Vray vs menral ray

spexel

Hey guys! I'm working in maya a lot larely and was wondering which rendering software/plug-in should use. If I learn all about mental ray will some of it will be transferable to other techniques? Right now I'm trying to render a car and I'm a bit confused with all the different options. 

oglu

mental ray will be no longer shipping with maya... version 2016.5 is the latest one...
the new default renderer will be Arnold... 

but all modern renderer are working the same way... if you know one you are able to get up to speed in some hours with every other render engine...

the most interesting on at the moment is redshift... and the free version of renderman...
https://www.redshift3d.com/
https://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman

skyline5gtr

Vray hands down 

Marshkin

I'm finding Vray to generate much more impressive renders, however, it doesn't come with Maya. If you have aversion of maya with Mental Ray, focus on that. I found switching to not be too difficult. Vray does have it's own lights and unique settings but it's fairly straightforward to figure out.

Burpee

Mental Ray is obselet, you should just start learning render engine with V-ray, if you're looking for a free one there are plenty available ( Guerrila Render ( <- really great ! ) Clarisse, Renderman ( might be wrong ? ), Arnold with the latest maya, etc )

hf ! 

spexel

thank you guys! I will probably switch to Vray on my next project. I ended up finishing this one with mental ray.

oglu

i wont say mentalray is obsolete... nvidia has now the controll back... and some really cool tech... with MDL and iray in substance its looking better than ever for mentalray... in two month we know more... 

SpaceRogue

I'v had to use MR for a year ... Just skip it x-x;

 On my end project I decided to step over to a different renderer as it was becoming unbearable, the first thing I found, that I liked, was Corona as it had a lengthy free trail and only a small learning curve. Just thought I'd mention, doesn't hurt to shop around for more options.

Tomiajayi

vray is without a doubt superior.
it is industry standard in architectural rendering.
and widely used for cinematics.
mental ray was special a decade ago..  that's about it.

CreativeSheep

I wouldn't say Vray is superior to MR, that is just following whatever crowd you belong to regarding rendering camps.

defragger

MR is kind of oldschool.
If you really want to learn something about rendering you should try out MR.

I use corona because of the pircetag (compared to Vray). But it really doesnt matter. If you know how materials and lighting works its basically all the same. You can learn a new renderer within a few hours maybe. No problem.

SpaceRogue: you can use the Alpha version of corona for free. Its mostly the same as the newest version.

CreativeSheep

defragger said:

MR is kind of oldschool.
If you really want to learn something about rendering you should try out MR

True.