Mental ray
| Original author(s) | Mental Images |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Nvidia |
| Initial release | 1989 |
| Stable release |
3.14
|
| Preview release |
3.14
|
| Operating system | Linux, OS X, Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Renderer |
| License | Proprietary software |
| Website | www |
Mental Ray (stylized as mental ray) is a production-quality rendering application developed by Mental Images (Berlin, Germany). Mental Images was bought in December 2007 by NVIDIA. As the name implies, it supports ray tracing to generate images.
Mental Ray has been used in many feature films, including Hulk, The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, The Day After Tomorrow and Poseidon.
The primary feature of Mental Ray is the achievement of high performance through parallelism on both multiprocessor machines and across render farms. The software uses acceleration techniques such as scanline for primary visible surface determination and binary space partitioning for secondary rays. It also supports caustics and physically correct simulation of global illumination employing photon maps. Any combination of diffuse, glossy (soft or scattered), and specular reflection and transmission can be simulated.
Mental Ray was designed to be integrated into a third-party application using an API or be used as a standalone program using the .mi scene file format for batch-mode rendering. Currently there are many programs integrating it such as Autodesk Maya, 3D Studio Max, , Cinema 4D and Revit, Softimage|XSI, Side Effects Software's Houdini, SolidWorks and Dassault Systèmes' CATIA. Most of these software front-ends provide their own library of custom shaders (described below). However assuming these shaders are available to mental ray, any mi file can be rendered, regardless of the software that generated it.
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