Maxwell Vs. Mental ray

# 1 22-07-2008 , 10:04 PM

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hey everyone, I just decided to do some simple tests comparing the render times of maxwell and mental ray. Turns out maxwell is faster for alot of things, (its like turning every one of mental rays settings to full, which I didn't even want to try)
This was my first test, and I will post some others soon.
In this example, mental ray took more than twice as long. That doesn't really go along with most peoples conceptions of maxwell, does it?
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# 2 23-07-2008 , 12:15 AM

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another. Mental ray has GI and caustics enabled, FG, and other stuff. the only lighting is an HDR.
again, it took more than twice as long. user added image

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# 3 23-07-2008 , 12:30 AM

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damn, i gotta gets me some maxwell!

whats your pc specs?

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# 4 23-07-2008 , 12:42 AM

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not that good, haha.
a gig of memory, and a dual core 4200+ processor.
It cost like 650 bucks, so its not exactly top of the line user added image

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# 5 23-07-2008 , 01:48 AM

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The results produced from the two renderers look different, which means that it isn't a proper comparison becuase they are not doing the same thing. One of them has to be taking shortcuts somewhere, but since I rarely dabble in rendering, I don't know which one is more realistic. Which ever one is more realistic should be the winner here, not the one that is fastest.

Its like comparing a two-year-old kid drawing a tree to a trained artist drawing a tree. They are both recreating a tree, but the kid is faster than the artist because he draws a line for the trunk and a circle for the leaves up the top, unlike the artist, who is painting every little detail... user added image

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# 6 23-07-2008 , 02:00 AM

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They look different because each renderer has a different process that it goes about for the render. the HDR for example comes out at a different angle. I am just trying to show that maxwell isn't NEARLY as slow as everyone says.
Mental ray was at some pretty high settings, when Maxwell had its default settings (it does everything real light does)

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Last edited by Joopson; 23-07-2008 at 02:10 AM.

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# 7 23-07-2008 , 02:10 AM

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To the best of my understanding, you can have two algorithms (I assume that is what you mean by "process"?) that produce the same result, with the only difference(s) being the amount of resources it needs (for example, RAM) and the time it takes.

Anyways, since you don't seem to be testing for which one is faster on the exact same task (identical scene/setup, identical/close-as-possible quality) , I guess my point doesn't really matter... user added image

C. P. U. Its not a big processor... Its a series of pipes!

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# 8 23-07-2008 , 02:46 AM

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I am using the same scene set-up, the same lighting, everything is the same except for the renderer. The mental ray ones use as high a setting as I could before it became ridiculous, and maxwell used its default settings, which follow the exact properties of light. So maxwell is always at maximum settings. What I am trying to show is that, for the quality and time, maxwell is faster than mental ray.

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# 9 23-07-2008 , 03:29 AM

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I'm trying to find more technical info into this "Maxwell" renderer before I say anything else...

C. P. U. Its not a big processor... Its a series of pipes!

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# 10 23-07-2008 , 03:44 AM

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Amusingly I can't find anything detailed (maybe I'm not looking hard enough), but it seems that Maxwell uses a raytracing algorithm called "Metropolis light transport" which basically does some basic raytracing and then determines which bits are visible before doing a more detailed raytracing of the visible bits.

I couldn't find much on mental ray as well, although it is a raytracer like Maxwell, but uses a scanline method to determine visible bits (which is better I have yet to find out) but it seems that mental ray is targeted towards massive multiprocessor systems, so your dual core box might not fall into that category, which could explain the performance hit.

C. P. U. Its not a big processor... Its a series of pipes!

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# 11 23-07-2008 , 04:16 AM

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Quite interesting that Joopson.

What are the setting that you used with MR?

edit - Just saw the specs that you had.

I think that the large MR times might be that you have everything on, which you dont really need. I think that MR would be faster when the render's optimised, also what happens when the geo's upped to have more materials etc? That would be good to see.

As I said it would be interesting to see what results you get further down the line.

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Last edited by gster123; 23-07-2008 at 07:47 AM.

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# 12 23-07-2008 , 08:06 AM

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The thing is, those Maxwell renders aren't finished and still are noisy… I'd like to see how long it takes for Maxwell to get to the SL where there's no noise, then compare it to mr.
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# 13 23-07-2008 , 08:31 AM

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i dont think these are real "tests"

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# 14 23-07-2008 , 09:17 AM

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My thoughts are summed up by what gster123, Jr.Who, vladimirjp just said. I'd like to see the difference in a more practical scene. Just arbitrarily cranking up the MR settings is just asking for it lol :p .

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# 15 23-07-2008 , 11:01 AM

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Originally posted by gster123
MR times might be that you have everything on, which you dont really need.

Originally Posted by

That is kind-of the point. I did this because maxwell ALWAYS has max settings on, so Im trying to get an equal quality render.

And yes, the second test is a little noisy, but 2 more minutes would have solved that.

one reason why the scenes don't seen the same is because they have different things as lights. In mental ray, I used area lights, but maxwell needs a polygon plane, and it cant use Mayas built in lighting system. I did try to get it as close as possible, though.
Also, did I mention that I was using photoshop while rendering with maxwell? I wasn't able to with mental ray though.
Also, what kind of scene would you suggest for the test?

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Last edited by Joopson; 23-07-2008 at 01:28 PM.

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