mental ray 2 User Manual

Version 2.0.28.18 and 2.1.40.45

Contents

 

• Contents
• Introduction
  • 0.1 Organization of this Book
  • 0.2 Introduction to mental ray
  • 0.3 WWW Resources
  • 0.4 Acknowledgements
• 1. Functionality
  • 1.1 Parallelism
  • 1.2 Free-Form Surfaces
  • 1.3 Edge Merging and Adjacency Detection
  • 1.4 Special Points and Curves
  • 1.5 Atmospheres and Volumes
  • 1.6 Materials
  • 1.7 Light Sources
  • 1.8 Area Light Sources
  • 1.9 Shadow Maps
  • 1.10 Texture, Bump, Displacement, and Reflection Mapping
  • 1.11 Texture Filtering
    • 1.11.1 Pyramid Filtering
    • 1.11.2 Elliptical Projection Filter Lookup
  • 1.12 User-Defined Shaders
  • 1.13 The Camera
  • 1.14 Lens Effects
  • 1.15 Depth of Field
  • 1.16 Animation
  • 1.17 Motion Blur
  • 1.18 Sampling Algorithms
  • 1.19 OpenGL Acceleration
  • 1.20 Color Calculations
  • 1.21 Output Shaders
  • 1.22 Contours
  • 1.23 Memory-mapped Textures
  • 1.24 Caustics
    • 1.24.1 Light Sources
    • 1.24.2 Objects
    • 1.24.3 Material Shaders and Photon Shaders for Caustics
      • 1.24.3.1 Physically Plausible Material Shaders
    • 1.24.4 Shader Functions
    • 1.24.5 Fine-tuning Caustics
  • 1.25 Global Illumination^2.1
    • 1.25.1 Light Sources
    • 1.25.2 Objects
    • 1.25.3 Fine-tuning Global Illumination
  • 1.26 Final Gathering^2.1
  • 1.27 Volume Caustics
  • 1.28 Global Illumination in Participating Media^2.1
  • 1.29 Diagnostic modes^2.1
• 2. Scene Description Language
  • 2.1 Shader Declarations
    • 2.1.1 Parameter Types
    • 2.1.2 Shader Apply Flags
    • 2.1.3 Declaration Options
  • 2.2 Shader Definitions
  • 2.3 Shader Lists
  • 2.4 Shader Graphs
  • 2.5 Phenomena
    • 2.5.1 Phenomenon Interface Parameters
    • 2.5.2 Phenomenon Roots
  • 2.6 Commands
  • 2.7 Scene Entities
    • 2.7.1 Options
      • 2.7.1.1 Sampling Quality
      • 2.7.1.2 Tessellation Quality
      • 2.7.1.3 Motion Blur
      • 2.7.1.4 Trace Depth
      • 2.7.1.5 Shadows
      • 2.7.1.6 Rendering Algorithms
      • 2.7.1.7 Feature Disabling
      • 2.7.1.8 Caustics
      • 2.7.1.9 Global illumination^2.1
      • 2.7.1.10 Frame Buffer Control
      • 2.7.1.11 Scene Geometry
      • 2.7.1.12 Contours
      • 2.7.1.13 Diagnostic Modes^2.1
      • 2.7.1.14 Miscellaneous
    • 2.7.2 Cameras
    • 2.7.3 Textures
    • 2.7.4 Materials
    • 2.7.5 Lights
    • 2.7.6 Objects
    • 2.7.7 Polygonal Geometry
    • 2.7.8 Free-Form Surface Geometry
      • 2.7.8.1 Bases
      • 2.7.8.2 Surfaces
      • 2.7.8.3 Surface Derivatives
      • 2.7.8.4 Texture Surfaces
      • 2.7.8.5 Curves
      • 2.7.8.6 Trimming, Hole, and Special Curves; Special Points
      • 2.7.8.7 Space Curve Geometry
      • 2.7.8.8 Approximations
      • 2.7.8.9 Connections
      • 2.7.8.10 Example
    • 2.7.9 Instances
    • 2.7.10 Instance Groups
  • 2.8 Contours
    • 2.8.1 Where to Place Contours
    • 2.8.2 Color and Width of Contours
    • 2.8.3 Contour Output
    • 2.8.4 Faster Contours
  • 2.9 Scene Example
• 3. Using and Writing Shaders
  • 3.1 Dynamic Linking of Shaders
  • 3.2 Coordinate Systems
  • 3.3 Shader Type Overview
  • 3.4 State Variables
    • 3.4.1 Frame
    • 3.4.2 Image Samples
    • 3.4.3 Rays
    • 3.4.4 Intersection
    • 3.4.5 Textures, Motion, Derivatives
    • 3.4.6 User Fields
    • 3.4.7 State Variables by Shader Type
  • 3.5 Shader Parameter Declarations
  • 3.6 Parameter Assignments and mi_eval
  • 3.7 Shader Versioning
  • 3.8 Material Shaders
  • 3.9 Texture Shaders
  • 3.10 Volume Shaders
  • 3.11 Environment Shaders
  • 3.12 Light Shaders
