Changes in Rendering

[CG4983]

Ever since Mental Ray was included with MAX, we have used it successfully. Now that AD has dropped it from the latest versions of MAX, and nodes for a render farm will no longer be free from NVidia, we are cautious to invest in it if iToo will not support it in the future. Are there plans to continue FPP compatibility for mental ray? Is iToo working to implement Arnold? Though I'm not comfortable  being at the mercy of AD, my initial tests with Arnold are promising, but I wouldn't mind investing in something other than AD as Arnold licensing is $$$STEEP$$$. I also realize that vRay is the likely option, but if we're going to change, we'll be exploring all of our options. I appreciate any insights iToo is willing to share, thank you!

[iToo]

Hi, initially we are not going to support Mental Ray in Max 2018. We found several technical issues related with the fact that now is an optional package, and not included by default in Max.
These are not easy to solve, and taking in account that many customers are planning to migrate to other renderers, we considere this issue a low priority.

Regarding Arnold, our intention was to support it. But unfortunately the integration with Max 2018 is very basic, and doesn't support well third-party plugins.
We have discussed this issue with Autodesk, and they are willing to make changes to solve that limitation. But by now, we only can wait and see.

Meanwhile, our advice is to use V-Ray, or one of the other renderers which are supported (you can find here the full list, including supported features).

If you are in doubt with V-Ray, i encourage you to adopt it. It's a great render engine, and supports all Forest and RailClone features.

[CG4983]

Thank you, Carlos. I appreciate your candidness. I'm in no rush, so for the time being, we'll continue on with mental ray in Max 2016 and give vRay a test run. I understand your position, and truly appreciate the time and efforts you've put into mental ray to date. It's been a good ride for us.