blender > Mental ray?

[fktt]

The guy who developed blental used a standalone version of mentalray that he got for free with a mentalray book, but the license expired.

before it expired he had though contacted mental images to see if he could get a free license for testing and developing the integration, they kept promising for one but they have yet to actually give him one. :(

Also another thing is that he and many external opensource renderer developers aswell,
are waiting for a proper render API wich at this point is pretty sure in coming,
though no time soon.

first comes 2.5x then Project Durian, then the internal renderer could use a bit of a clean up and upgrade session, etc. :wip:


/edit: and no, im not a developer, so take this with a grain o' salt. :)

[loran]

ok thank you FKTT.
I Didn't know about project Durian, i m looking forward...
And about the 2.5? will it release this year?

[fktt]

ok thank you FKTT.
I Didn't know about project Durian, i m looking forward...
And about the 2.5? will it release this year?

Ton's planning to do a demo release for siggraph this year, I guess it'll be like a beta,
so I'd guess it'll probably be finished this year, yeah.

there are also plans for a 2.49 that is mostly a game-engine related work,
with some other extra goodies, but I don't think theres any date set yet.

[neuromancer1978]

The Blender to RenderMan project has been waiting for this new Render API to come about for a LONG time actually (something like 2 years??) and in some cases been working with the Blender developers to make this happen. This link is about as much as we can say about it though :

http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/changes-since-248/

When it happens we will not know until some form of C code is written and then when that happens all the rest will fall into place. The problem that ALL exporters from Blender is that they are coded in Python, in fact they HAVE to be due to the nature of Blender. This makes exporting any file format slow. That is a huge bottleneck that has prevented many exporters from being successful with the exception of Yafray and the only reason that particular exporter WAS a huge success was because it was able to be run in Blender without using a Python GUI. In fact I think the renderer was made for Blender to begin with.

Anyway.... the Render API will be made, at some point in time. I hope once this API is mapped out and ready for testing that the BtoR devs will be able to pump something out really fast so that we can start tinkering around with it, already we've made huge leaps just from the Python scripting.

[fktt]

yeah, thanks to the RNA development in blender (thanks to Brecht!),
We should see a(proper?) C(Plug-in) API in blender,
wich Bretch has said he has plans to extend into or base a future render api on. :)

That makes me very much happy. :buttrock:

[shoujoboy]

I found blental, a blender exporter to mentalray stand alone. It has not been update for years and doesnt work with current versions. Any news abaout this?
Use Yafray ! I think that's still in service.

[SeanJM]

Yafray is good but personally I think blender internal surpassed it a while ago.

[Shimegi]

Use Yafray ! I think that's still in service.

Yafray has been replaced by Yaf(a)ray which is completly rewrite, I believe. I remember having issues when using former yafray with the build-in button, and yaf(a)ray needs to be use via an export script.

[ysvry]

yeah right. ;)

[loran]

Men do you have tried MentalRay? I work on it since years now. It s amazing, and very very fast. I am currently switching from 3dsmax to blender but render is outdated in comparison to MentalRay. Yafray need coding to render blured reflection! I don't want to code for shading.

I want my MentalRay back! :(

[Shimegi]

With blender you can use luxrender (free-as-freedom unbiased render), indigo (free-as-free beer unbiased software, for non-commercial use). Not fast, but very good quality :)

[fktt]

Men do you have tried MentalRay?

yup, one of my favorite renderers right next to renderman standard. :)


I am currently switching from 3dsmax to blender but render is outdated in comparison to MentalRay.

I wouldn't say it's that much 'outdated' compared to mentalray(though plenty enough),
if you learn to use the compositor and learn to understand the render pipeline there should't be too much you couldn't do. :)

And knowing the 'pipeline' is something thats positive and indeed so to a large extent with any renderer. :)

But yeah, I wish MentalRay would be useable to the same extent it is with maya or XSI in blender.

[loran]

Ok the pipeline is great in Blender but just rendering time for AO is no comparable to AO in MentalRay. It about 10 times faster in mental ray for the same! Shaders in blender seams to be very weird when you want basic things (not nodal). Even Max Material editor is easier to handle, faster to use for users are not part of big studio pipeline.
Anyway, Blender is amazing for modeling, sculpting and rigging, better than max for all of this. What is fun is most of max2010 new functionalities even exist in blender since month, and with very better UI ;)

[fktt]

Ok the pipeline is great in Blender but just rendering time for AO is no comparable to AO in MentalRay. It about 10 times faster in mental ray for the same! Shaders in blender seams to be very weird when you want basic things (not nodal). Even Max Material editor is easier to handle, faster to use for users are not part of big studio pipeline.
Anyway, Blender is amazing for modeling, sculpting and rigging, better than max for all of this.

Agreed, As I said earlier, from all the info I've read on dev mailing lists and so on,
the consensus seems to be that before they will tackle the render API the internal needs some optimization love. :)

and with very better UI ;)

Well, Id say thats debatable(assuming you said that 'bout max), but yeah,
the material/texturing panels have become a mess,
so I'm really happy about what seem to be the plans for 2.5 in that respect. :)

[Ian Jones]

Yes must agree even the abomination of the max material editor is surpassed by Blender. I can't wait for a re-organisation here.

Loran: I totally agree, I used to hang out on the max forums and started using blender recently. I love the same aspects of Blender you mentioned. Rigging especially just makes so much more sense in Blender. Mental-ray is nice, I loved using it in Max... Particle Flow I sorely miss.

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