Mr vs Vray, different angle

[ivanjay]

Hi all. I know the topic is beaten to a dead horse. But I am curious of opinions, knowing there is no true answer, from a different angle.

 

I consider myself novice to mid range level. I am not an expert by any means nor do i anticipate becoming one.

 

I jump into max when my team needs help. We use mr exclusively but we do own a vray license. I have been debating...

 

For the novice to mid range level what are experiences in quick successful renderings. I find a big frustration with mr is getting a model done takes 2 days, tweaking and getting the computer to properly render another 3. I have heard this is vray's strength.

 

 

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[marius e]

I cant figure out what you are saying, if you are a novice at 3d then what do you base your statements on? Mental ray is not a modeling tool neither is Vray, so how can it take you 2 days and another 3 days for another view. If it takes you that long to setup lighting then you guys dont know what you are doing. It will then take you just as long to do it with vray or any other third party.

[Chris MacDonald]

If your render takes 3 days, you're doing something wrong in MR. There is this common misconception that mental ray is ludicrously slow, when it really isn't. It is just as capable as VRay, the only reason I switched was because VRay handled memory-heavy scenes far better; but if that isn't your problem you should be just fine in mental ray.

 

If however it is your scene setup time, such as adding textures, lighting, etc that is taking the time; that is down to your workflow and not the render engine. You still have to do all of these things with VRay.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love VRay because it's a tool that I use every day and get in to some pretty deep settings sometimes - but if you are only rendering images occasionally then it makes sense to stick with Mental Ray, because it is in fact a pretty solid render engine.

[ivanjay]

I cant figure out what you are saying, if you are a novice at 3d then what do you base your statements on? Mental ray is not a modeling tool neither is Vray, so how can it take you 2 days and another 3 days for another view. If it takes you that long to setup lighting then you guys dont know what you are doing. It will then take you just as long to do it with vray or any other third party.

 

Let me better explain.... It generally takes us 2 days to do the modeling (in Revit), import, set up the lighting, and materials.

 

From there we start test rendering and it is generally taking another 2 days or so of tweaking to get it right.

 

Now, I am not a novice as in just opened max. I am very familiar with the application and can create renderings on my own. However, I am not an expert with 15 years of experience here.

 

It seems that with mental ray we run into a lot of "glitches." Lighting does not end up as we expect etc. I am wondering if in peoples experience v-ray is a bit faster to get that first good draft of a rendering.

[ivanjay]

If your render takes 3 days, you're doing something wrong in MR. There is this common misconception that mental ray is ludicrously slow, when it really isn't. It is just as capable as VRay, the only reason I switched was because VRay handled memory-heavy scenes far better; but if that isn't your problem you should be just fine in mental ray.

 

If however it is your scene setup time, such as adding textures, lighting, etc that is taking the time; that is down to your workflow and not the render engine. You still have to do all of these things with VRay.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love VRay because it's a tool that I use every day and get in to some pretty deep settings sometimes - but if you are only rendering images occasionally then it makes sense to stick with Mental Ray, because it is in fact a pretty solid render engine.

 

Thanks Chris.

 

The processing time does take a very long time as well, but that is more about us not being well versed in the settings and I know that. We need to better educate ourselves on that side of it. It is not uncommon for a rendering to take 10 hours or more to render at high resolution (still image so we are talking about 11 x 17 at 300 dpi or something like that)

 

It is more of a start to acceptable result I am trying to look into.

[Chris MacDonald]

Something worth doing is forgetting DPI when it comes to render size when printing large scale. Assuming of course those measurements you gave were feet, not inches.

 

300 DPI is reserved for glossy magazine prints, etc - not for billboards. Nobody reads a billboard from 2 feet away - so it's pointless rendering out at 300DPI (even if that is what the printers have told you to do). All you need to do is render it at a size that gives you a reasonable enough quality to be viewed from a few meters away. Obviously the print company might complain, but if this happens all you need to do is re-size the image in photoshop to 300 DPI to shut them up.

