I was looking for a mental ray forum on naira land i wiil like us to discuss many things  on lighting   
MY email   napton2@gmail.com and i tried attatching some of my renderings but were said to be too large .I will still try to post some pictures soon

why dont you create one. so discussion can start.

this is one of my first renderings using skylight and photomeric light with final gather enabled .

I think u guys have to try vray out and u ll get hooked.I used mental ray for about 5 years before i stumbled on vray and i tell u as an artist or architect thats the only rendering software u ll ever need.

Behind bobo:

I think u guys have to try vray out and u ll get hooked.I used mental ray for about 5 years before i stumbled on vray and i tell u as an artist or architect thats the only rendering software u ll ever need.

I disagree.

tho v ray is great for architectual stuff. that is not to say its actually better than mental ray. its just easier to use for most people. mental ray is far more advanced(my opinion). v ray is rarely even used in feature animation or movie production rendering.your could even get down to the mr files in your max directory and edit the shader script or even write your own if you are that good the big studios even have scripters that write shaders for them. im not sure v ray will give you that flexibility. however i do believe if you are an architect in his part of the world then v ray could be the render for you as there's tons of resources on line biased to architectual visualization that will give u great render's with far less effort. perhaps with a more time tho

Reasons why MentalRay is used in feature films is that it comes with the 3d package for free. Why fork out extra cash to buy another renderer when you can same result for free?

this are some of my renderings done with mentalray and 3ds max

ambient lighting and photomeric sun and ARCHITECTURE MI materials will give you a great render for exterior renderings. check this out vray is not better than mental ray.

And one thing Nampton, u shouldnt use photmetric lights with skylights. They dont mix when using mental ray, seriously serious. Vray is more flexible in that area.

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I think one has to just discover which rendering engine suits him cos you can achieve good with either. For me, i very comfortable with mray to the extent that i can predict my final results from the very beginning. Vray on the other is stressfully slow but its setup is straight forward, not as deep as mray. However, i still believe you could get better results with vray as per realism and feel.

Im still learning vray though, trying to see how i can bring it into my workflow. That is a must for me.

Here are some quickies, interior (a quick 40mis test render) and a rush rush xterior for a client who wanted his visual in hours. They can be better, if i spent a little more time on them.

opps images here.

Getting the right lighting/rendering setup for mentalray also depends on ther version of max u are using. I think they messed up mray for 2010 version by changing lighting proceedures while trying to make it easier for begginners. Things dont work the way they used to. Hope mray for 2011 will b better.

Stuff i did with mray for max 9 while ago.

cg king thanks for the tip it has really improved my renderings i will post some interiors i did with mental ray recently ,and men they are good .'o men pass o boy' . I must confess ur renderings are one of the best i have seen in a really long time. who said mental ray is not in d best .see you next post

this is one of them please comment