mental ray stories -Final Gathering- - Page 5

# 61 11-12-2002 , 03:31 AM

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well, good job Undseth! really good effort!

just one thing, for the past 17 posts that you posted those stairs.. I hardly see any difference in the picture user added image

...

-Emo

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# 62 11-12-2002 , 09:21 AM

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Darkon:
I would love to see some experimentation from you, or if you can share some of your knowledge of MR.

Emo:
You are almost right. But the small shadows, that disappeared with both min-maxrad setting at "0" is quite important. The "0" may be sufficient for some scenes, but be "unsuitable" for other scenes that "wants to have" those "realistic" shadows in them.

Else, there aren't much change to the pics. I just try to work myself forward and in the process I post'em.

I could use super-duper-settings but that would take too long on my machine, so I fool around and try to find a setting that I like, which can be a time saver when rendering.

I'm working on a great rendering now, but it seems it will take another 9 hours before the rendering is completed.

Minrad = 1 (i think, i dont remember clearly)
Maxrad = 2 (i think, i dont remember clearly)

Finalgather rays = 10000
Sampling = max

Size = 600 x 440

I do not support Bush! Nor Saddam! Long live UN!

Last edited by undseth; 11-12-2002 at 09:29 AM.

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# 63 11-12-2002 , 04:36 PM

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In anticipation of the finishing calculation of finalgather points, the application crashed on me. It gave me a simple run time error and closed maya down.

Im not sure why. Maya was just about to get started on painting the rendering. I set the sampling at max, maybe that did it, or maybe not, who knows.

edit:
The machine had been working for 18 hours... then it crashed. user added image

I do not support Bush! Nor Saddam! Long live UN!

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# 64 12-12-2002 , 12:29 PM

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mental ray stories -Final Gathering- 47

Working with the UH-60 project, I wanted to try the mental ray's finalgather ability on it.

I don't know for sure why this is, but mentalray crashed on me several times. After turning several larger nurbs surfaces to polys (which I would eventually do) it started to render.

Here are the results.

Default PreviewFinalGather Quality
Finalgather rays = 1000
Minrad = 0.2
Maxrad = 2

(the helicopter stands on a poly object; 20 x 20 meters)

Sampling = 2 and 2 (min/max)

Last edited by undseth; 12-12-2002 at 01:09 PM.

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# 65 12-12-2002 , 12:34 PM

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mental ray stories -Final Gathering- 48

I discovered some small but very dark shadowd areas on the rotor blades for example.

So I did a new render with these changes;

Increased the Max Reflections from default 2, to 5
Increased the Max ray depth from default 4 to 10 (20 is default in producion mode)

And there were no changes, so I guess such an increase only has a major effect on bigger, more open and more complicated surroundings.

edit:
Actually, I think I see a tiny change here. It looks like some parts are slightly more lit than the former rendering solution with a low reflection count. But I don't think this last rendering is better.

Last edited by undseth; 12-12-2002 at 12:37 PM.

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# 66 12-12-2002 , 12:46 PM

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And for a follow up, I am now rendering a new one with the same reflecions settings as the first helo-pic, and with these changes:

Minrad = 0.1
Maxrad = 1

It could be that the dark and small shadows will be presented differently, as I think they are too dark, concidering the decent diffuse light in the scene.

Oh, and the light comes from a 180 deg. nurbs sphere, which has a lambert material on it, with the incadesence value at about 40%.

I first tried a point light, but the rendering had some strange "anti-shadows" in it, which looked like some bleach on the rendering, where there were supposed to be shadows. And the point light had the intensity at "0", so I have no clue. But it looks that changeing the pointlight to a directional light worked ok, in regard to the result that followed.

And I'd like to mention that this scene would of course be much better with the "sunlight" enabled (dir-light intensity set to 1), with main shadows and some specular light on the model.

I was about to scrap this model, after too much tweaking, but this finalgather scene makes me go all the way. Look forward to apply bumpmaps and colormaps.

It's going to look great I'm sure of. user added image

I do not support Bush! Nor Saddam! Long live UN!

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# 67 12-12-2002 , 04:06 PM

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mental ray stories -Final Gathering- 49

Minrad was set down from 0.2 to 0.1.
Maxrad was set down from 2 to 1.

A little less grainy, but no major change here. Well, well.

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# 68 13-12-2002 , 04:50 AM

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BRAVO! BRAVO!

Man, I'm going to have to place you down as my bet for the next MOTM!!!!

YOU ARE CRAZY MAN!!!! hehe...

KILLER lot of great info.

I don't have MR yet, but THIS is the FIRST place I'm going for info when I get it!

Great research job undseth!!!!

Keep it up, and we may have to make you our resident MR guru user added image

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 69 13-12-2002 , 09:25 AM

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NO NO

Seriously, I'm just doing this for fun. Becoming the MOTM in october was enough for me.

I do not support Bush! Nor Saddam! Long live UN!

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# 70 11-01-2003 , 12:26 AM

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re mental ray stories _ final gathering...

Hi all,

I had a 'quick' look at underseth's final gathering settings. Thanks mate for the research!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also found a page (mind you XSI base) that has some settings for using Mental Ray in xsi (that may be translated into Maya).

https://www.xsibase.com/cgi-bin/yabb/...num=1039191370

The render times appear pretty quick to me (but hey I'm new to mental ray in Maya).

re Jim

Mayan elder......only in years.....

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# 71 11-01-2003 , 12:34 AM

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Because of the total integration between XSI and MentalRay I don't think you'll ever see the same render speeds. In XSI anything and everything is renderable in MentalRay as opposed to Maya's limited integration at this point. I did read where they are working on total integration, but that may be a whiles off yet.

But MentalRay is still pretty sweet user added image

Darkon

Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

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# 72 11-01-2003 , 01:00 AM

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undseth

Mentalray final release is done

is there any difference in the render?

https://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/pro...entalray.shtml

Never Do Today What You Can Put Off Till Tomorrow..
My New Site MayaFx.com

Last edited by 3djoe; 11-01-2003 at 01:02 AM.

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# 73 11-01-2003 , 02:02 AM

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There are things added in regard to the earlier beta version. Cannot remember exactly what user added image

In contrast to the beta, with the final release you can (as far as I know) use the render region funcion.
There is also "support" for writing your own shaders (light, camera, materials, fog etc.) for mentalray 1.5.

The documentation tells what is new with the final release. There are some new things, but also some restrictions just like in the earlier mental ray renderers.

Im not being very helpful here I think, but take a look at the documentation that comes along with the final version.

I do not support Bush! Nor Saddam! Long live UN!

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