Render with final gather

Final gather is very flexible and many different factors can contribute to its effect. You’ll need to experiment with settings to achieve the look you want.

Tip: Final Gather is view dependent and is recalculated for each frame in a sequence.

If you are not adjusting the camera position, the position of any objects, or any Final Gather attributes, you can store and reuse Final Gather illumination results to speed up rendering.

See Store and reuse Final Gather results.

To render with Final Gather

  1. First, turn off Maya default lights (see Turn default lighting on or off) and, if you have any light sources in the scene, turn off their Illuminates by Default attribute. See Area Light options for more information.
  2. Select the Rendering menu set.
  3. Open the Render Settings window.

    Select Windows > Rendering Editors > Render Settings or click the Render Settings window icon.

  4. Select the mental ray for Maya render.
  5. Click the Quality tab.
  6. From the Quality Preset drop-down list, select Preview: FinalGather.

    Final Gathering (in the Rendering Features section of the Features tab) is automatically enabled.

  7. Change any of the following optional settings, which can have an effect:
    • The camera background color.
    • The object’s material’s colored Incandescence or Ambient color attributes.
    • Irradiance contributions from shaders.
    • Irradiance color mapping contributions from shaders.
    • The number and location of lights in the scene.
  8. Render with the default settings.

    If the default settings are not sufficient to achieve the look you want (or to reduce render speed), tweak the Final Gather settings until you achieve the look you want. See Final Gathering for more information.

    Tip:

    If your scene contains caustics, global illumination or final gather, and you would like to see those effect during mental ray IPR, in Render View select IPR > IPR > Render Settings.

Related topics

Parent topic: Final gather