- RAY TRACING: SPEEDING UP THINGS (OBJECTS)
- RAY TRACING: SPEEDING UP THINGS (GLOBALS)
- RAYTRACING: INDEX OF REFRACTION (IOR)
- RENDERING: FILTERS FOR STILL IMAGES VERSUS VIDEO
- RENDERING VIDEO: RENDER FRAMES, NOT FIELDS
- RENDERING VIDEO: MAKE SURE VIDEO COLOR CHECK IS ON
- RENDERING VIDEO: CHECK YOUR GAMMA!
- RENDERING GREAT BIG, GIANT, HONKING, ENORMOUS IMAGES SUCCESSFULLY
- DON'T RENDER MOVIES—RENDER FRAMES!
- SPEAKING OF THE RAM PLAYER...
- RERENDERING FROM THE ENVIRONMENT BACKGROUND
- OKAY, SO YOU REALLY WANT TO RERENDER YOUR ANIMATION...
- IFL = IMAGE FILE LIST
- YOU CAN'T CREATE .IFL FILES ON READ-ONLY MEDIA!
- MANIPULATING IMAGE SEQUENCES USING .IFLS
- CREATE NESTED .IFL FILES
- A CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM: HOW DO YOU SET UP AN ANIMATED BACKGROUND FOR A SCENE IF YOU HAVEN'T RENDERED THE BACKGROUND YET?
- COULD YOU MAKE THINGS MORE COMPLICATED, PLEASE? (WHAT ABOUT USING A COMPOSITING PROGRAM?)
- COMPOSITING USING VIDEO POST
- RENDERING WITH SCANLINE MOTION BLUR: MULTI-PASS AND IMAGE
- RENDERING WITH SCANLINE: MIX IMAGE AND MULTI-PASS MOTION BLUR
- RENDERING IMAGES FOR PRINT: TEACH THOSE PRINT FOLKS A LESSON (OR TWO...)
- RENDERING IMAGES FOR PRINT: OH YEAH, ANOTHER THING...
- "THOSE PRINT PEOPLE"—MAKE IT EASIER ON THEM WITH 3DS MAX 6
- THE PRINT SIZE WIZARD (ENOUGH WITH THE PRINTING STUFF ALREADY!)
- MENTAL RAY IS IN THE BUILDING!
- MENTAL RAY IS ON THE COUCH!
- USE MENTAL RAY'S IMAGE SAMPLING WISELY
- IN MENTAL RAY, CONTRAST CAN SAVE YOUR DAY!
- HIDDEN LINE RENDERING: RENDER TO VECTORS IN MENTAL RAY
- TRIM YOUR (BSP) TREE IN MENTAL RAY
- MENTAL RAY PREFERENCES: PLEASE LEAVE ME A MESSAGE
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: OUTER SPACE SCENES
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: UNDERWATER SCENES
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: DISTANT LANDSCAPES
- RENDERING AESTHETICS: STILL LIFE AND MACROPHOTOGRAPHY
- "HELLO... YOU'VE GOT RENDER!"
USE MENTAL RAY'S IMAGE SAMPLING WISELY
Scene sampling for antialiasing can be a complicated task for any renderer, even a sophisticated engine such as mental ray. If you're just doing preview renderings (to test your lighting, for example), you can speed up your workflow considerably by mental ray sampling only what you really need.
If you're simply working on your overall scene composition and lighting, leaving the mental ray Samples per Pixel Minimum/Maximum values at their defaults costs you unnecessary time. The default values (Minimum 1/4, Maximum 4) mean that mental ray will take 4 samples per 1 pixel in areas with many details, or 1 sample per 4 pixels in areas with fewer details.
If you set both Minimum and Maximum Samples per Pixel to 1/64, mental ray is forced to only take 1 sample for each "bucket" of 64 pixels. This creates a coarse rendering, but it renders at incredible speed and might be just what you need to get your overall look correct before you commit to production-level sampling settings. Just save this setup as Render Preset (on the Rendering > Renderer tab, at the bottom of the dialog box). Call it "Rough Preview" and keep it handy for future use.