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charliedz
04-03-2009, 12:26 PM
hello all,

im a little confused about mental ray.

you have mental ray standalone, and mental ray integrated in alias studiotools, maya, 3dsmax, etc...

is the primary difference between standalone the ability to run render farms? other than that, the integrated mental rays can do everything the stand alone can no?

can shaders for mental ray work across the different integrated versions? i use alias studiotools, so could i use mental ray shaders for maya?

i am assuming that i can not, or there has to be some sort of conversion. if so, then does it make sense for me to export out of alias studiotools into, maya only to access its shaders?

sorry if these are basic questions, but as i've quickly learned, nothing is quite straight forward when it comes to 3d.

thanks! :)
JasonA
04-04-2009, 01:09 AM
I think the main point about mr standalone is the ability to submit and render .mi files directly to the renderer without the need for a host application (like maya or max). All of the shaders should port directly over provided they're compiled for the same version of mental ray. The catch to standalone is that you need to be able to write out the .mi files from your host application and I dont know if Studio can do that or not.

Yes I think your best bet is to export your wire file to maya, and do your lighting and shading in there. Then write out the .mi file from there.
charliedz
04-05-2009, 11:30 AM
if shaders to port over, then wouldn't my best bet be to just to do lighting and rendering in alias studio's mental ray?

for some reason, i have this notion that it would be to do lighting and shading in maya, but is there any reason for this?

thanks!
JasonA
04-05-2009, 03:53 PM
If its the same shaders (ie check version number in the .mi file for the shader, ie the architectural mia material), then sure i guess you can light and shade in Studio. The crux of it is whetehr or not you can write an .mi file from Studio - you need to look at your render/export options. If you can write out an .mi file from there, then youre golden. If not, then you'll have to take your scene somewhere that can - and if this is the case, it sure would suck to find out that all the lighting / shading didnt carry over because of a mismatched shader or something.
charliedz
04-05-2009, 04:07 PM
why exactly do i need to export .mi file?

if i can light and render in alias, then woudln't i be finished once lighting and rendering is complete all inside alias?

sorry, probably a really basic question.

thanks!
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