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Hello everyone! I was wondering if anybody was excited about Arnold Render finally being available to freelancers for purchase (single seats can now be bought for $1300).

If you are excited about it, why?

I thought you have to buy 5 licenses? Did that suddenly change? It's pretty cool that you have a plugin for Lightwave...as it seems most other 3rd party renderers avoid it. I know it's a smaller/less heard of name, but I am really liking Thea Render. They have a plugin for 3ds Max, among others, and I tested the demo version....really sweet. GPU accelerated Production renderer as well as the Interactive Render mode...live SSS, atmospherics, particles...Also getting on board the beta testing group for finalRender R4 GPU. Pretty excited about that.

 

I know Arnold has the Sony Imageworks pedigree and all, but finalRender has been used heavily on a lot of blockbusters as well (2012, Alice in Wonderland, etc.). I like Arnold, but with CPU development stagnating over the past 3yrs or so, I'm all in on GPU rendering...it's already here, in a big way, and I'm done trying to keep around extra render machines. I'll keep one, but CPU rendering is so inefficient no-a-days. GPU renderers can typically render the same frame/settings in a fraction of the time.

 

Ain't buying anymore hype, regarding VRay and Arnold...not until their production rendering engines use the GPU.

Edited by AbnRanger
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For permanent license sales there is a minimum order of 5. We will soon lift this restriction.

 

For blockbuster productions.... GPU render bottleneck is limited memory size.

 

is there any nvidia graphic board with 96GB RAM ?

 

and link boards using SLI is expensive...

 

Arnold CPU render is REALLY very fast and accurate. Thats is why is a hit.

 

Just watch the gallery

https://www.solidangle.com/gallery/

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The renders look great! The only drawback is price. But its not targetted at small studios and freelancers anyway so its ok.

I haven't used any other gpu renderers besides octane and vray and imho its still a few years away. And I also don't want to invest in an expensive multi gpu tower that if it breaks, I lose all my render nodes.

A cpu based render node is cheap and easy to replace and I don't worry about breaking one it doesn't affect the others.

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For permanent license sales there is a minimum order of 5. We will soon lift this restriction.

 

For blockbuster productions.... GPU render bottleneck is limited memory size.

 

is there any nvidia graphic board with 96GB RAM ?

 

and link boards using SLI is expensive...

 

Arnold CPU render is REALLY very fast and accurate. Thats is why is a hit.

 

Just watch the gallery

https://www.solidangle.com/gallery/

When do you need to use 96GB to render something, Carlos? We aren't talking about it's application in big budget films. They got renderfarms that are the size of a small warehouse. You got one of those? Most GPU's now have 4-6GBs and CUDA 6 has UNIFIED MEMORY...where is addresses the system RAM and GPU ram as if it's one.

 

VRay has just as impressive gallery, if not better...and it's Interactive rendering mode is GPU accelerated. Like I said, a lot of people get caught up in what big budget projects a renderer was used on...I like Thea and finalRender, myself.

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ahhhh, i see... sorry

i was talking about big budget films taking in consideration this :
--------------------------
Arnold can optimize so well as it is focused on just one task: great images for movies.

The Arnold team is not trying to produce a general purpose renderer that covers a wide range of uses and industrial applications, like RenderMan it is firmly developed with a very targeted user base in mind.
There are other ray tracing products but they often seek to be used in automotive design, industrial and architectural design.
Not so Arnold.

“Thanks to that efficient system you can actually use the system. For many years we have been led to believe that you would not be able to use ray tracing in production, and that is just a legacy, from when the software was not ready,” says Fajardo.
Solid Angle have worked hard to make Arnold production ready so it can be used in production on a daily and exclusive basis. “It is paying off finally, it has been a lot of work but it is paying off.”

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-art-of-rendering/

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Oops I didn't see the requirement to buy five licenses at the bottom of the pricing page! Thanks for pointing that out guys!

 

Also thanks for the other information. There are so many rendering options out there...it's hard to make a choice...but I think I'm going with Vray for now. Seems to be best for me at the moment.

