is mentalray having a come back

#1

I wonder what artists think about the latest growth in use of mentalray in Maya.
Im noticing a lot more activity on CGTalk.
Maya2014 has more updates specifically related to mentalray than in many previous releases.
What’s going on … is Vray popularity faltering?

#2

I don’t think mental ray features have any relationship to V-Ray. I think Autodesk is just realizing that the support for mental ray was as bad as people said it was.

#3

I’m totally agree on what cgbeige says. Finally Something moving on.

#4

don’t call it a comeback…

…yeah, I know. Still had to :slight_smile:

#5

Thanks for the visual comment wizzackr.
As a teacher, I keep hearing from students how much easier it is to make nice images with other renderers, but what do they know. It seemed that Autodesk was on the verge of removing mentalray altogether. I guess they decided its not time yet. Instead they remedied some very old interface issues and added support for new features.
Has anyone seen specs on Maya2015?

#6

Perhaps they should look little bit over the shoulders of guys that made mentalCore plugin
when it comes to mental ray workflow.

Maya 2014, including it’s extension really got a lot of new stuff! I hope they will continue this with future releases.

When i’m at it
any rumors about Maya 2015? :slight_smile:

#7

I hope they’ll implement the GPU accelerated FG of mr standalone in 2015, although my hopes are not too high.

On a more serious note: I do think it has come around, really. Unified sampling has been a life-saver in animations, if they now further FG speed/quality and have nVidia code a proper (multithreaded) connection I’d be happy for the time being.

#8

It’s a lot better than it used to be, but it still has it’s weird quirks. Like proxies not showing up in the depth pass, locking Maya while rendering, crashing with particle instances…

I still think price is the only real reason to use it over Vray or Arnold.

#9

There’s no rise in user base imo. Those already moved to V-ray (or any other solution at all) will never move back. The improved MR just make those using a little less likely to switch. Compare to V-ray, many simple tasks are still a chore in MR.

V-ray still has superior render pass system… only thing I like about MR is SSS shader.

#10

I’m a die-hard fan of MR, and doing my best to remain faithful, but with the recent release of Arnold for public consumption and all the hype surrounding VRay, I may have to give into temptation and try them both out. It kind of feels like I’m cheating on someone to even think about it. :blush:

#11

For me, until Autodesk implement the proper API for the progressive mode with IPR I can’t bring myself to use it. It is just too painful to light a scene.

Vray, Arnold, Maxwell, now Renderman and plenty others all have better IPR integrations.

I am encouraged by mental ray with MILA, MDL light path expressions and GI on the gpu but until I can start lighting a scene with IPR fast and effectively like you can with the other renderers, I just won’t use it.

Richard

#12

Indeed, we tested mr and Arnold IPR side by side and the difference is huge. If you have a complex scene, is is a pain to use IPR with mr. For some reason it takes a long time if you change something simple as the camera position. Arnold IPR behaves as expected, rotate the camera, immediate refresh.

#13

MILA and GPU rendering features will be a big deal when they mature. Not that other renderers won’t have similar features or don’t already. So much MR legacy stuff and workflows are going to have to be gutted first.

Other renderers don’t have nearly as much legacy junk to juggle while still trying to push forward.

But anyway, other render engines have come and gone over the years. I remember when Brazil and Turtle were the talk of the town everywhere. Some of us really don’t have the luxury of jumping to every new renderer out there. Sometimes we regularly need to load up an old scene file and have it render out with only a minor change.

#14

I’m trying a trial from 0x1 of iRay4 maya. Is awesome. But i don’t understand why it’s not implemented on Maya as Autodesk product like 3dsmax.
http://www.0x1-software.com/en/produkte/0x1-irayformaya.html

#15

The management at Autodesk for Maya has changed in the past couple years. There’s a renewed interest in updating all parts of Maya to better serve customers. You’ve probably noticed improvements most people thought was overdue in many areas.

This includes rendering.

mayatomr was given back to NVIDIA with full control to update mental ray. This was done late in the game for 2015 so the fastest small changes were made. mayatomr touches all the parts of Maya somewhere and is a bit of a beast.

NVIDIA is indeed looking to update the API for progressive rendering in Maya including progressive in the viewport using GPU acceleration where possible. This was mentioned on the ARC forums.

The new GI is a prototype for now. It’s not complete, but this technique will replace all others, giving you a single new algorithm to replace FG, GI, IP, etc. And it will make use of the GPU where there’s the appropriate hardware. Since this is meant as a replacement I can imagine it will do everything FG and the other modes can do at once. It’s based on new techniques. So it’s a modern change.

MDL, MILA, new GI, and more are high priorities. You can imagine GPU acceleration where possible is important to NVIDIA. This is probably a double edged sword for many users, but I do think GPUs are the future of rendering. Other companies know this, Chaosgroup sees this and Pixar hasn’t ruled it out. In fact, Chaosgroup and Pixar are both NVIDIA customers. Optix falls under ARC just like mental ray and iray do. GI on the GPU is the first to use Optix Prime on the CPU. It’s new and lacks some features but it’s cutting edge raytracing from NVIDIA as a whole. This means those resources are no longer just “ARC” but everywhere in the company. Their customers benefit from this too, even other renderer licensees.

NVIDIA can also sell Standalone on their own. Before you had to go through Autodesk. This meant support, changes, fixes, ideas for features, all had to filter through an integrator like Autodesk. NVIDIA also couldn’t really talk about mental ray because it was part of someone else’s product. By selling it on their own, this changes things. Users would get support and private forums just like integrators do as well as available updates to DCC software directly.

There’s a lot more going on. A LOT. All of which I’ve hinted at before, but is making it’s way to users now since cooperation with Autodesk is much much better. I dare say it’s a little nostalgia of the Alias days.

#16

iray for Max was integrated through the mental ray plugin. iray for Maya was integrated through the iray framework (formerly neuray). This is why iray for Maya is more full featured. It’s also why iray for Maya was more work to create than the one for Max.