![vray cost vray cost](https://i1.wp.com/odederell3d.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/annotation-2020-07-25-214427.jpg)
IMHO Mental Ray has simply become a basket of patches on patches and is still the major PITA render engine I've had to suffer with over the years. Professionally I've had Vray and I'm staying with Vray.
#Vray cost software
Arnold is free as is your software and knowing school budgets, free is good. If you get Vray for your school you will need to buy it. Not everything renders correctly so I have redone my lessons and only have my students work with Arnold standard materials.
![vray cost vray cost](https://docs.chaos.com/download/attachments/60896757/Maya_VRay33_SampleRate_Max8_Noise01_mshading_6_RTime_1h26m5s_v01.sampleRate.sampleRate.png)
Arnold only "kinda" works with these materials.
![vray cost vray cost](https://www.sketchup.com/sites/www.sketchup.com/files/molecule_image/SU2021-StudioLaunch-WebImagery-VRay-S4-3DContent.jpg)
Second, and this fooled me, is MR works fine with all of the standard Maya base materials, lambert, blinn, phong, phong-e. I stress using EV and leave intensity at 1 and it is much easier. It's a little difficult to adjust to as if you insist on using Intensity you have to end up using very large values, like over 100,000 to start to get any meaningful lite in your scene. My students, initially, had issues because they want to work with Intensity instead of the EV settings for light intensity. Arnold does not work with default lights so if there are no lights in your scene all you get is black. There are a few things you need to learn with Arnold that are different. For instruction purpose a watermark either way is not a killer although it is annoying. It is SO much easier to get materials and lighting dialed in with Arnold's progressive render and you can get renders on animation without watermarks if you want you simply need to render with Maya open that is all.
#Vray cost professional
I teach a beginning and intermediate Maya class at a local community college and while i'm not using Arnold for my personal professional work, I find it to be grate for instructional purposes. You should only have watermarks if you are batch rendering. Best is to get them adaptable enough so they don't fold the moment they encounter something not explicitly covered in class. Right out of school it's not likely they'll be expected to fully configure a rendering set-up - businesses will have a pipeline and technical experts for that, and standard practices to follow. Teach everything, maybe only one or two commercially popular ones in depth, but ensure students know what is out there. On the off chance they are doing the contractor/self-employed thing the cost of licensing should be covered in their operating budget. I wouldn't worry too much about "what students can afford after they graduate" most likely their employer will be covering all hardware and software. Many students won't have anything beyond a laptop so they shouldn't be expected to do their own rendering beyond a few basics, anything beyond that should be done on school-provided and licensed hardware (just like a business). There may be institutional licenses (as opposed to per-student) available without a watermark. The watermarks should be irrelevant in an educational context. Will we be able to properly render things using the new MASH, bifrost and the motion graphics tools in Maya 2017 if we use Vray, or do we have to use Arnold to get the most out of the new tools. is it worth the extra cost to use Arnold without watermarks, or should I use Vray for less. Mental Ray is not out of the question, but since we're in a position to change rendering software, I wanted to give thought to something new. I'm also considering Vray due to the seemingly high demand for Vray knowledge in the industry, the fact that it works well with Maya and 3Ds Max, and its considerably lower price tag. I would like to find something that the students can afford after the graduate. There is an educational license, but I have yet to call and ask how much that is.
#Vray cost license
I looked up the licensing for Arnold, and for the students to render without watermarks requires a license that costs $1,220. I would like to teach Arnold, but, so far everything that is rendered using Arnold has water marks. Now that we're upgrading to Maya 2017, I'm trying to figure out what rendering software to teach next semester since Mental Ray is no longer packaged with Maya 2017. We have always used, and continue to use Maya, and we've been teaching Mental Ray rendering since it came with Maya.
![vray cost vray cost](https://uploads.toolfarm.com/app/uploads/2020/04/09124845/v-raynext_3dsmax_intro_tut.jpg)
Maya Arnold Batch Render Animation Problem Issue 1.Maya Arnold Batch Render Animation Issue 2.
#Vray cost driver
Arnold Rendering Issue - Output driver 1 for AOV "RGBA" is null 2.