Mental Ray and Iray renderers missing in 3ds Max 2017

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023

Products and versions covered

Issue:

Upon installing 3ds Max 2017, the Mental Ray and Iray render engines are no longer listed in the drop-down under Render Setup > Renderer.

Alternatively, when launching a new session in 3ds Max (including 3ds Max Templates), or sending a job to Backburner via 3ds Max, an error may be received stating an that an mr, mentalray or NVIDIA DLL is missing. (Shown below.)

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Causes:

Mental Ray and Iray are no longer built-in renderers. In 3ds Max 2017, these render engines are plugins that must be checked as an option upon installation.

In addition, should these plug-ins be installed for one copy of 3ds Max but not for another located within the same network render farm, Backburner will fail and the job will not render.

Solution:

If you would like to install the Mental Ray and Iray plugins, NVIDIA’s Mental Ray and Iray can be checked upon initial installation. By default it should already be checked.

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Products:

3ds Max; 3ds Max Design; mental ray Standalone;

Versions:

2017;

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