Mentalray and GI problem - newbie

#1

Hello everyone!

I’ve started learning 3DS Max yesterday and unfortunately when I tried to render my first scene the problem showed. I spent whole day at looking for solution, read many mental ray and GI tutorials but still got no answer. So, let’s get to the point:

  • I have a scene with a simple model of garage. Inside the garage there’s two lights (omni with multiplier 0.2) hanging on the ceiling. Outside the garage there’s one Daylight light. I’ve tried multiple options to set the daylight light and while it looks desirable on the Camera 1 realistic view, it looks totally blown out on the render. MOST IMPORTANT: it acts like that ONLY when GI is turned on. I’m sure the renderer is checked as mentalRay.

Here are the screenshots:

I’ve tried milions of options of photons configuration and still got nothing…

I’d be more than helpful for any advice! I want to move on and I lost all day for looking for the solution…

P.S. Sorry for my english

Regards,
Paul

#2

This is most likely due to scene scale. The photons are very scale-dependent in nature. Are you using real-world measurements for your scene?

You should be using Portal Lights for all openings which go to “the outside”, where the sun/sky is. Portal Lights act as a Final Gather concentrator and reduce calculation time while improving lighting, as all those extra sun rays that don’t penetrate your interior are discarded. But that’s not why your photon GI is all blown out, just a side note.

I’m not sure why you’d want to use photons in this scene, however?

#3

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