Rendering with the mental ray Renderer
 
 
 
Command entry:Main toolbar (Render Setup) Render Setup dialog Common panel Assign Renderer rollout Choose mental ray Renderer as the Production renderer.
Command entry:Rendering menu Render Setup Render Setup dialog Common panel Assign Renderer rollout Choose mental ray Renderer as the Production renderer.

To use the mental ray translator and renderer, you must first choose mental ray as the production renderer, as described the "Procedures" section below. Once you have chosen mental ray rendering, the Render Setup dialog displays panels and rollouts that control the mental ray renderer.

Common Parameters Rollout

When you render with mental ray, controls on the Render Setup dialog Common panel Common Parameters rollout remain the same, and function just as they do with the default scanline renderer.

Limitations

The mental ray renderer does not support certain rendering features, as described here.

Procedures

To use the mental ray renderer:

  1. Choose Rendering menu Render Setup. 3ds Max opens the Render Setup dialog.
  2. On the Common panel, open the Assign Renderer rollout, then click the “...” button for the Production renderer.

    3ds Max opens the Choose Renderer dialog.

  3. On the Choose Renderer dialog, highlight mental ray Renderer and then click OK.

Now, when you render, the Render Setup dialog appears with the mental ray controls. You can choose to render the scene with the built-in mental ray renderer, or simply to translate the scene and save it in an MI file that you can render later, perhaps on a different system. Controls for choosing whether to render, save to an MI file, or both, are on the Translator Options rollout.

To make the mental ray Renderer the default renderer for new scenes:

See Also