 

Realistically you can comfortably get away with 150DPI for a billboard, and even down to 100DPI if it's a really big one.

[ivanjay]

Something worth doing is forgetting DPI when it comes to render size when printing large scale. Assuming of course those measurements you gave were feet, not inches.

 

300 DPI is reserved for glossy magazine prints, etc - not for billboards. Nobody reads a billboard from 2 feet away - so it's pointless rendering out at 300DPI (even if that is what the printers have told you to do). All you need to do is render it at a size that gives you a reasonable enough quality to be viewed from a few meters away. Obviously the print company might complain, but if this happens all you need to do is re-size the image in photoshop to 300 DPI to shut them up.

 

Realistically you can comfortably get away with 150DPI for a billboard, and even down to 100DPI if it's a really big one.

 

This is not a billboard. This is a design book presentation which clients will having sitting on their desk a foot from their eyes. That is the reason for the high DPI. Those measurements were inches.

[Chris MacDonald]

Hah, okay no problem. 300 DPI is the way forwards then, but even at that size those are still some long render times, perhaps work on getting a bit more knowledgeable on mental ray?

[ivanjay]

Hah, okay no problem. 300 DPI is the way forwards then, but even at that size those are still some long render times, perhaps work on getting a bit more knowledgeable on mental ray?

 

Recommendations on a good place to start? I am familiar with most of the concepts and settings but not really well versed in identifying the minimum settings I need to get a good rendering in a decent amount of time.

 

That is where I get in some trouble admittedly!

[Chris MacDonald]

There's an absolutely brilliant book called "Mastering Mental Ray" that will show you all the ins & outs of it.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Mental-Ray-Techniques-Professionals/dp/0470563850

 

Get that and read it from cover to cover.

[ivanjay]

There's an absolutely brilliant book called "Mastering Mental Ray" that will show you all the ins & outs of it.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Mental-Ray-Techniques-Professionals/dp/0470563850

 

Get that and read it from cover to cover.

 

Thanks so much, we'll be buying it for sure!

[numerobis]

some tips for MR...

 

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/making-of-esherick-house-part-1/

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/making-of-esherick-house-part-2/

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/making-of-esherick-house-part-3/

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/making-of-esherick-house-part-4/

[Ismael]

http://www.amazon.com/Jamie-Cardoso/e/B001H6W8FQ

[jasonstewart]

I had similar problems that you are experiencing with MR...Now I have switched to Vray and although it has a learning curve I feel like the stuff that should be easy is easy, with MR I was always fighting to get the lighting to work as it was supposed to etc. In vray stuff just seems to work better, lighting is for sure much better at least for me. I would recommend playing with it some on your own before trying to complete a project with it while you are under the gun with a deadline. I feel like now I focus a lot more on materials and modeling than I did in MR, mostly because I have time to do so since I am not constantly trying to get the scene lit without a bunch of blotchyness everywhere.

[Chris MacDonald]

Every time somebody says to me that "mental ray isn't as good as VRay" I simply point them in the direction of these renders;

 

http://marlas.cgsociety.org/portfolio/project-detail/754315

[RyderSK]

Every time somebody says to me that "mental ray isn't as good as VRay" I simply point them in the direction of these renders;

 

http://marlas.cgsociety.org/portfolio/project-detail/754315

 

I'll keep forever admiring this... un-surpassed quality, in Maya, on ancient quad-core, 4gb ram, with 2-3 hour render times.

If this guy hadn't vanished... I can't even imagine what he would do. It's simply beyond amazing.

 

But yeah, almost every renderer will give you nice results. For me it's now based almost purely on "how easy/nice is it to use it".

[ivanjay]

I am in no way saying one is better. I personally find that mental ray seems to take a lot of tweaking and from what i have heard for a non master vray tends to be a much faster approach to a successful render. As in more predictable results.

 

 

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