Maya Software vs mental ray
By default, Maya renders with the Maya Software renderer. You can switch to the Maya Hardware, Maya Vector, or mental ray renderer by changing the Render Using attribute in the Render Settings window. Although the Maya hardware and Maya Vector renderers are designed for specialized rendering situations, mental ray can easily handle renders normally tackled by Maya Software. As such, the advantages of Maya Software and mental ray renderers may not be immediately obvious. Therefore, I've included a short list for each:
Maya Software
- Supports the Studio clear coat plug-in (chapter 7)
- Renders rapidly while providing attributes for high-quality anti-aliasing (chapter 10)
- offers relatively few attributes and is thus easy to set up (chapter 10) mental ray
- Includes Maya Fur and the Maya Hair system in reflections and refractions (chapter 3)
- Renders bump maps with greater accuracy (chapter 9)
- is able to motion blur shadows (this chapter)
- is able to impart transparency to depth map shadows (this chapter)
- Provides Global illumination and final Gather rendering options (chapter 12)
- Utilizes Maya shaders as well as mental ray shaders (chapter 12)
Although mental ray's list of advantages is quite long, Maya Software is perfectly suitable for many renders. The trick is to become familiar with both systems so that you can make appropriate decisions at render time.
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