This description is for the mentalRay Standalone to render .mi files (with ray.exe).

It is not a description how to setup rendering SI or Maya scenes with mentalRay enabled.

Please see the Softimage, Maya or 3dsmax help section. 


Setup


       

mentalRay does not have to be installed on every system. It will be copied only by RR for execution.

(see Shared Executable)


Therefore you have to copy your mentalRay application folder into

[rrRoot]\render_apps\renderer_exe\mray_stda\<OS>_<bit>\<Renderer>_<version>



The result is then for example:

[rrRoot]\render_apps\renderer_exe\mray_stda\win_x64\mentalRay_3.8.0\bin\ray3.exe 


Satellite


If you want to use the Mental Ray Satellite (also called Mental Ray Distributed) rendering, you should first test it manually.


  • Create a simple .mi file. Probably a cube, set the render resolution to full HD 1920x1080 and antialiasing samples to 5 5 to get long render times.


  • Open a command prompt/terminal and change the directory to the place where your ray.exe is located.
  • Execute the line:

      ray.exe "[yourMiFile]" -v 4

  • It should start rendering.
  • Abort it.
  • Now test it in Satellite mode:

      ray.exe "[yourMiFile]" -v 4 -host [YourOtherMachine] --

  • If it does not work, you probably need to add the right port for the satellite service.
  • The port was set when you installed the service.
  • ray.exe "[yourMiFile]" -v 4 -host [YourOtherMachine]::[SatellitePort] --
  • If you need to set this port, please edit the mRay render config [RR]\render_apps\_config\A50__MRayStdA.cfg.
  • There is a line SatellitePort=1~0, change it to SatellitePort=1~YourPort.


Submission


Just like every other archive renderer type, you have to load one file of your .mi sequence into the rrSubmitter.

The rrSubmitter recognizes the frame range of your sequence and output name.


All Archive/Standalone renderer are based on a scene file per frame in Royal Render.

You can not export a complete animation into one file, you need one file per Frame.

name.#.ext


Relative<>Absolute paths:

You should use absolute paths for textures, output....