Customer Reviews

Rendering with mental rayŽ (mental rayŽ Handbooks)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The description of this book is not, as another reviewer mentioned, misleading. It doesn't mention 3ds Max, Maya, or Lightwave. The important thing to note here is that Mental Ray is first and foremost a standalone rendering package. The fact that today's major 3D applications import and make accessible a subset of it's functionality seems to be the cause of a lot of confusion. This is not a 3ds Max book, or a Maya book. If you're looking to find out what buttons to push or what steps to take to use certain features of Mental Ray in your favorite 3D package, this book is NOT for you. There's plenty of information floating around for free on the internet that can answer those questions.

This book, and it's companion "Programming Mental Ray" is for those needing to tap into the full power of the Standalone Mental Ray renderer.

I just purchase this book 2 weeks ago and i am definitely happy to bought it.
All you ask yourself, the answers are there. the best way to achieve fine tuning and exceptional optimization. So, if you need a deep understanding of Mental Ray, let's go !
But be aware, if you only like light and play with button, that is not the right book. it's not a tutorial or a how to, it's a technical explanation of the action behind the code.
Very technical, but so useful to use all the power of this engine.

I did not get the CD to work either.
Mental Ray is one of the best renderers available.
But it is nearly impossible to get any technical help from the Mental Ray company.
So this book is all you got.
Is it a great manual, or a great book?
Not really.
It is all right.
If you are seriously using Mental Ray, you really should have it.

we are the students of 3d animation of Maya7.We had purchased the book named as "Rendering with

mental ray, vol-1 " by T.Driemeyer(Third edition) whose ISBN no. is 3211228756 and we got
a CD along with this book containing reference files (.mi) format and "Mental Ray" demo version

software.Our, problem is we are not able to open the ".mi" files in Maya7 or anyother version of

maya.The "Mental Ray" software is not working in "Windows XP" platform as it gives the error

"file ray3rc is not found".
Hence, i am writing the mail please kindly send us way to deal or solution of

the above mentioned problem.It will be better for us that those ".mi" can open with Maya 7

version.
PROBLEMS:

1) Workability of mental ray software (given with the book) in "windows XP"

platform

2) Workability of ".mi" files in Maya 7 inteface.

The description of this book is totally misleading. It only discusses how to use mental ray through the running of scripts and programming language. It dicusses absolutely nothing as far as the manner in which mental ray is used in 3ds max. Does not explain mental ray through the use of traditional menus and the render dialogue box in 3ds max. No mention of what good settings are for GI values or lighting values. The entire book centers around entering information manually in script form rather than going through how mental ray works in 3ds max through the render dialogue box. The only reason this book gets 2 stars is that it does have a good glossary of terms. Of course, those terms can be retrieved from the standard 3ds max help menu. I am a very experienced 3ds max user and was simply looking to learn some more advanced features of mental ray, and I was extremely disappointed in the book, especially for $85.