3DS Max 2018 mental ray removed

[stephen.d.green]

Not entirely unexpected after it was removed from Maya, but confirmed on nvidia's page that Autodesk have decided to no longer bundle mental ray with Max 2018.

http://images.nvidia.com/content/technologies/advanced-rendering/pdf/354915-MentalRay-FAQ-Sheet-FNL-...

If you want it, you have to rent it from nvidia.

[Anonymous]

From what I've found, no.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

The Error 10016 is an error not specific to W10, it also occurs on W7 and W8.  It is a Windows error.  Your IT person should be able to resolve it, though it's largely harmless.  Blaming Max for this error is like blaming your tires for the check engine light coming on in your car. 

Render to Texture doesn't work with Arnold yet, that is true.  I do recognize this is a problem for you given your needs, but Mental Ray should be able to fill this role.  I have had no issues baking anything with MR in 2018 so far, and I just tested multiple scenes. (attached).  Perhaps your problem is scene specific.  I'd be happy to help you with it in another thread if you'd like.  

Lastly, just close the conversion tool when it comes up.  You don't have to use it.  I've attached two simple scenes here, one from 2017 and one from 2018.  If they crash for you during RTT or opening, please let me know.  But so far I cannot repro any of these issues you are having and I suspect there is some kind of configuration, conflict, or other problem on your end.  Are you able to bake with these files?  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I'll take the 10016 issue offline, as it's not relevant to the discussion. Once I get my residual 2017 issues cleaned up, I'll try your sample scenes. Thanks 

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

If you make a new thread for your issues and PM me with the link I'll happily help you right out.  I do want to help you in any way possible.  Please just let me know and I'll be there for you.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Okay, will do.



Thanks,

Eric Winter, RA

[Anonymous]

THIS!!! 100%

Not having MR/Iray with backburner support is AWFUL

also, there are like 4 rendering engines in Max2018 and neither recognizes each others shaders etc... even more AWFUL

I know AD cares about money... but this just pushes more and more people to VRay

[Isaac_Zuniga]

Autodesk has no say over what Nvidia can and cannot do with their product.

This was all Nvidia's doing, Autodesk had nothing to do with Mental Ray becoming a pay-to-use render engine. All Autodesk did was make sure that the new standalone version of Mental Ray works with 3ds Max 2018, that is it, nothing more, or nothing less.

[Anonymous]

Well, that's VERY dumb of nVidia to think that people are going to stick with MR in market that's already half converted to VRay in larger productions, and the other half were only using it because they had no better free option.

Free is being the keyword here.

[Isaac_Zuniga]

If you would like to express your concerns about this to Nvidia, you can do so by posting your inquiries on their Mental Ray forum, which can be found here.

[dbhinnant]

We may not be able to upgrade for sometime.  Network rendering is a necessity for us.  We have a 40 node farm.  It will now cost several thousand dollars to upgrade.  In the environment that we are in currently, I'm not sure I can get approval for that.

So do we continue to pay 5 thousand dollars per year for a subscription that we cannot use?  If we don't, we pay through the nose if we ever want back in.  Glad I'm up for retirement in a couple of years.

[Isaac_Zuniga]

Mind you, this was not Autodesk's idea, this was Nvidia's doing. Autodesk just made sure that the new version of Mental Ray works with 3ds Max 2018.

If you are really concerned about the situation, try posting your concerns on the Nvidia forums, an Nvidia staff member will be able to assist you there. Here's a link to the forums.

[jarnoburger]

I am a 3d enthousiast / hobbyist, with micro assignments, and just bought 3dsmax to render bigger scenes and/or animations because it is cool to try that.
I primary use reflections/advanced lights/render elements

My projected monthly budget is :
- render income :  + 480 euro

- 3dsmax               - 240 euro

- mini farm            -   40 euro
- studio                 - 150 euro

--------------------------

50 euro left 

I wanted to use older dumpster pc's as a farm and upgrade it, a little every month.
This monthly income budget for these assigments that i do is already higher then normal.

But now I found out that I have to pay even more extra per month , to render cool stuff.

If I have to buy Mental Ray (extra 125 costs/month), I would loose -75 euro per month. 

If I have to buy Arnold  (extra 350 costs/month) , I would loose -300 per month.

I can not accept to go into the minus. Please give me a solution to renderfarm for my budget range.

[Anonymous]

If you don't have max 2017 or earlier, then you may have to stick with the scanline or ART renderer to keep costs down.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @jarnoburger and welcome to the community,

You can still use Scanline to render as you need to.  If that's not cool enough (and let's face it, it's not) then Mental Ray and others are still easily within your budget.

I did want to update your numbers as they are incorrect.  These are the costs for render nodes only.

Arnold = $65/month

Mental Ray =  $295/year ($25/month)

Vray = Permanent with 1 time cost of $350

Corona = not broken down easily, but not super expensive

Redshift = $500/node flat/one time cost

Keyshot = $480/year per node ($40/month/node)

Best Regards,

[Isaac_Zuniga]

For those who would like to voice their expression to Autodesk about the loss of Mental Ray, you can do so here.

While it's not a "guaranteed" solution, it will at least show Autodesk how many people wish that there was a more powerful render engine, similar, if not, better than Mental Ray. (Which would not be Scanline or ART.)

[-niels-]

This one might be worth some votes as well for all those with render farms:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/free-network-rendering-3ds-max-2018/idi-p/7129160

[Isaac_Zuniga]

That one is worth a shot as well, but I don't think that Autodesk has direct control over Arnold, as they just bought the company (SolidAngle) who owns Arnold. (Similar to how Microsoft bought Mojang. They do not own Minecraft, rather they own the company that owns Minecraft.)

However, if the masses show their support towards something, I'm pretty sure that Autodesk will be willing to accommodate.

(I'm rather curious what will become of 3ds Max after this release...)

[stephen.d.green]

The price for Redshift doesn't tell the whole story.

Redshift render node is a full licence. There isn't a render node as such, it's the same thing as a workstation licence. The $500 includes one year of support, after that it's $250 a year. But if you stop paying you still keep your perpetual.

If you stop paying for 6 months after that year, and then start up again, it's still tied to that original date, so you'd only get 6 months for your $250.


It's also usable on a lot of other DCC apps. Maya, Softimage, Houdini, + others in Alpha.

Speed wise, I find it quicker than V Ray, although it lacks direct compatibility with some features like PhoenixFD. But it feels like you can do more with less hardware, if you're willing to invest in GPUs.

You can also mix and match GPUs, they don't have to be the same brand or type.

They have a watermarked demo - if you've got a 980ti, or a 1070 in a machine, I'd definitely give it a go. I'd say that's a minimum to make it worth the while. (No AMD cards I'm afraid)

It does support up to 8 GPUs on a single licence, but realistically a 4 GPU machine is probably more cost effective without getting into very expensive hardware.

[dbhinnant]

Arnold is not a viable option for us.  We use Itoo Forest Pro extensively.  Arnold is not supported.