New and want to use mental ray - any good exterior tutorials out there

[Justin Marchiel]

I have used viz and am fairly familiar with radiosity but i want to move into the mental ray engine. I have done the tutorial in the help but found that it doesn't really help me out with exterior renderings. Is there any one out there with a good exterior tutorial? Is there any settings that need to be changed in viz that i might not be doing to go from scanline to mental ray? I seems that my rendering are always missing light (large black spots, or no light at all).

I have seen some great stuff from mental ray, and want to do the same.

any help appreciated.

Thanks

Justin

[dellis]

Justin,

Which version of VIZ are you using? The new version of mental ray is alot easier to handle and produces great results.

[Justin Marchiel]

I posted this question with v2006. i just got my new 2008 today and looking forwarding to using it. hopefully the new mental ray is as easy as you say.

Thanks

Justin

[Arnel Aguel]

Hi Justin here are a few good ones from mental ray gurus

Jeff Patton

Shane Griffith


Hope this helps

[rmejia]

Here are two more links for Mental Ray tips:

http://www.mymentalray.com/

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/

[kevin.peloquin]

Does anyone recommend any other 3rd Party Render programs other then mental ray ?

[dellis]

I personally can't live without VRay!!!!

[cuptmor]

Has anyone timed the new Metal Ray version with V-ray? I am assuming quality is comparible. Any experience with ease of use between the two?

[stusic]

Has anyone timed the new Metal Ray version with V-ray? I am assuming quality is comparible. Any experience with ease of use between the two?

Haha, I timed how long it took to write a check for VRay and how long it took to open up the free MR from Max...

[dellis]

As far as usability....now, finally, mental ray has an interface that is pretty straight forward and usable. Ironically, it looks alot like VRays UI. As far as quality i would say that MR is up there with the top renderers...but all the available rendering engines can produce stunning work....depends mostly on who's driving it. Now speed is one of those things that is really specific to what you have going on in your scene. From my experience i've found that VRay is faster especially as the scene gets more complex. I definetly encourage you to try out your own benchmarks though.