Mental Ray Rendering V/S Iray

Mental Ray rendering is one the most commonly used rendering worldwide. Most softwares including Max, Maya, Softimageetc have this as a rendering option. While Mental Ray of Mental Images is quite known, their latest is Iray rendering. The computation on Iray is more inclined toward GPU calculation compared to the Mental Ray which is more CPU intensive. This creates a major confusion in the minds of many user who will wonder how can a GPU process be any faster than a CPU. After all one can have multiple CPUs and these can even be a dual core or a quad core.

First of All when setting the iray render, the option are minimal. (pic)

The most preferred is unlimited, in this the process continues till the user intervenes, to stop the render. Of course, on can specify the number of passes (iterations) or specify the amount of time it should render. To give a simple perspective on this. Below image rendered using Iray in 1 min and 4 sec

Below image rendered using Mental ray in 1 min

So far it seems like mental ray render works far better in quality than the grainy Iray render. But notice here the interior walls are pretty dark and no details can be seen in the mental ray image as compared to the Iray rendered image. Below image rendered in 2 min and 18 sec

Above image render in Mental Ray taking about 1 hour Note that the number of bounces was increased also the number of rays.

Lastly iray rendered in 4:35 minutes

Also notice the very subtle reflections in the glass

Digitally signed by Prem Moraes DN: cn=Prem Moraes, o, ou=ACE, email=prem.moraes@gmail.com, c=IN 'Date: 2011.09.13 17:10:11 +05'30