Mental Ray Arch + Design Templates

Samples of default Arch + Design templates to reference.

From back to front:

glass physical, frosted glass, translucent plastic thin
rubber, leather, glass thin, glass solid
glazed ceramic, glazed ceramic tiles, glossy plastic, matte plastic, masonry
matte finish, pearl finish, glossy finish, satin varnished wood, rough concrete, polished concrete
water, chrome, brushed metal, copper, standard

Note to self:

Render a scene with the Mental Ray renderer first in order to use these in Material Editor.

HDR Image with Mental Ray Physical Sky

Here's how to add an HDR image to your environment map using mr Physical Sky:


Choose Bitmap:


Pick HDR image:


I've just been covering the white areas dragging the whitepoint scroller (-0.4):

Mental Ray Materials (mr materials, mi)

For newcomers to mental ray materials, here's an example of how to use their Architecture & Design templates:


Templates!:

Mental Ray Part 3 (Indirect Illumination)

These are the settings I played around with:


Enable caustics if you have glass/reflective materials, my samples may be excessive (try 1000):


My samples may be excessive (try 1000)::

Mental Ray Part 2 (Renderer)

These are the "medium" settings I used for decent renders. Underneath your render window you should see sliders for Image Precision and Final Gather Precision that are very convenient:


You can choose "Distortion (lume)" to do a fish-eye effect:

Mental Ray Part 1 (Common)

This is just a standard render setting. For HD use 1920x1280:


I changed my material editor to mental ray as well, hit the lock to change:

Exposure Control in 3D Studio Max

I used an HDR image as a custom map (see HDR bitmap tutorial). Daylight system should already set Exposure Control to mr Photographic Exposure Control:


Play around with these settings for your desired look:

35mm Camera in 3D Studio Max

I also set my Target Distance to 100 & f-Stop to 2.0* when enabling Depth of Field (under Multi-Pass Effect):


*the lower the f-Stop, the narrower the focus

Daylight in 3D Studio Max

Here are my daylight system settings (Systems > Standard > Daylight):


How to do soft shadows!:


How to haze the horizon (also hazes away shadows if too high):