Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, 2nd Edition

5.4 mr Shader Element

The mr Shader Element shader gathers rendered elements and outputs them as files for use in 3ds Max or other software. Remember that a shader is a building block in the mental ray process that can have input and output. In this case the input comes from the mental ray renderer, and the output will be an image file. This shader can be useful for saving shadow information, reflections, or diffuse color to individual files for postprocessing.

5.4.1 Ambient Occlusion shader element

In this section you will open the scene from Chapter 4 where you used ambient occlusion to add contrast to a brightly lit pavilion. You’ll then use the mr Shader Element to capture the ambient occlusion information and save it as a separate image ...