MentalRay 3.9 - native UI integration

#41

thanks a ton for this Mini-Zun! :beer:
I have never used those string features before so I am now looking into them thanks to you.

Very interesting explanation on some of those features in the elemental ray blog here:
http://elementalray.wordpress.com/

I’m following your discussion on the mental image forum as well, regarding progressive and unified sampling. Looking forward to updates!

#42

Thanks for the great work you’ve done! I have had problems getting this to work and I have narrowed it down a custom script and AE template for the mental ray Sun & Sky shader. There seems to be a conflict with these scripts and yours. The scripts are found here halfway down the page:

Kobayashy’s Tips

http://kobayashystips.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=12

His script and AE template are wonderful and I’d hate to have to choose between yours and his. :slight_smile:

#43

When checking on Unified it greys out the Diagnose Samples check box in Raytrace Quality.

However you can still use this feature with Unified and it renders out a seperate exr file along with your beauty that gives some really good feedback into what is happening under the hood with unified. (seen here - http://elementalray.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/unified-sampling-visually-for-the-artist/)

Would be great if you could re enable that check box or add a copy of it into the unified sampling section (then it is kept all together)

Many thanks,

Richard

Edit: Actually maybe this does not matter so much as if you go into the Options tab we can still check “Diagnose samples” in the Diagnostics section.

#44

Thank you for sharing this Mini-Zun. You are a legend in my book! Worked perfect firdst time.
I just need to work our how to get iRay working. The tab is visible in render settings, but doesnt seem to launch iRay. I’ll have a search around to see how to get this working.

#45

Actually I think it is using iRay for rendering, what confused me is that it’s set to use GPU only, but my CPU seems to actually be doing the rendering because its running flat out using all cores. I wonder if anyone else has had that?

#46

Dont worry, got it working, iRay doesn’y install with Maya 2012, so I had to copy the iRay files from my 3DS Max installation. Now iRay is working perfectly in Maya 2012, happy days!

#47

Finally got a tiny bit of time to play around with these settings but thought I’d say that and give the thread a little bump for those that have missed this. :thumbsup:

#48

Small warning: using finalgather legacy ‘on’ with some new features may causes crashes

Turn it off. :slight_smile:

#49

Noted :thumbsup:

I’m just curious what is the difference between this interpretation and the other thread on these string options ?
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=87&t=971719&page=1&pp=15

Is there a major difference between either of them ?

#50

The other thread uses a reworked Maya UI instead of a separate scripted UI.

Either has advantages.

#51

Don’t ya mean that the other way around? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#52

Oh yeah. Derp.

:banghead:

Reverse that.

#53

Cool, well I like this threads UI of it, so I’ll stick with this for now, I just wanted to ensure I wasn’t missing anything vital, it’s just for testing at home.
:thumbsup:

#54

Really liked the UI and was wondering if it will work on Maya 2013 as well. Am currently downloading our new licenses and will give it a try once they’re all set up properly


#55

It worked fine for me on the Beta’s. . .

#56

This script works on maya 2013, but it gives an error every time. Something about changed strings.

#57

Can anyone take a few moments to explain the ‘Native IBL’ section ?
I don’t quite understand why the colours (for ex) look very different to just using ‘Image Based Lighting’ method (the typical way).

I know there are some pop up boxes that come up explaining a little bit about each option but I don’t think I’m grasping what’s happening.
From what I can tell it’s acting much in the same way as Vray’s ‘dome light’ but I’m unsure of the controls and starting points.

:surprised

#58

Native IBL works like the user_ibl. Except that Native IBL rebakes the image before rendering, possibly losing some detail (might be better for glossy rays). It is a much smarter form of the Maya IBL ‘emit light’ since it is more modern and faster.

The reason it looks different is that you need to use a string option called “light relative scale”, value 0.318, type scalar

New lighting techniques are more geared towards BSDF shading models. Right now the Native IBL and user_ibl will probably blow out existing materials to an extent. Use the above string option to correct for that.

Your main control is Quality. But if you’ve migrated to 2013, I would suggest using the user_ibl_env shader for simplicity reasons, it’s direct samples. Native IBL has more options designed for adaptive feedback and progressive IPR that we don’t (or can’t from integration) use right now.

#59

Many thanks again for info David :thumbsup:

Do I need to add this string if I’m using the UI from this thread ? :blush:

#60

I haven’t looked at this UI recently, originally it was not added. To be honest, it should be a default.

Look at your miDefaultOptions to see if it’s there, if not, just add it.