mental images Introduces mental mill Rendering and Visualization Software

By DE Editors

mental images’ mental mill is available in two editions. The Standard Edition is a visual development environment that includes debugging capabilities, shader authoring features, exporters to DCC and CAD software, and instant mental ray preview rendering. The Artist Edition is a subset of the mental mill toolset that comes bundled with Autodesk 3ds Max 2010.

With the Artist Edition, users can assemble complex shader graphs from the provided library of shaders, tweak the parameters, and save them as files that 3ds Max reads natively. In 3ds Max, users can then assign the shaders to 3D objects, continue to tweak the parameters in context with other shaders and lighting, and fine-tune the look of the final renderings.

In addition to the tasks that can be performed in the Artist Edition, with Standard Edition users can write and edit shader code, as well as visually debug shaders by interactive, visual inspection of graphical representations of the variables while stepping through the code. Also, users can export shaders for use in targeted software applications including Autodesk’s 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Dassault Systemes’ CATIA, and NVIDIA’s FX Composer. With the included mental ray preview plug-in, it is easy to see the rendering results of a shader with mental ray’s photorealistic ray tracer.

For more information, visit mental images.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.