Interesting news about Mental Images

[ActionArt]

http://blogs.nvidia.com/2011/05/nvidia- ... e-efforts/

We can hope this will speed up MR development.

[ActionArt]

There's also a new Iray site:

http://irayrender.com/

[Nizar]

Hope XSI will benefit about.

[Chris_TC]

"mental images had operated independently since its acquisition by NVIDIA to ensure continuity for its key customers."

This is great news. It seems that Nvidia is actually taking the reins now, which means we might finally see some real progress.

[McNistor]

Why should nVidia do any different than Mental Images? They have a client - Autodesk - and AD has you. Marketing department is celebrating.

[Chris_TC]

Because the mentality of Nvidia (no pun intended) is a bit different. Instead of twiddling thumbs, they are actively advancing computer graphics all the time, browse http://research.nvidia.com

[Hirazi Blue]

Having an active research & development department doesn't necessarily mean
they'll do the "right" thing (where it's debatable what "right" in this case means).
The focus on iRay, for instance, doesn't have to mean a necessary further development for MRay.
Nvidia's core business has never been software renderers...
The official stance seems clear: everything is good, the future is bright
(from the Mailinglist: post 1 & post 2)
but the official stance hardly ever tells you otherwise... ;)

[ActionArt]

I think it's the best thing that could have happened to mental images. Nvidia has always been a hard core developer and knows how to move things forward. MR was going nowhere as it was so how much worse could it get? Now there's a chance and also Iray will get much more development as well which I think is a good thing.

[origin]

This is pretty weird. They fired 30 people, they claim this wont stop development, so how many people were actually developing mray? (Brazil renderer which was probably most stable renderer EVER was made by 2 people

[Chris_TC]

The focus on iRay, for instance, doesn't have to mean a necessary further development for MRay.

There's no doubt that iRay will be a big focus. But even if this were the only area in which we see development (and it certainly won't be) we would have already gained something.

This is pretty weird. They fired 30 people, they claim this wont stop development

They said that mental ray was staffed up. From the list:
There have been staff reductions, but most were due to overlapping disciplines and some priority shifts. At the same time, teams on core technologies like mental ray, iray and cloud rendering have staffed-up by a fair bit.

[ActionArt]

This was on the mailing list. Sounds very interesting! MI is waking up

Guys, I am going to underscore what Bart said to Matthieu. This is most of
> the story. Mental Images becomes Nvidia ARC and
> combines with the OptiX team. In fact Steve Parker from OptiXis now managing
> all of development at ARC and Phil Miller is managing the business side.Most
> of the people who were let go (and BTW many of them will take other
> positions at Nvidia) were working
> on projects that were "diluting the MI brand" a bit. The core business of
> ARC was and is rendering.
> As you know, some products are being discontinued.The efforts are being
> renewed on Mental Ray 3. There is now 3.9, 3.10 [ten] is
> scheduled for release and there is 3.11 and 3.12 on deck. I know, the
> numbering is a bit silly . . .
>
> Yup! In Mental Ray 3.10 expect to see more GPU acceleration.Expect to see
> more features and improvements in iray, too.
>
> Mental Ray is not the only rendering product ARC has.For instance, Neuray
> has been released in Bunkspeed. Neuray is actually
> not a renderer, it is a framework that can support multiple renderers like
> iray, OptiX renders, CG, DX, OGL, or any other compliant
> renderer you can build. So, actually, there are two iray versions: one
> called by Mental Ray and one as a renderer for Neuray.
>
> One new renderer being developed at ARC in Berlin [MI] we are calling
> "Wonderay" is like iray on steroids. Not at liberty
> to say much about it right now, but it is truly a game changer. It is beyond
> anything I ever imagined.
>
> The Mental Ray future is very , very bright.
> 8-)
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
>
>
>
>
> Peter de Lappe
> PM Nvidia ARC
>

Moderator edit - Placed the quotation within quote tags - HB

[Hirazi Blue]

The official stance seems clear: everything is good, the future is bright
(from the Mailinglist: post 1 & post 2)
but the official stance hardly ever tells you otherwise... ;)

@ActionArt - You could have looked under the "post2" link...

[ActionArt]

Doh! Haven't had enough coffee yet.