The structure of the scene

Abstract

How do we describe the scene to be rendered in a manner that mental ray can understand? Notice that even in asking this question we’re already engaged in a metaphor—mental ray doesn’t understand anything; there is input and the program produces output. But to simplify our creation of the input, it would be better if it related to our own intentions behind the picture, not to the pattern of bits that will be read (another metaphor) by mental ray.