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Oops I didn't see the requirement to buy five licenses at the bottom of the pricing page! Thanks for pointing that out guys!

 

Also thanks for the other information. There are so many rendering options out there...it's hard to make a choice...but I think I'm going with Vray for now. Seems to be best for me at the moment.

1600usd per license. You need one for every rendernode afaik.

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Oops I didn't see the requirement to buy five licenses at the bottom of the pricing page! Thanks for pointing that out guys!

 

Also thanks for the other information. There are so many rendering options out there...it's hard to make a choice...but I think I'm going with Vray for now. Seems to be best for me at the moment.

I've been thinking hard about upgrading to VRay 3, when it comes out, but I've always been a bit partial to finalRender. When it comes to render out an animation, it's by far the fastest I've seen. I can usually set up scene with Vray mats, Vray Camera, and tweak the render settings as best I can, and use a nice script from ScriptSpot.com to convert most of the scene to finalRender mats, cameras and such. FR usually spanks VRay badly in raw speed. But VRay's RT module...although it's limited in the type of materials it can render...is rock solid and pretty darn fast. So, I find it's much easier/quicker to set up a scene to get the right look.

 

Hopefully finalRender R4 GPU will change that. But what I do like about Vray 3 Beta features, is the progressive rendering mode. It appears to be an attempt to merge the RT module with the Production renderer. It's not GPU accelerated, though, and thus isn't anywhere near as fast to iterate as Thea. Lot's of good options, though. And that's always a good thing.

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1600usd per license. You need one for every rendernode afaik.

That's hundreds more than a seat of Lightwave, and a bit more than a seat of Modo. Both with nearly unlimited Render nodes. Uhhhh....no. Not for me. :)  Actually, VRay used to offer unlimited render nodes in 3ds Max, until recently. I think a single license gets you one render node, but anything above that and you got's ta pay da man.

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vray is now 20 nodes per license. Still not a bad deal since most small studios really can only afford less than 20 computers for rendering.

So arnold has to compete with that cost.

Edited by geo_n
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vray is now 20 nodes per license. Still not a bad deal since most small studios really can only afford less than 20 computers for rendering.

So arnold has to compete with that cost.

That's 2...not 20...nodes. This comes straight from their own website:

http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/vray3_beta.html#tab3

 

Please note:

Users who purchased a new V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max commercial license between 4 August 2013 and the date of the V-Ray 3.0 for 3ds Max official release will be eligible for a free upgrade. They will receive 1 V-Ray 3.0 Workstation license and 2 Render Node licenses.

 

Edited by AbnRanger
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I like Arnold a lot. It is bullet proofed for bigger projects. A safe render system is something you should siriously think about if you plan to buy a renderer.

But: Before doing this, I would always look for a render farm service. I am using http://www.rebusfarm.net/ and very pleased with them.

An example: I had an full hd animation that needed 30 hours for all frames at my personal quad workstation. I used the render farm instead and the images were ready after 15 minutes... no joke. And it had cost me about 80 Dollars. Better than buying any render engine if you ask me. I used mental ray for the render service at that time.

 

Personally I am currently experimenting with the Guerilla Renderer: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15432

It is free for one workstation and seems to be very nice.

 

Best wishes

Chris

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Abn thats vray 3. We're on vray 2 and doubt we're upgrading.

I was just saying that, as of a few months ago, Chaos Group decided to stop the unlimited nodes (using Autodesk's BackBurner), and go with a much more restricted model. Not sure if that applied to all licenses now sold, after that date, or what. But it's one major reason why I'm not planning on upgrading, either.

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I think people still have 2 months to buy into vray 2.0  before chaos finishes vray 3.0 beta wherein all licenses are then version 3.0.

We were actually thinking of going back to lightwave for rendering and I did some tests sending files by fbx but its just too much work even with the pointcache options. Anyway back  to Arnold comparing prices, its just out of the budget but no doubt it produces quality renders and production proven. As a unbiased renderer it seems to be faster than other unbiased renderers. So would be great to have a test between gpu unbiased renderer like octane and cpu unbiased arnold.

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