Materials Appear Faded or Washed Out

[jason.combs]

Thanks for the valuable advice.

Is mr the preferred rendering solution in VIZ now?

I switched my current scene, but mental ray materials are still incompatible.

Try what Dwayne suggested first. If that does not help, read on, although the following info will benefit you on your next project and perhaps even now.
Typically the workflow in VIZ 2008 is to first switch to the mr CUI. To set this current, go to the Customize menu pulldown, then select :Custom UI and Defaults Switcher". When the dialog box appears, select the DesignVIZ.mentalray in the upper left window. (see attached pics for ref.).

Once that is done, you will need to swap out any existing lights for mr based ones. This includes any photometric or omni lights or sun based systems to the mr equivalants. The same goes for materials. Once you have swapped your interface to work with mr, the materials will no longer be "incompatible". Take any existing materials and replace them with mr materials for them to work properly with the mr render engine.

If you start your scene to begin with under mr settings and apply only mr lights/materials, it will obviously go much smoother. Also, there are a number of presets that VIZ 2008 includes to help make rendering with mr somewhat easier.

[Steve_Bennett]

Thanks for the valuable advice.

Is mr the preferred rendering solution in VIZ now?

I switched my current scene, but mental ray materials are still incompatible.

The change for materials should become available after restarting VIZ. In your material/map browser click the radio button on the left side under "Compatable with" -> Renderer. This will show all materials compatable with the mental ray render engine. If the materials you setup previously were built before the switch then most likely you will need to rebuild the matierals using mr presets.

Mental Ray is definitely the preferred choice for rendering in VIZ 2008, provided you are trying to use the software out of the box. There are other plugins but you may as well get comfortable using the software first before adding on another level of complexity.