vray or mental ray

[sirsnits]

i usually do my complete renders using mental ray since it comes with max, and is pretty simple to use.

i recently demoed vray, and it seems to take a bit more tweaking to get a decent render, but seems like there's more to work with.

is one actually significantly better than the other?

edit: further research, personal preference, some think vray is easier to work with.

what do you guys prefer?

 

[supaspoon]

I actually find mental ray to require more tweaking than vray, especially if you're going to be doing a lot of GI lighting, SSS materials and so forth. GI/hdri lighting setups in particular are far more straight forward in vray (while at the same time giving you a multitude of methods to choose from). I also find Vrays displacement modifier far easier to use than the displacement options in mental ray. Outside of those main points, there's also things like the vray hair/fur which works nicely for grass & stuff, as well as vrayproxy object which are great if your scene gets overly complex. They're supposed to be adding a scatter proxy feature in the next version, which creates some rediculous possibilities.

Anyway, I've worked a fair bit with both, and personally i find vray to be far better.

 

[sirsnits]

ya, outside the box, vray seems to be the better option for more professional type scenes (so i hear), and i am loving the render times.

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

Uh, for what? Using which application? 3dsmax + Vray is a pretty solid combination for visualisation work, but for feature film work and games and that sort of thing, you tend to rely heavily on custom and/or obscure and/or bizarre shaders, and mental ray has a lot more of those than Vray does. Also, mental ray is supported by more applications and even has a stand-alone, and I would argue that it fits better into a big studio production pipeline.

 

[sirsnits]

elaborate, im just deciding upon what i read in other forums, people seem to think its only decided through personal preference, and that they are both pretty good.

but i have read that vray is more commonly used, do apps other than max come bundled with mental ray?.


i know mray already, so i will stick with it.

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

Vray is NOT more commonly used than mental ray. Consider for a second that mental ray is used on hundreds of feature film and TV productions, and is the de facto standard in 3d studio max, XSI and Maya, and is available for even more applications. Vray is basically limited to people who pirate 3d studio max, and visualisation artists.

 

[sirsnits]

i am getting my info from other forums, and most end users are no doubt using pirated software.

so, for simplicity: vray
for better tweaking, all around scene and motion quality: mental ray

i just wanted to know what was the better of the two.

personally i cant find any differences yet, but im just doing side by side comparisons using the old teapot with multiple textures and simple shaders.

obviously more is better, so if mental ray has more to offer, than it is in fact the better.

 

[supaspoon]

Vray is NOT more commonly used than mental ray. Consider for a second that mental ray is used on hundreds of feature film and TV productions, and is the de facto standard in 3d studio max, XSI and Maya, and is available for even more applications. Vray is basically limited to people who pirate 3d studio max, and visualisation artists.

Lol WUT? I don't know what leads you to that conclusion, but whatever.

Though as far as which is more common, it really depends what industry specifically you're talking about. But he's right, in film & games (probably more so w/ games) you're probably working with proprietary shaders for an in-house developed engine. Though for visualization artists specifically vray is typically the hands down choice.

It all really just depends on the specific circumstances of what you're doing. If you're a freelance artist just doing cover art renderings and stuff by all means you can use whatever you like best. But in a studio you'll have to conform to the pipeline, whatever it may be.

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

Lol WUT? I don't know what leads you to that conclusion, but whatever.

I've never met anyone outside of the visualisation business who uses Vray. I could of course be wrong, but I would bet that mental ray is more common, leastways outside of the viz part of the market.