HISTORY AND DEATH OF MENTAL RAY

MentalRay is a renderer that new experts will never encounter. NVidia announced that its development is over, because appeared more advanced and functional tools. In this regard, the support of the old becomes costly and practically meaningless. Together with you we will recall the history of the appearance and development of this render.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAY

MentalRay appeared in the distant 1989. It was one of the first renderers that were publicly available, i.e. from those who wanted to use it and integrate it into their products; nothing was required except the very desire and opportunity. Quite quickly it became a widespread and almost the most important tool for many studios.

Renderer was integrated into many world-known environments: Maya, 3DsMax and others. This tool was successfully used during the creation of cult films (Matrix, Star Wars), tk. provided the best at the time functional.

Render continued its spread and began to be used in other areas. And in general, 3D visualization of projects has gained momentum, which means that more and more companies needed such a tool. A license for him began to receive the company’s Ring Road.

In fact, for ten years Mental Ray has also been used successfully to create effects in movies (especially when it comes to Hollywood multi-budget blockbusters). However, even in this period, he gradually began to give up his position.

New engines developed at a frantic pace, at first it was RenderMan, and then there were technologies like V-Ray and Arnold. They outperformed MentalRay in many ways, but in 2007 it was bought by Nvidia, which corrected the vector of its development towards the GPU rendering.

LAST YEARS MENTAL RAY

The renderer, widely used during this period in DCC, was still relevant, especially for specialists using 3dsMax. However, as early as 2015, it became clear that MentalRay was gradually receding into the background. For example, it stopped going to Maya by default, although users could still get it back on their own.

But Maya 2017 generally preferred Arnold, and in 2017 it did the same 3dsMax. And although there were attempts to save MentalRay with the help of big discounts, they did not bring much success.

And now Nvidia decided to stop its development. Although this is a logically correct decision, it shocked many artists who did not even use it in their work. After all, for many it was the very first render, on which a large number of various projects were created from scratch.

THE PRICE OF OBJECT VISUALIZATION TODAY

Our company uses different tools in its work. For example, the subject visualization of Corona Render is one of the directions with which our specialists cope quickly and without problems. However, there are a lot of them, and they are selected individually based on the needs of the customer. If you are interested in the price of object visualization, then call us right now! The consultant will answer any of your questions and calculate the cost for your project.