Jeff Patton JeffPatton Location: Lexington, USA Language(s):
English Member Since: August 2002 Last Updated: 14 November 2009 Portfolio Views: 1069079 Chosen as Favorite: 521
MarcoTomaselli - Yes, mental ray samples the background. Off the top of my head I don't know of a shader that would prevent that (Try a search over at maxplugins.de). Background sampling should go fairly quickly, but you can speed up the process (slightly) by using the mr Raytype Switcher (environment) shader to assign a solid color to your background and the real background image to the environment. As long as the background is uniform in brightness/color and you're not using a fixed sampling rate, it should speed through the sampling process. You could also assign the background a solid color and then assign your environment map to each material locally...but the rayswitcher would offer less configuration hassle.
Force vs. radius for animations: Afraid I haven't tried a comparison. I'm working on a four year old PC here so I'm unable to render out animations using these brute force style settings without tying up my machine for hours/days (not possible). Personal note: I finally broke down and ordered the parts to build a few new machines so in the near future I'll be able to render animations and more complex scenarios (yaaay).
cayocayo - Yes, that provides a similar look. FWIW, you may want to enable Draft Mode (No Precalculations) for that too.
Hey Jeff, Thanks man for the guestbook entry. That poor soul has been a Work in Progress for too long now. I've been in the process of modeling the Grim, and hopefully put together a full 3d still. I know you're into cars... have you seen the Shadrack Mustang?? that's where a lot of my inspiration came for this piece (well.. for the motor)
holy cow!! thanks a GAZILLION for your invitation! it's an honour jeff!
dude .. you have no idea how famous you are in our studio! my friend and i just go nuts goin through your blog and thank our stars there's a mental ray guru across the miles!
jeff ... you rock! thank you for your help and sharing your valuable inputs with us
god bless you!
Keep up the good work!
my friend and i just go nuts goin through your blog and thank our stars there's a mental ray guru across the miles! 
