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The mental ray renderer allows you to specify sophisticated options which are calculated only at rendering time. This lets you keep scenes relatively small in size.
The main advantages of mental ray are:
network rendering - allows you to use the CPU's (central processing units) of all the available computers on your network
scene or object optimization - You may specify the quality of the rendering for the entire scene, or for selected objects. This speeds up the process of testing and modifying.
open architecture - allows you to use a programming language, such as C++, to create your own shaders for creating specific effects.
You select mental ray as the rendering type from Render Setup dialogue box, which appears when you click on the Render menu cell.
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The mental ray Options dialogue box is obtained by clicking Options at the bottom of the Render Setup dialogue box.
To set up mental ray options for a particular object in the scene, use the Render Setup field in the Info->Selection dialogue box.
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Below are examples of mental ray's capabilities:
The next few pages will provide examples of the some of the available mental ray shaders and how you can edit their parameters.
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A material shader created the highly reflective glass of the fruit bowl.
The following options for this shader can be editied
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The 2D texture shader, "Fabric", a procedural shader, was used for the fabric of the lamp shade.
After selecting a mental ray texture shader, click on Edit to modify parameters such as thread color, space between threads, thickness of threads and randomness of threads .
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An atmospheric shader was used for the effect of light coming from the lamp.
The following dialogue box shows the options you can edit for this shader.
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The "Slide" light shader produced the pattern of shadows on the wall behind the scene.
The following light shader editor allows you to control various parameters.
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The "Fur" output shader was used to create the furry look of the rug.
You can edit the following parameters by selecting the Edit button in the Output Shader section of the Rendering Options diaglogue box:
Last updated 04-dec-1998