Using the mental ray Renderer
The mental ray® renderer is a general-purpose renderer that can generate physically correct simulations of lighting effects,
including ray-traced reflections and refractions, caustics, and global illumination. In this tutorial, you use global illumination
to create realistic lighting.
Preview the room:
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Right-click the viewport label and choose Views > CameraDen (or press C).
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On the Render Scene dialog, click Render.
(This button is at the lower right of the dialog.)
Autodesk VIZ renders the scene, but hardly any of the room is visible at all.Sunlight enters through the window, but it doesn't
spread through the room like real-life sunlight.
Turn on final gathering:
Final Gather causes light to bounce off surfaces as it does in real life.
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On the Indirect Illumination panel, scroll up to the top. In the Final Gather rollout, turn on Enable Final Gather.
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Click Render again.
This time the rendering takes a bit longer (about 3 or 4 minutes at 320 x 240 pixels). The results are better, but still too
dim.
Adjust the final gather settings:
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Increase the value of Diffuse Bounces to 4.
More bounces allow the light to spread about the room more.
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Change Rays per FG Point to 150 and Interpolate Over Num. FG Points to 100.
These adjustments help eliminate rendering “artifacts.”
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Click Render again.
Now the room is well and realistically lit.
