next up previous contents
Next: 6.2 Inventor mental ray Up: 6. Command Line Options Previous: 6. Command Line Options

6.1 mental ray

When started from a shell command line, the mental ray rendering software accepts a large number of options. Most of these correspond to similar commands or camera or options statements in the scene file. When an option is given on the command line, it overrides the corresponding command or statement in the scene file, which in turn overrides the defaults. The defaults for certain options given in the option list below apply only if the corresponding command or statement is not present in the scene file.

mental ray is started as

        ray  [options]  [scenefile]

If no scene file is given, the scene is read from standard input. Scene file names normally end in .mi. If the extension is missing mental ray will read the name as specified, and if this fails, retry with .mi added.

Options can be abbreviated as long as the given substring is unambiguous. mental ray checks for ambiguities and prints an error message listing the choices. For example, -resolution can be abbreviated as -res. For frequently-used options such as -verbose and -filename, short forms are available. The page numbers on the right side refer to the relevant chapters in the main part of this book. The available options are:

view  view-dependent approximation
fine  fine approximation with microtriangles
sharp faceted, useful for fine displacement
parametric U V rectangular grid of U . V . 2 triangles
regular U V rectangular grid that spans patches
length L triangle edge length less than D
distance D distance from true surface less than D
angle A angle between neighboring triangles less than
  A degrees
any it is sufficient if any of length, distance, and
  angle is satisfied
min  max subdivide at least min and at most max times,
  default 0 5

code element affected statement
g instance group instgroup
o geometric object object
c camera camera
l light source light
m material material
t texture texture
p option block options
s named shader shader
d declaration declare
u user data data
ig instance of an instance group instance
io instance of an object instance
ic instance of a camera instance
il instance of a light instance
is instance of a geometry shader instance



Footnotes

... buffer6.1
Color clipping control is available in mental ray 2.1 and up.
... signs6.2
Option insertion is supported by mental ray 2.1 and up.
... mode6.3
The -diagnostic bsp option requires mental ray 3.0 or higher.
... mode6.4
All -diagnostic options require mental ray 2.1 or higher.
... lanczos6.5
The Mitchell and Lanczos filters are supported only in mental ray 2.1 and up.
... gathering6.6
Final gathering requires mental ray 2.1 or up.
... illumination6.7
Global illumination requires mental ray 2.1 or later.
... image6.8
Camera offsets are supported only in mental ray 2.1 and up.
...end6.9
The -render option was introduced in mental ray 2.1.36.

next up previous contents
Next: 6.2 Inventor mental ray Up: 6. Command Line Options Previous: 6. Command Line Options
Copyright 2002 by mental images