Cant get objects to render...
 

So I am running through this tutorial on making a very realistic gear...

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutori...ray/241-3.html

And when I get to the end I render, and it renders a cool plane with some shadows, but no objects. Any thoughts on what I could be doing wrong? This is my first time doing any sort of HDRI or Mental Ray rendering...

Okay, so I did the tutorial just with a plain sphere to see if it works, and I do get something (see attached). But the sphere almost looks transparent at the sides its so reflective. So maybe it is possible that my gears are rendering but they are just so reflective I cant see them.

Any good suggestions about dgs colors, ways to make it look really realistic?

All right, so I pulled down the specular color a little, and added global illuminations. I think it looks better, I would suggest another subdivide on the sphere for realism, but I now know I can make it work.

Now time to make the gear and try again, maybe something just got messed up with it.

All right, well im not sure why I couldnt get it to work last night...but I finally got everything together. I put a little DoF on it for some added realism. Enjoy.

I would also like to say this is my first real render in Maya, yay for me.

Yay for You lol

Nice one. looks pretty good, might need the reflection toned down a little bit though.. i remember doing this tutorial and it was my 1st Maya Render too.. Good luck with Maya, she's a tough one!
:beer: