Just wondering why those of you who have chosen to stick with Mental Ray have done so. I've always used it, but am seriously considering switching over to Vray. I fear the learning curve - especially if I happen to land a big project while I'm smack-dab in the middle of that curve (and re-creating all my materials within Vray.
For years I've justified (to myself and my boss) that MR can do whatever VR can do. But the more Vray work I see, the less convinced I am of this. I've spent countless hours (hundreds) learning, applying, experimenting with, fine-tuning, tweaking and bending Mental Ray in efforts to achieve results as good as the very best (interior) VR images I've seen, but to not much avail.
So my question to all of you Mental Ray devotees out there is why have you chosen to stick with MR and not go over to the 'dark side'? Is it financial (not wanting to fork over an additional $800 - though I think they've recently raised it to $1,000 - for a 3rd party plug-in)? Or perhaps you take a special pride in being able to produce results similar to the architectural CGI industry standard using a product that most consider inferior. In other words, much like the Detroit Pistons, you not only enjoy being the "under-dog", but you perform your best when everyone else sees you as such.
Feedback?