Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 19, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Following the last showcase at CES 2019, nothing now stands in the way of the beta release: Autodesk has presented Arnold 5.3 together with the long-awaited GPU rendering system. The update will be available on March 20, 2019 as a public beta version.
Arnold 5.3 with GPU Rendering
With Arnold GPU rendering, individual users and small studios in particular are supposed to be able to iterate faster and scale rendering capacity in order to realize their respective projects. Within the standard Arnold user interface, you can switch between rendering on CPU and GPU with one click. According to Autodesk, Arnold GPU currently supports features such as
- Subsurface Scattering
- Arbitrary Shading Networks
- Hair
- Atmospheres
- Instances and Porcedurals.
It will also be available in all supported plug-ins for Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Houdini, Cinema 4D and Katana. (Even if the overlays in the demo video were exaggerated a little, you can at least already get an impression.) As soon as the manual and public beta are released, we will take a closer look at the supported features and give you an update here. Arnold GPU mode is based on the NVIDIA OptiX framework and is therefore optimized for the use of NVIDIA RTX technology. Arnold
Further New Freatures
Alongside the GPU rendering option, the 5.3 update includes further new features, including…
- Adaptive Sampling quality and performance improvement
- Standard Surface shader receives more control options
- Randomwalk SSS improvements for more realistc shadig
- MaterialX standard – receives expanded support.
Prices and Requirements
Arnold 5.3 will be available in public beta on March 20, 2019. The standalone renderer is available for Windows 7+, CentOS 6+ Linux and Mac OS X 10.8+. The software is available only by subscription starting at USD 65/month or USD 615/year.
