If u recently got Vray, you will never see the difference. it's a fase of learning how to use Vray when rendering things. at first, it won't look that different.

Try to play around with vray by simply placing a sun, lower it's brightness, and aim it towards a few blocks you made. do this first in Vray, then in Mental. you will see that the difference between Vray and mental ray is the object communication. everything looks much more solid in Vray then it does in Mental ray. the points were 2 objects cross are way more realistic then any other renderer [ yeah ok Brazil works to ]

Vray is a very realistic renderer, which you might already have seen around the forums here. It's just you need to know how to get that realistic look.

Take a look at this tutorial, and you are alot further!

[Link to www.oman3d.com]

You better read all that, you will be stunned what you can achieve in a few minutes.

Good luck,

John

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Thanks a lot JOHN!
Why I dont have Vray Sun?????
And what setting i should change to give the limonade a better look????
Any advice for mental???

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If you don't have Vray Sun, the Plugin.ini file is set wrong, Im sorry that i cannot help you on that right now, since im not at home, and i have no experience in Mental, but other might have here

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Check out the tutorials spitfire linked to in the tutorials forum.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

Ok here is an another small scene to try out mental ray.All scene modelled for 2 hours and render for 13 min.The statue is a default model of 3ds max.here it is:

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Looks good. Looks like you're getting to know mental ray pretty well.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

I am trying to take the maximum from Mental Ray.but why at me seems mental more easy than Vray????OK.
MOre to come....

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Nice work using mental ray i just use standard i will have to give this a bash cause it seems pretty awsome.

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One life Live it
[Link to www.scotts-designs.co.uk]

Ok, If you want a nice very simple Gi render in vray here are the steps.

1. make a simple scene and put a spotlight in there with ray shadows turned on.

2. Go to vray indirect illumination (GI) and turn it on.

3. set the GI engine for secondary bounces to "none" (for now)

4. make sure primary bounces is using irradiance map.

5. Under Irradiance map settings set the preset to low. and check "show calc phase".

6. Go to the Environment rollout and turn on your "skylight" environment override.

7. Hit render.

8. If you turn on light cache or quasi monti carlo for secondary bounces you will get light bouncing off surfaces. bright objects like a white box will bounce more light etc..

lets see your scene rendered in vray with these settings and perhaps test the render time differences....

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I think you generally find what you learn first to be the easiest. I started with vray and I struggle to understand mentalray because they are quite different. If you want good renders with vray, the method Tyson has outlined above is a great start. If you can get to know it until it is second nature you'll be well on your way to understanding how to get the best out of your vray renders.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Ok.Here i am thanks all of u for the replies and specialy TYSON.
WIth the mini tutorial of TYSON render is better and the time of render is unbeliveble
just for 4 min... ok here it is the first with Secondary bounce set to "none"
and the second with light cage . More to come

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You mean light cache? They're looking good though. Good to see you kept at it and tried a new renderer. The more software you know the easier you'll find it to get a job.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Thanks GUSTAVE for all ur replies.Yeah its looking good.but i think The water needs some more work.And for the job i am thinking but who can employ a 17 years old boy??????????

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But if you start learning a wide variety of software now, by the time you are 20 you will have mastered them all, giving you a lot of opportunities.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

Awesome, do we have another vray convert?.
I don't use mental ray very much except for the fast sss and sometimes caustics. Does anyone know if you can achieve a skylight type setup similar to the vray environment override without having geometry surrounding the scene?
Also, has anyone tried vray for Maya? I'm eager to try it but can't get the demo to install.

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The vray skylight is definitely a major reason why I use it. Just stick your hdri in there and instant caustics.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

Thanks all of you.Some questions:Why i dont have Vray fur.Why i dont have vray sun?????Anyway I have something new to show u...I know that all my scenes sucks but they r helping me a lot to understand Vray and Mental Ray.Here it is:Rendet Mental Ray for 3 min.

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Water's looking great. Very inviting.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Pretty realistic render actually. Nice water, the trees are a bit small.

You probably have an older version of vray its changed alot in each version.

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Very nice looking water. Check the version number of your vray, also are you using a demo version?

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

Yes i have the demo version because i dont know what version i should use.Some Questions:What r the diferences betwen 3Dsmax 8 and 2008???What is the right version of Vray for 3dsmax 2008?????

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Use the latest version from the website I think its 1.50
The demo probably doesnt have all the features turned on.
No Idea on versions for max 2008 and 2009. I have max 8, and 9.
The differences are minimal between version of max lately. 9 is quite alot faster than 8 in terms of moving polygons. especially when you are moving soft selections.
There were minor tweaks in every upgrade. 2008 was released mainly so peoplecould run max on Vista and they released 64 bit versions too. In 2008 there is a real time shadows feature and I think 2009 has a few minor modelling additions to editable poly.

I have loads of plugins that work for max 8 but not max 9 and I have some that wok in 9 and not 8. its quite annoying. I havent upgraded to max 2008 because most of the plugins I need to use at work only work in max 9 at this point.

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Ok.I going to take Vray 1.5 SP1.New scenes r coming...

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