Holomatix today announced immediate availability of SprayTrace for Maya on Windows OS – a configuration free, add-on tool providing real-time preview for the hugely popular Maya MentalRay offline renderer. With just a single button press, SprayTrace provides users with the much-needed real-time functionality to make MentalRay an interactive experience: it provides users with the ability to make informed decisions throughout the materials, texturing and lighting process.

“SprayTrace is a must for all mental ray lighting/look dev artists,” according to Richard Levene, post artist at Recom Farmhouse, “It is what IPR in Maya should be and delivers extremely fast and most importantly stable interactive feedback to tune your scene lighting and materials.”

SprayTrace has no learning curve; users already know how to use it! After installing the SprayTrace plug-in, they simply open a MentalRay scene and click the SprayTrace icon – that’s all there is to do! SprayTrace is now connected to the Maya session with any changes updating in the SprayTrace preview window immediately. The SprayTrace window is entirely faithful to the final MentalRay render but at preview quality.

Incredibly, SprayTrace has no special graphics card requirements, instead utilising CPU power to deliver its real-time preview window. Therefore, even modest 3D workstations will enjoy great performance. The only other requirements are Windows 64-bit and Autodesk Maya (versions 8.5, 2008 to 2012 supported).

“SprayTrace allows me to stop guessing how my MentalRay render will look because I can see how it will look in real time. I can tweak shaders and lighting from any angle whilst getting instant feedback. When I hit render I know the final result will look just right.” enthuses Brendan Mannion, owner of Polygon CGI, “I will be equipping all my MentalRay artists with this tool as it saves so much time.”

SprayTrace is smarter than other progressive renderers – when shaders are adjusted in Maya, only the pixels affected by that shader change are updated in SprayTrace. This makes it even faster. When a whole scene has been extensively developed in the SprayTrace preview window, a small change in the working space doesn’t necessitate the whole render starting again. This is a unique and innovative feature of SprayTrace, previously unseen in progressive renderers.

“SprayTrace speeds up production significantly. It’s a great innovation and good news for all CGI artists working with MentalRay for Maya on tight deadlines,” says Karsten Knüppel, 3D artist at Albert Bauer Studios.

The vast majority of the MentalRay render engine features are supported by SprayTrace, but not all of them. SprayTrace provides real-time preview of Final Gathering, but does not support Global Illumination in version 1.0. If users find certain shader combinations are not supported – Holomatix will endeavor to add support for them in future updates. Additionally SprayTrace has full support for Polygons and Nurbs, but sub-divisional surfaces are not yet fully supported.

Pricing and Availability
SprayTrace is available immediately for £199 plus VAT. Purchase online at the SprayTrace secure web shop: www.spraytrace.com.

About Holomatix Ltd

Holomatix Ltd is an authorized Autodesk developer that released Rendition, the progressive renderer in 2006 to provide real-time feedback functionality to Maya artists. SprayTrace is the evolution of this pioneering product, concentrating on ‘preview rendering’ for MentalRay.