 

A lot of people say the problem with MR is integration (I'm only speaking with Max) , and I agree. it doesnt work well with third party material/maps and athmospherics. For studios who has invested resources developing shaders and material libraries, third party renderers might be a good choice than dealing with MR's unfamiliar materials and shading language.

 

If you are intending to start and and finish a project with MR, then it might be OK but if you intend to deliver a cool image with whatever renderer at the shortest time possible, then MR might not be the wiser choice.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

i agree with the people that choose something besides mental ray for the multi-seat license...

 

we were using only scanline, and were looking to get heavy into global illumination. when the comparison between the quality lighting we found, compared to how much it would cost to run a render farm of 40+ computers, vray won.

 

for an extra $1000(x actual seats) we could do this. mental ray became really expensive.

 

...and mental ray it not max's native renderer.

 

when it comes down to the actual GI in each, it is not really a deal. a good artist will produce a decent image no matter what he is using. fast computers and expensive software are only tools.