Autodesk 3ds Max 9 3D animation software uses the latest technology advancements, such as 64-bit workstations, enabling you work with more complex scenes and create stunning 3D.

Mental Ray Improvement by Joshua

I am going to use a simple scene to demonstrate the improvements in using Mental Ray and Daylight system.



Assign Mental Ray renderer as the Production renderer.

Create a Daylight system and set the time to, say, 14:00, an afternoon exterior scene.



Change the Sunlight to "mr Sun" and Skylight to "mr Sky". 3ds Max will prompt you whether you want the software to create a "mr Physical Sky" or not. Choose "Yes". This "mr Physical Sky" will change its settings automatically (e.g. sky color) when you change the time of the Daylight system.



In the Environment and Effects dialog box, use Logarithmic Exposure Control, and make sure Exterior daylight is checked.



In the Render Scene dialog, go to Indirect Illumination tab and checked Enable Final Gather (for Skylight to work). Choose the Draft Preset. In here, you will find that we don't need to worry about the complicate settings of Final Gather as before.



After you click render, you will see the Final Gather preview so you can cancel the rendering process if you find any problem at this stage.


Final results (7 seconds).


Try the Medium Preset.


A better rendering (23 seconds).


Change the time to 18:00 (evening) and render.