  • 3.13 Shadow Shaders
  • 3.14 Photon Shaders
  • 3.15 Photon Emitter Shaders
  • 3.16 Lens Shaders
  • 3.17 Output Shaders
    • 3.17.1 Parallel Output Shaders
  • 3.18 Displacement Shaders
  • 3.19 Geometry Shaders
  • 3.20 Contours
    • 3.20.1 Contour Computation
    • 3.20.2 Contour Store Function
    • 3.20.3 Contour Contrast Function
    • 3.20.4 Contour Shaders
    • 3.20.5 Contour Output Shaders
  • 3.21 Functions for Shaders
    • 3.21.1 DB Functions
    • 3.21.2 RC Functions
    • 3.21.3 Sampling with mi_sample
    • 3.21.4 RC Photon Functions
    • 3.21.5 RC Direction Functions
    • 3.21.6 IMG Functions
    • 3.21.7 Math Functions
    • 3.21.8 Noise Functions
    • 3.21.9 Auxiliary Functions
    • 3.21.10 Obsolete Auxiliary Functions
    • 3.21.11 Contour Functions
    • 3.21.12 Memory Allocation
    • 3.21.13 Thread Parallelism and Locks
    • 3.21.14 Messages and Errors
    • 3.21.15 Callable Functions by Shader Type
  • 3.22 Initialization and Cleanup
  • 3.23 Automatic Source Generation with mkmishader
  • 3.24 Shaders and Trace Functions
  • 3.25 Example Scene with Custom Shader
• 4. Geometry Shaders
  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Examples
  • 4.3 Geometry Shader API
    • 4.3.1 Symbol Tables
    • 4.3.2 Dynamic Lists
    • 4.3.3 Incremental Changes
    • 4.3.4 Options, Cameras, and Outputs
    • 4.3.5 Lights, Materials, Textures
    • 4.3.6 User Data
    • 4.3.7 Instances and Instance Groups
    • 4.3.8 Geometric Objects
      • 4.3.8.1 Objects
      • 4.3.8.2 Bases
      • 4.3.8.3 Polygonal Geometry
      • 4.3.8.4 Free-Form Surface Geometry
      • 4.3.8.5 Curves
      • 4.3.8.6 Space Curves^2.1
      • 4.3.8.7 Subdivision Surfaces^2.1
    • 4.3.9 Function Declarations
    • 4.3.10 Function Definitions
    • 4.3.11 Phenomenon Definitions
    • 4.3.12 Verbatim C Sources
    • 4.3.13 Scopes
    • 4.3.14 Miscellaneous
  • 4.4 Geometry Shader Data Structures
    • 4.4.1 Instances
    • 4.4.2 Groups
    • 4.4.3 Cameras
    • 4.4.4 Lights
    • 4.4.5 Functions
    • 4.4.6 User Data
    • 4.4.7 Function Declarations
    • 4.4.8 Boxes
    • 4.4.9 Objects
    • 4.4.10 Approximations
    • 4.4.11 Polygon Lists
    • 4.4.12 Polygon Indices
    • 4.4.13 Polygon Vertices
    • 4.4.14 Polygon Vectors
    • 4.4.15 Surfaces: Face List
    • 4.4.16 Surfaces: Surface List
    • 4.4.17 Surfaces: Curve Segment List
    • 4.4.18 Surfaces: Scalar Lists
    • 4.4.19 Surfaces: Curve Point Lists
    • 4.4.20 Surfaces: Basis Lists
    • 4.4.21 Surfaces: Algebraic Lists
    • 4.4.22 Space Curves^2.1
    • 4.4.23 Books and Pages
    • 4.4.24 Subdivision Surfaces
    • 4.4.25 Materials
    • 4.4.26 Rendering Options
    • 4.4.27 Images
    • 4.4.28 Strings
    • 4.4.29 Tag Lists
• 5. Usage and Command Line Options
  • 5.1 Command Line Options
  • 5.2 Startup File
  • 5.3 Stack Size
• 6. Upgrading from mental ray 1.9 to 2.x
  • 6.1 Rendering Algorithms
  • 6.2 Scene Description Language
  • 6.3 Shader Writing
• 7. Scene File Grammar
• Bibliography

Copyright Information

mental images Gesellschaft für Computerfilm und Maschinenintelligenz mbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

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The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. Neither mental images GmbH & Co. KG nor its employees shall be responsible for incidental or consequential damages resulting from the use of this material or liable for technical or editorial omissions made herein.

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