Thanks to Richard I saw that I had a dependency to a shader I wrote long time ago on the standalone mymr scene, I have removed it and it is now using only shaders that come on the original distribution. Please let me know if there’s any other issues

You can redownload the scene from here:
http://www.mymentalray.com/index.php?option=com_shaders&Itemid=107&Action=DisplayDetail&ObjectId=43

Thanks

Juan Carlos

Below is the anatomy of a very simple scene completely completely step by step. You can download the file from here:

First we start with including the libraries we need. I am just going to use standard libraries.

Then we will include render options, notice that for now we are turning off pretty much everything except scanline rendering.

Read more…?

Once we know we have a working version of mental ray, I think it is important that we know our tools.

What comes with mental ray standalone?

you should find 3 main directories:

• bin – This contains mental ray and other useful tools
• lib (or shaders) – This is the directory that mental ray, by default, will look for shaders libraries (so or dll files).
• include (or mi_include) – This is the directory that mental ray, by default, will look for mi files. In some cases, the installation will also contain in this directory the header files for writing your own shaders.

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Where should I start?

Simple, in the begining!

Great, but… how do we define the begining?

For now, I am to remove the middle man (applications that wrap around mental ray) and will just work with just mental ray.

Why?

Because at the end of the day everything on any application (maya/3ds max) is translated into mental ray terms.

Read more…?

Welcome to my mental ray blog, on this blog I’ll about mental ray stuff and other film-related/production stuff and how it relates to this wonderful software.

You might be wondering how is this going to be different from other mental ray blogs?

Let me be honest with you,  I don’t want to “compete” with any one elses’ blog. I feel that the more information out there, the only one benefited will be the community. All I can promise to you, is that I will try to keep it simple, honest and interesting.

I will start from the very begining, there might be things that you know already or you have come up with your own techniques, or you have any suggestions of things that you’d like to see please contact me: jcarlos@mymentalray.com.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy it.

-Juan Carlos