Blender Fire and Smoke

Here is a test I 've done with blender 2.53 beta after looking at the Phoenix plugin gallery

> video

> download the Blender scene

Iray 3dsmax2011 installation

You will need to have an installed copy of mental ray Standalone 2011.
Copy the following 3 .dll files
cudart.dll
libiraymr.dll
libiray.dll
From: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\mrstand3.8.1-adsk2011\bin
To: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011

then download and install this Ctrl.Ghost like this:

mrGeomShaderObject.dlo >3ds Max 2011\plugins

ctrl_ghost_settings.mi > 3ds Max 2011\mentalimages\shaders_autoload\mentalray\include

ctrl_ghost_settings.dll > C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\mentalimages\shaders_autoload\mentalray\shaders

Then start 3dsmax2011 and create a basic scene with MentalRay

Create>Geometry>Mental ray> mr Shader then drag the box on the viewport

With mr Geometry Shader box selected go to Modify>Shader>none

then pick Maps>mental ray>Ctrl.Ghost.Settings(ctrl.studio)

then drag it as instance in the MaterialEditor

Progressive rendering > enable > Iray

Max samples > 1000000

Render

Tips:

If it render black, you have a Cuda problem so uou have to disable Cuda. You can do that in the graphic card control panel or by temporary renaming the nvcuda.dll in windows>system32

Iray

Iray is out on MentalRay Standalone 3.8.1. For those who own a license you can try Iray on Maya and 3dsmax2011 by copying somme dll. Check the thread about this

Some people like me encounter black render problem because of Cuda problem. You can use the CPU only Iray by renaming the nvcuda.dll in C:\Windows\System32. For now I can't use textures map for some reason...
some test Ive done (CPU only):

win7 64 / Phenom II X6
1 min


2 minutes


14min51



12min45

Sea Shore animation

A animation test I am working on. No plugin is used here, only noises and gradiant ramp combined in a composite map.

>>Video

SmallLuxGPU

SLG 1.5 beta4 test from 3dsmax 2010 64
windows7-AMD Phenom II X6 1055T -nvidia GTS250

http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=4047





MentalRay took 20 minutes to render this scene

interior renders -MentalRay

Here are some test about interior rendering. The first one is done with Final Gather set on "Medium" with 5 Diffuse Bounces. The is only one Sky portal mapped with a Kelvin Temprature Color with Intensity set to 3.




The second one is rendered with Irradiance Particles you can use with this free plugin.
There is 2 SkyPortal lights mapped with Kelvin Temprature Color and 2 photometric lights.

Mental Ray BLURED REFLECTIONS

I recently worked on metal material for animation. The model is 2.6 Million polygons (amazing model from Ludovic Gicqueau!) The animation is 1400 frames 1280x840. I want my render to be quite fast (around 1 minute/frame) so I had to find some good tips to speed up rendering. I have first tried the "environment blur" hidden shader from Zap but It only works fine with Final Gather. My basic setting is an Ambiant Occlusion Light shader on an omni light (aligned and linked to the camera). No light on in the scene, the mental light shader works with light off too. HDRI in the enviroment for far reflections and reduced reflection max distance. No Fg, no GI.