RAT or RAY?
 

Can anyone tell me Benifits of using Mental Ray over Renderman?The Company I work for is investing and I have been asked to gather up all the tools needed for the new 3D department.
I have use Maya for just over a year now and have just began to look into use an alternative render, but which would be the most versitile to cope with all styles of 3D work?

cheers!

The most versatile would be RAT, but the learning curve is steep, especially when it comes to writing your own shaders. And the price tag reflects its versatility ;) The latest version has all the bells and whistles like GI, caustics, etc., but it's also one of the smoothest renderers you will ever find. The main difference is that MR is integrated into Maya ( except for things like Fur, particles, and Paint Effects), RAT is more like working with a seperate app. Not only must you use Slim ( the Rat shader tool) for all texturing, you must also link your Maya lights to Slim lightshaders. But on the plus side you can use Alfred for batch and distributed rendering :)

Darkon

the main thing thats amazing with rat is its speed and its amazing bump mapping! very detailed stuff :)