Digital-Tutors > Training > mental ray Tips and Tricks

mental ray Tips and Tricks

Learn an array of creative tips and tricks to rendering and time-saving mental ray techniques that can be used for Product Design, Film, Games, and Commercials. Contains 2 hours of project-based training - Perfect for intermediate artists maximizing time and creativity.

Popular highlights include: Storing / Reusing Global Illumination Photon Maps; Storing / Reusing Final Gather Maps; BSP Diagnostics; mental ray Render Diagnostics; Render Layers; Layer Overrides; Custom MEL Scripts for Attribute Adjustment; Converting to .MAP format; Controlling Final Gather Light Intensity; Compositing Render Layers in External Applications; Depth Passes for Depth-of-Field Effects; Motion Vector Passes; Optimizing mental ray Memory Usage;

Runtime:
2 hrs. 17 min.

Software Requirements:
Maya 8 or higher (Maya 8.5 required for project files)

Release Date:
05/23/2007

Lesson Outline

Introduction and project overview
In this lesson we will discuss the project overview for mental ray Tips and Tricks

Storing and reusing Global Illumination Photon maps to increase rendering speed
In this lesson we will see how rendering performance can be significantly improved by storing and reusing Global Illumination data

Storing and reusing Final Gather maps to increase rendering speed
In this lesson we will see how rendering performance can be significantly improved by storing and reusing Final Gather data

Using BSP Diagnose in order to increase mental ray's render performance
In this lesson we will utilize the BSP tuning features as a way of increasing render speed in mental ray

Setting limits on mental ray's memory usage as a way of improving rendering stability
In this lesson we will learn how to limit mental ray\'s memory consumption in order to free up system resources

Pinpointing potential rendering complications using the mental ray Render Diagnostics
In this lesson we will use the mental ray Render Diagnostics to identify and offer solutions to potential rendering complications

Using Render Layers to break renders into multiple passes
In this lesson we will see how Render Layers can be used as a method of splitting renders into multiple passes

Using Maya's Layer Overrides to enable or disable attributes on individual Render Layers
In this lesson we will discover how Layer Overrides can be used to add a great deal of control to Render Layers

Using a custom MEL script to alter special attributes across multiple selected objects
In this lesson we will see how we can create a custom MEL script that can simultaneously change specialized attributes on multiple objects

Compositing separate Render Layers together into a final image
In this lesson we will use Photoshop to assemble our various render passes into a single image

Using a depth pass to very quickly create depth-of-field effects in your final renders
In this lesson we will create a separate depth pass that can be used to create real-time depth-of-field effects in our compositing app

Creating a Motion Vector pass to quickly create motion-blurring effects
In this lesson we will look at the steps required to set up a motion vector pass in Maya

Using Motion Vectors within Maya to add fast motion- blurring to your renders
In this lesson we will see how stored motion vector data can be used in Maya to add motion blur to rendered images

Using the Final Gather (FG) Render Mode to cast and store FG point information
In this lesson we will learn how to calculate and store Final Gather points without having to render a full image