crazy homeless guy

Currently I am on Vray, but I am taking Mental Ray classes the next couple of days. The firm I am working for is pushing to get everyone on the same page. I do not think I will drop Vray completely, but I am taking on Mental Ray also. I like the idea of having it as a company standard to allow for mass production of certain pieces of projects while I can focus on polishing other parts of the project. Though I am a bit concerned because I don’t feel Mental ray is the equivalent of Vray, but that is why I am posting here. I am hoping someone can help me on the answers to some of these questions, because I know how instructions can tend to only focus on the benefits of the app they are teaching, and not give good feedback when comparing different apps. So, does Mental Ray do, can anyone help me determining if Mental ray has the equivelant of the following which are deeply ingrained in my Vray work flow…

Vray Proxies
Vray Displacement
Physical Camera
LWF work flow in the same manner that Vray has embraced it

I am assuming it has most other things that I like about Vray. I, like many people, have the general impression that Vray does a better job, but I don’t know if that is because I only look at people doing arch viz, and Vray seems to rule the arch viz world.

Any help would be appreciated.

Travis.

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travis schmiesing

Justin Hunt

All yes except for proxies. The mentalray equivilent is also call proxies but works in a different way. It only loads the geomerty as that bucket needs it and then unloads it. It as simple as a switch. Not as powerful as Vrays though.

We too push for an office standard and for various reasons mentalray is it. Everytime we have someone new start they always push for Vray. Mainly because its what they know. However once I give them a basic but intensive run though they are very impressed at how simple it really is and are up and running in no time at all.

Before we started we waisted too much time trying to translate models from on renderer to the other and even on app to an other. The other office ran on Viz with vray whilst we ran on Max with mentalray. Now it is possible to pick up any job from any office and run with it. Works really well.

There are many concepts in Vray which can easily be applied to mentalray so its not that much of a leap.

If you need any help just ask.

JHV

crazy homeless guy

....thanks for the reply. that is good to hear. i don't expect to be good at it for awhile, that is why i am not dropping Vray.

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travis schmiesing

Justin Hunt

give it a week of intensive tutorials (the ones that ship with Max) and playing and you will be right

JHV

Brian Bradley

Hi Travis,

Artists who haven't used it a lot often feel that way, and
in all honesty, in some areas it isn't. But then again some
things IMHO are easier in MR. Horses for courses is the way
to approach rendering. Right tool, right job.

That is assuming they themselves don't use AND teach both
renderers.

Proxies - There has been talk of shader dev that would give
the same functionality to MR, but as Justin says, at this moment
the answer would be no. So massive scenes such as those poss
with Vray Proxies would be hard to do.

Displacement - Yes

Phys Cam - By default the photographic controls for MR are done
through the exposure controls dialogue. Works very nicely indeed
but does not have the 'camera related' controls that are found
in Vrays phys cam. 9Personally prefer the level of control in the
Vray Phys cam) There are scripts and MR phenomenon now
available that tie the exposure and camera controls all into one
handy set of controls ala Vray.

LWF - Can be implemented (albeit slightly differently) with any
render engine as it is a 'Workflow ethic' as opposed to render
engine functionality. But certainly a 'physical' approach to lighting
and rendering is VERY easy to adopt in MR.

Hope that helps a little.

Regards
Bri

__________________
3Ds Max - Mental Ray - VRay - Brazil Training Modules
www.mentalboutmax.co.uk
The MBM Blog
www.mentalboutmax.blogspot.com
Vray Learning Resource
www.vrayelite.com

crazy homeless guy

this is the one that i am most concerned with. i like me some onyx trees converted to vray proxies. i kind populate a scene with 600 or more fairly nice trees and render out only using about 3.3 or so gigs of ram. this is definetly going to be a problem for me if i can't find a smooth way to take care of it.

the instructor briefly jumped over the camera settings yesterday. after i get into this for a couple of weeks, i will probably search for that scriot to test out.

she asked what type of shaders i have been using. i said vray, and she said, no, i mean what kind of sha.... then rolled her eyes, and said oh ya, i forgot vray came with its own shaders.

...i am guessing she doesn't appreciate vray a great deal. so far i have gotten the feeling that she is pro everything autodesk and autodesk related. though she did give props to photoshop yesterday.

in all yesterday was a very basic class over viewing 3damax. there are about 6 of us in the class. others have little max experience, so more than anything it was an introduction to the tool set and work flow for them. today we are going more into Mental Ray. ....though I have a deadline this morning, tomorrow afternoon, and thursday on top of the classes, so hopefully I can make it all work.

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travis schmiesing

JamesTaylor

interesting thread!... and it'll be interesting to hear your thoughts on the difficulty of transition between the 2 engines and which you prefer once you get to grips with MR.

i've been thinking about having a play with MR recently for a no. of unimportant reasons lately. Mainly because it ships free so is always available and for that reason would be worth knowing, i've always thought that when pushed to the limits that MR is probably a better engine than VRay, can't say i'm basing that on anything more than it was around before VRay but was very difficult to use compared to VRay, hence the reason VRay beccame so popular.

As i understand it MR has become much more user friendly in the recent releases and the images i've seen recently produced with it have a nice feel to it... different to that VRay feel that every image has nowadays!!

Brian Bradley

Hey James,

To be honest if you are even a half decent Vray user then
getting to grips with MR is not that big a jump.
For sure there are different workflows that work best with
each engine but once they are understood you are good to
go.
After doing a presentation in London on the subject of MR vs
VR, and looking at the strong points of each engine, I have
wondered if there would be call for a training module on the
subject?

As always, do the Max tutorials and you can get a reasonable
feel for the toolset. (Or of course some good quality 3rd party
training. )

Regards
Bri

__________________
3Ds Max - Mental Ray - VRay - Brazil Training Modules
www.mentalboutmax.co.uk
The MBM Blog
www.mentalboutmax.blogspot.com
Vray Learning Resource
www.vrayelite.com

prodham

....of which i highly recommend.

good product and excellent price.

Ernest Burden

Travis

I suggest you look at what method you can most easily use to get excellence from everybody else in your firm. If you go beyond your local office, that's a lot of people. We know you can do amazing work with just about anything. The question is, can others? And what will it require of you to make it so they can?

Thinking that way, I would bet that a more basic approach like MR would be the best direction, even if you are giving up some fancy features of vray. You'll need to be able to write a manual and teach it. And not always to artists.

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering