now if that ain't good news...
 

Alias|Wavefront™ announced today the strengthening of its alliance with mental images®. Alias|Wavefront is now offering the mental ray® for Maya® plug-in at no extra charge to all Maya Complete™ and Maya Unlimited™ customers. The mental ray for Maya plug-in, previously priced at $3,995*, is available free to all Maya customers beginning with Maya 4.5 and mental ray for Maya 1.5. Maya 4.5

"It is the natural evolution of our products, combining the best with the best," says Shai Hinitz, Maya Product Manager at Alias|Wavefront. "Our customers have been asking us to merge Maya's intuitive workflow and productive feature-set with the power and programmability of mental image's renderer. In doing so, we're injecting $3,995 worth of value into Maya 4.5 for free. Due to the advanced integrated workflow, Maya 4.5 users will instantly benefit from the photo-realistic rendering effects mental ray for Maya has to offer, in addition to the stunning imagery already possible with the native Maya renderer. From now on Maya customers will get to choose between two of the industry's most powerful renderers."

as seen on cgchannel:

full article

i dont like mental ray :(

oh well, in this case just disregard my post...

Shush Nem (though if that comments based upon your usage with the max<->mental ray connection then you have a point - if you want to see how damn easy it is to get good results from maya 4.5/mental ray 1.5 take a look at the vids halfway down the page http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/pro...entalray.shtml

This is incredible news... also means that in the next maya release subd's are going to be working with mental ray and also IPR will be able to use it.. oh damn its like a premature christmas.
So lets see.. maya complete now has subd's and mental ray, and can be had for under £1,700.
GO A|W!!!! :D :beer:

LOL. yeah what were you thinking Phil? sheesh

well it is only beta, people would want the proper program which would cost a lot

hehe, sorry phil, just voicing my opinion :)

no it isnt. read it again.

no offense taken here : )

but if you read the article thoroughly you might discover that the "proper program" won't "cost a lot" since "mental ray for Maya 1.5 will be included as Maya's standard rendering tool when this product is released." meaning the final will be available at no extra charge for licensed maya users starting with maya 4.5

but do you care to explain why you don't like mental ray?

Mentalray rocks! Now to have them do the same thing with Pixar for RAT ;)

That Wizard's Lab I am working on? I'm using Mentalray for the renderer ;)

Darkon

mayb im just confused but:

FREE PUBLIC *BETA*
mental ray for Maya 1.5™

Download mental ray for Maya 1.5 and get your hands on one of the world's most powerful integrated renderers for Maya at no charge. Use the opportunity to use this FREE fully functional *BETA* version of mental ray for Maya 1.5 and evaluate it for your needs while checking out some of its hot new features

got that from the AW site where u download it from

i admit i didnt read properly the bit about it being free, but from what ive read its a beta :)

ok, why i dont like mental ray, i used the built in mental ray renderer when i used XSI, it was hella good! but then i saw someone use it with maya, it was hella not good :) thats it basically, the guy seemed to no what he was doing, the result just didnt look so flash, seems hard to use in maya as well, XSIs one is much easier to use

it is still in beta but will be final around end of the year, from what a|w told me. then it's going to be part of maya "at no additional charge".

from what I read, the new 1.5 will be using the latest mental ray plus making all the built in features accessible from within maya. Which sounds good to a render engine addict like me.

get the beta here:

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Tmp...l&style=normal

i dont have 4.5 which is annoying :(
oh, and i dont think the version os mental ray which i saw being used supported things like subd's and maya fur? is thats true, then its a bit stoopid :)

If you read the center of the page you will notice that when the final version of Mentalray 1.5 is done, it will be a free d/l for all registered users. :) Out of all the renderers floating around right now, the two I would pick are Mentalray and Pixar's Renderman. And with Mentalray being free......well there you go ;)

Darkon

nothing wrong with mayas renderer, its solid part from the speed :)