Mental Ray Reviews & Product Details

Mental Ray is the best software I have seen for beginners. I started using it when I was just starting out in the field and it helped me know the basics of rendering so it is best for anyone who is just starting out. The quality of product produced is not photo-realistic as compared to other softwares in industry but it is definitely faster. Its speed is one of the main things I like about it. It is a powerful engine that completes the work in just few steps and makes it easier to get feedback from customers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mental Ray is expensive as compared to its competitors but it is understandable as good quality products are never cheap. The export speed is poor and it makes it annoying that it takes a lot of time with just a simple feature. The renderings produced are not professional and sometimes do not even look professional. Updates are needed to improve the system but they don't produce it as often as they are required. There is still a large room for improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Fast in producing rendering results. If I want to check my Interior design results, it does not take ages to produce result.

It is easy to set light and materials to the scene which is good in terms of work turnaround and get feedback early in the process of interior designing.

Its a great tool that can help you be agile in your work, engage customer early on and produce results faster than ever.

There are some great community available to help you with any questions regarding the product and solve if you are stuck and don't know where to go.

I have see many product community that are not so great but that is not the case with mental ray.

Another good thing is it is part of NVIDIA which pairs greatly with my laptop core component. At first I wasn't so sure about this but when I started using, I saw results and compare with other software. I was comfortable with results. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Need to improve the software on the quality results as compared to other software in the market. One thing that I have to compromise is the quality which works for me depending on the project.

If client is not so peculiar about the quality but they need a view so that they can provide feedback and explain what additional is needed then I don't see much of the problem.

I sometimes face clients or companies that are very specific about the quality then I use mixed approach - I use this for low quality and early feedback but use other software for final rendering. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mental Ray creates 3D graphics with no cost. It is faster and user friendly. The graphics created are excellent as compared to its speed. The main best feature about it is that is it comes preinstalled and is an incredible render with no hidden cost. Standard level graphics are created with no hidden cost. It is not the best in the industry but does the basic work. Mainly it is liked because how convenient it can be at times. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is not realistic as compared to other software and graphics created are not that professional. There's no PBR work flow and render frame buffer is useless. IPR is slow. You need to have knowledge to optimize. The system sometimes crashes with no reminder. The main features that i dislike are distributed rendering and mental ray satellite. The speed is a bit poor so it slows down the process. They do not work that great. Graphics are not realistic as compared to other software i have used. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

When I used it back in the days it was part of the 3ds Max and it was fantastic - easy to use, showed great results and made life so much easier having it as part of the base software package than constantly adding plug-ins. Definitely the best was ease of use - clearly good level of information, good menus, standard and customized options. The lights and the materials were good and the results were good. Rendering times were ok. Back then the quality of the images was not as demanding as it is now though. Things have changes significantly and as much as I liked Mental Ray I had to move on to stay current with the industry standards and quality expectations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

With time the capabilities of Mental ray diminished and there was a different rendering engine that became industry standard for visualization. So to keep up and be competitive I had to learn the other engine and start using it for my work. At that time I was teaching 3d modeling rendering and animation in few colleges in NYC and my students started requesting the other engine to be included in the curriculum because all the jobs wanted these specific skills. So the colleges had to adjust and purchase that other engine. As much as I liked Mental Ray for my work, I got to see better results with the other engine. I never looked back. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some time ago it was a really innovative and handy tool for us (I mean ArchViz artists). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lack of compatibility with plugins, almost no innovations, feels really old.

For example, take Vray, the same could have happened with Vray if they didn't buy (in some cases catch) Corona Renderer in time.

And what we have now, Vray is better than Corona.

I think you guys have to work on the innovation side and compatibility thing at first. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Physically correct materials in mental ray are amazing Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

takes time to optimize the mental ray engine. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

High quality realist render in short time Compare to other render engines Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Can improve to get cast shadows and reflections in real time like game engines

Ex: unreal and unity Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

If I need to bake ao in 3dsmax or maya, i ussally preferred mental ray. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's a outdated and time taken process . Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mental Ray is fast and can give you top quality renders for my work in maya. Useful in previs, architecture and animation! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some times the render speed in the maya render viewer can be slower than other renderers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Materials i like the most on this render engine Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I cant fine alot of stuff like the models and tutorials about this render engine Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.