mental ray 3.9 released
mental images has released version 3.9 of the mental ray renderer, adding native particle rendering, improved hair rendering and motion blur.
The iray interactive preview renderer has also been updated to version 1.2, apparently improving performance – although no figure has been put on the speed boost.
According to Autodesk, its upcoming 2012 product line is built around the mntal ray 3.9 core, so some if not all of these features should be accessible within the new versions of 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage on their release.
More details when we have them.