Overview Arnold software is an advanced Monte Carlo ray tracing renderer that helps you deliver beautiful and predictable results. Navigate through the software with simple and intuitive controls. Produce professional-grade renders with full artistic control. Get immediate results with interactive rendering. Why use Arnold: Manage complex projects - Arnold thrives on heavy data sets and handles complex work with ease. Render high-quality 3D images - Deliver stunning photoreal or stylized results in fewer clicks. Get a robust set of tools - Save time with powerful shaders, operators, textures, and utilities. Highlights Manage complex projects with production-ready tools Switch seamlessly between CPU and GPU rendering to suit your production needs for characters, scenery, and lighting, and get optimized performance when rendering elements such as hair, fur, and skin. Integrate and customize your pipeline Easily integrate Arnold with all the top 3D digital content creation tools, get the scalability and customization of an open and extensible architecture, and create custom shaders. What's New Flexible and extensible API - Integrate Arnold into external applications and create custom shaders, cameras, light filters, and output drivers. Universal Scene Description (USD) support - Maximize the power of USD with Arnold in production scenarios. Imagers - Use Bloom, Light Mixer, Noice, and OptiX denoiser imagers to control lighting effects and automatically denoise after each render. Stand-alone command-line renderer - Arnold has a native scene description format stored in human-readable text files. Easily edit, read, and write these files via the C/Python API. Standard Surface shader - Produce a wide range of materials and looks with this energy-saving, physically based uber shader. Standard Hair shader - Render hair and fur with this physically based shader, based on the d'Eon and Zinke models for specular and diffuse shading. Alembic procedural - Render Alembic files directly without any translation with a native procedural. Profiling API and structured statistics - Identify performance issues and optimize rendering processes more easily with an extensive set of tools. Material assignments and overrides - With operators, override any part of a scene at render time and enable support for open standard frameworks such as MaterialX. Built-in Cryptomatte - Create ID mattes automatically with support for motion blur, transparency, and depth of field. Integrated OpenColorIO v2 - Take advantage of OpenColorIO v2 for state-of-the-art color management. Features From furry creatures to wondrous landscapes, the robust Arnold toolset helps artists render professional-grade 3D characters and complex scenes with ease. Arnold GPUArnold GPU allows users to switch seamlessly between CPU and GPU rendering. Subsurface scatterHigh-performance ray traced subsurface scattering eliminates the need to tune point clouds. Hair and furMemory-efficient ray traced curve primitives help you create complex fur and hair renders. Motion blur3D motion blur interacts with shadows, volumes, indirect lighting, reflection, or refraction. Deformation motion blur and rotational motion are also supported. VolumesThe volumetric rendering system in Arnold can render effects such as smoke, clouds, fog, pyroclastic flow, and fire. InstancesArnold can more efficiently ray trace instances of many scene objects with transformation and material overrides. Subdivision and displacementArnold supports Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces. OSL supportArnold now features support for Open Shading Language (OSL), an advanced shading language for Global Illumination renderers. Light Path ExpressionsLPEs give you power and flexibility to create Arbitrary Output Variables to help meet the needs of production. Adaptive samplingAdaptive sampling gives users another means of tuning images, allowing them to reduce render times without jeopardizing final image quality. Toon shaderAn advanced Toon shader is part of a non-photorealistic solution provided in combination with the Contour Filter. DenoisingTwo denoising solutions in Arnold offer flexibility by letting designers use much lower-quality sampling settings. Flexible and extensible APIIntegrate Arnold in external applications and create custom shaders, cameras, light filters, and output drivers. Stand-alone command-line rendererArnold has a native scene description format stored in human-readable text files. Easily edit, read, and write these files via the C/Python API. Standard Surface shaderThis energy-saving, physically based uber shader helps produce a wide range of materials and looks. Standard Hair shaderThis physically based shader is built to render hair and fur, based on the d'Eon and Zinke models for specular and diffuse shading. Alembic proceduralA native Alembic procedural lets users render Alembic files directly without any translation. Profiling API and structured statisticsAn extensive set of tools lets users more easily identify performance issues and optimize rendering processes. Material assignments and overridesOperators make it possible to override any part of a scene at render time and enable support for open standard frameworks such as MaterialX. Built-in CryptomatteCreate ID mattes automatically with support for motion blur, transparency, and depth of field.
