hi all,

a|w announced the release of mental ray for maya 1.5 as a downloadable public beta. does anyone here know if this will be fully functional?

and if there's already a pricing/timing for the final version?

I'm asking because I'm considering to finally get maya as an additional package (right now I'm on LightWave).

another thing is this strange "annual maintenance fee" concept; did you really all pay for that? what happens if I don't?

oh and knowing that mental ray is a killer renderer, I still would appreciate some links to mr renders, especially GI wise...

thanx all, and prepare for some real dumb questions from here
:p