Rendering menu > Render > Render Scene dialog > Common panel > Assign Renderer rollout > Choose mental ray Renderer as the
production renderer.
Main toolbar > Render Scene > Render Scene dialog > Common panel > Assign Renderer rollout > Choose mental ray Renderer as
the production renderer.
To use the mental ray translator and renderer, you must first choose mental ray as the production renderer, as described the "Procedures" section below. Once you have chosen mental ray rendering, the Render Scene dialog displays panels and rollouts that control the mental ray renderer.
When you render with mental ray, controls on the Render Scene dialog > Common panel > Common Parameters rollout remain the same, and function just as they do with the default Autodesk VIZ scanline renderer.
The mental ray renderer does not support certain rendering features, as described here.
Output dithering options aren't supported (in Main menu > Customize > Preferences > Preference Settings dialog > Rendering panel > Output Dithering group).
The mental ray renderer does not fully support G-buffer options in post processing and image file output. The mental ray renderer generates all required G-buffer channels, but does not include transparency information. If two transparent objects overlap each other, the mental ray render generates information only for the frontmost object.
When you use a bitmap as an environment (that is, as a background), the mental ray renderer will sample it and filter it. This can result in unwanted blurring. To prevent background blurring, render the scene against a solid-color background, and then composite the rendered scene with the background image.
Sometimes when you render objects that have zero thickness, or an Extrude modifier with zero thickness, the mental ray renderer generates rendering artifacts that appear as streaks. In some cases, you can fix this by turning on Force 2-Sided in the Render Scene dialog's Common Parameters rollout. If the streaks persist, give the object or the Extrude modifier a nonzero thickness.
Sampling Quality Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
Camera Effects Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
Caustics and Global Illumination Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
Final Gather Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
Shadows and Displacement Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
Rendering Algorithms Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
To use the mental ray renderer:
Now when you render, the Render Scene dialog appears with the mental ray controls. You can choose to render the scene with the built-in mental ray renderer, or simply to translate the scene and save it in a .mi file that you can render later, perhaps on a different system. Controls for choosing whether to render, save to a .mi file, or both, are on the Translator Options rollout.