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[bppitt]

Hey all!

I'm a new maya user (loving it!) and today I was following this tutorial, http://pixeltutorials.wordpress.com/...th-mental-ray/

and I was able to follow it pretty closely, however my mental ray renders come out a bit grainy, like in the attached picture.

I was hoping to get some guidance on how to improve the quality and make it less grainy. Any tips?
I'm basically teaching myself from home and I'm having a blast, although this has slowed me down some.

[NextDesign]

You need to increase your samples. I can't tell you which ones as I don't have a copy of Maya on this machine. Maybe Gen can help out. I'll bring this to her attention.

[Gen]

I'm assuming you're using an area light with the light shape activated. The high samples need boosting. The trick is to balance that with the render settings samples. On a side note, it does look like the normals on the gems could be hardened for a more chiseled look and the refraction traces in the render settings could be increased.

[NextDesign]

The caustics don't look focused enough either.

[bppitt]

Ok got it that was most helpful. And yes gen, I am using the area light. SO I need to harden the edges (so obvious now!), increase my sampling and play with refraction settings and caustics. Thanks! I will re-post hopefully better results!

This is one of my first renders in maya so all of this is great help, thanks a ton!