Maya does not come with a standalone version of mental ray. mental ray has two APIs: the "shader API", which is used for writing custom shaders, and the "integration API", which is used to embed the mental ray renderer inside other applications.
Maya comes with a plugin called 'Mayatomr' which uses integration API to do mental ray renders from inside Maya. It is not calling out to a standalone version of mental ray but is running the mental ray render itself. The plugin also provides a set of shaders written in mental ray's MI language which duplicate the functionality of Maya's own shaders and materials. For example, 'adskMayaLambert' is the mental ray equivalent of Maya's own 'lambert' shader. The plugin also allows you to export a scene from Maya in .mi format which can then be rendered using standalone mental ray, if you have it. The plugin also provides a facility known as 'mental ray satellite'. This allows your mental ray render to be distributed across several different computers on the same network, however the render must *still* be initiated by the Mayatomr plugin running from inside a session of Maya. Autodesk does sell standalone mental ray, but you have to pay separately for it. It does not come free with Maya. Options like 'Acceleration Method' are standard parameters for controlling mental ray renders, whether they are running standalone or embedded in another application like Maya. If you look at mental ray's MI language you'll see that there is an 'options' statement where these things can be specified. To provide access to these options, the Mayatomr plugin provides its own options tab in the Render Globals window. The standalone mental ray renderer provides command line options which allow you to override some of the settings which are embedded in the .mi file, but not all of them. So the reason that Maya's UI contains those parameters is because the Mayatomr plugin put them there. > On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 5:20 AM, Omar Agudo <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I think so, but it´s strange that with the UI of Maya, you can have >> access to parameters like "Acceleration Method" in the render Settings >> window that are parameters for the mental ray standalone version. >> >> Why this happened?? >> >> Omar. >> >> >> 2009/4/1 Matthew Gidney <[email protected]>: >> > >> > there is a standalone version of mental ray with maya 2009? >> > thats news >> > i always thought mental ray was encaplsulated within a plugin for maya >> > and standalone mr is a separate software altogether. >> > ..... >> > >> > >> > 2009/3/31 Omar Agudo <[email protected]>: >> >> >> >> Hi all, >> >> >> >> I am using the standalone version of Mental ray that comes with Maya >> >> 2009. >> >> >> >> I am trying to render a scene (.ma) with the standalone version of >> >> Mental Ray, because I don´t have enough memory when rendering the >> >> scene with the default render that comes with Maya 2009, because the >> >> scene contains a lot of triangles and objects. In orden to save memory >> >> I have read the tutorial >> >> http://www.lamrug.org/resources/memorytips.html that explain some >> >> options that comes with the Mental Ray render that improve the memory >> >> usage, turning on flushable the memory (reusable memory). These >> >> options are: >> >> >> >> * Placeholders - Reuse memory for source geometry >> >> * Approximation - Reuse memory with fine approximation >> >> * Texture cache - Resuse memory with tiled texture maps >> >> * BSP acceleration - Reuse memory with large BSP >> >> >> >> Another problem I have found is that I can´t use the Maya comand >> >> Mayatomr (defined in the cmds API) that provides access to most >> >> functionalities of mental ray. >> >> >> >> Have someone use the mental ray render that comes with maya 2009? >> >> >> >> Is needed to pay another license to use the Mental Ray options >> >> (reusable memory)? >> >> >> >> Why the command Mayatomr doesn´t work? -- -deane --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ http://groups.google.com/group/python_inside_maya -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
