Hi guys!
May be it is off topic or silly question, i want to know some about history of mantra render and why this render is named mantra? I tried, but unable to find.
Thanks!

I'm unfamiliar with the full history, but Mark Elendt of Side Effects is credited as Mantra's chief architect. He apparently began developing a raytracer for the Amiga 1000 as a hobby project in the 80s.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/side-effects-software-25-years-on/ [fxguide.com]

http://library.creativecow.net/kaufman_debra/SciTech_Award_Mantra/1 [library.creativecow.net]

in 1988 a guy in a big wool sweater showed up at the Side Effects office, ‘sheepishly’ looking for a job. That person was Mark Elendt, who at the time was working for an insurance company. The insurance company part didn’t really impress Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic, but what they did notice were some photographs Elendt showed taken from an Amiga 1000 screen (with 512kb RAM). It displayed renders of a typical late 80′s ray-traced sphere. “He had written a ray-tracer as a hobby,” says Van Zutphen. “This was the prototype of Mantra, which is Houdini’s native renderer.”

Thank you for information! But why this render called mantra? Is this the specific of work or it is just for fun?

He told me once but I can't remember (Mark, care to chime in? ). Back in the Prisms days all of the components had esoteric names.

Thank you too. I like to communicate with you guys! If somebody know more, i woud like to know! Sorry for bad english! I sought that this name render enigine get because specific of work - reapiting the same code - thats why named so.
P.S. I am not programmer.

Will the successor to Mantra called Sunyata? With it's never ending goal of “zero” variance.

Nice idea Funny!