Arnold vs Vray?

[Steve Davy]

So having spent the last couple of years switching from MR to Vray, I now see Autodesk is making Arnold its default renderer for Maya.

Anyone have experience using this render engine? What are the pros and cons compared with Vray? Is it worth making the switch and what's the learning curve like?

[Steve Davy]

Hmm, interestingly after posting this I remembered starting the same thread in 2013 when wanting to switch from MR. The general consensus back then seemed to be: Arnold great for physically accurate raytracing but requiring a large render farm and with few optimization features or support. Vray much better for optimization, smaller operations and with great support.

Is that still the general feeling?

If so, I'm wondering why Autodesk would opt to make Arnold the default renderer. If it's only useful for larger scenarios, where does that leave its freelance and boutique users?

---

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 9, 2016 2:13 PM
To: Maya Group
Subject: [maya_he3d] Arnold vs Vray?

 

So having spent the last couple of years switching from MR to Vray, I now see Autodesk is making Arnold its default renderer for Maya.

Anyone have experience using this render engine? What are the pros and cons compared with Vray? Is it worth making the switch and what's the learning curve like?

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[Christopher Stewart]

Continuing to use Mental Ray or other non-bundled third party renderer
(V-Ray, Renderman etc.) if that's what they are presently utilizing.

Bundling a single interactive-only license won't make anybody but the
smallest facility or freelance operation consider changing renderers
IMO.

Been through projects using Arnold, V-Ray, Renderman (REYES and RIS),
Clarisse and Mantra in the past couple of years. Strengths and
weaknesses vary but all are decent products. All reward an investment
in optimization.

Be looking again in October if anybody needs me to learn yet another
renderer :-).

--
----
Christopher Stewart
Vancouver, BC
3D TD Lightery Thingy | VFX IT

[matt estela]

I haven't used either in anger, but speaking to 3d folks who have,
they love and hate the respective renderers for exactly the same
reasons. Ie;

arnold fans:
it's so simple, no extra controls, developers work hard to make it
faster and simpler every release. vray is way too complex, too much
rope to hang yourself

vray fans:
love all the control, can cheat your way out of any situation. arnold
means you give up a lot of control, often find your staring at a
10hour/frame render, and there's nothing you can do but wait.




On 10 August 2016 at 09:07, Christopher Stewart

[Deke Kincaid]

Christopher: wait till you get to the gpu renderers, Redshift and Octane are all the rage now :)

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[Christopher Stewart]

It's all some series folks I know can talk about.

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[ryan harrington]

Redshift is easy to learn and super playable, makes lovely images and takes a tenth of the time to render (compared to my experience) of anything else.

It's the biggest force multipler I've ever seen and it's cheap.

I like it a lot more than Arnold.

[Steve Davy]

Hadn't heard of Redshift, playing with a demo now.

Seems somewhat similar to Vray in many ways -- including the same SSS presets! Is there some reason we all need a ketchup SSS preset, but not one for wax? :D

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From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of ryan harrington <ryanowenh...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2016 5:22 AM
To: maya_he3d

Subject: [maya_he3d] Arnold vs Vray?

Redshift is easy to learn and super playable, makes lovely images and takes a tenth of the time to render (compared to my experience) of anything else.

It's the biggest force multipler I've ever seen and it's cheap.

I like it a lot more than Arnold.

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[ryan harrington]

Redshift is very dependent on your gpu, a decent nvidia gaming card will turbo charge it. It's all about the cuda cores and the gpu ram. Quadro cards are functional. But they don't perform too well by comparison.

[Steve Davy]

Really? That's interesting, especially as I'm in the market for a new system at the moment and of course the video card is paramount. Quadros have been the gold standard for a while now, but are falling short with GPU renderers? Even the latest and greatest M6000?

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From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of ryan harrington <ryanowenh...@gmail.com>

Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 4:05 AM
To: maya_he3d
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Arnold vs Vray?

 

Redshift is very dependent on your gpu, a decent nvidia gaming card will turbo charge it. It's all about the cuda cores and the gpu ram. Quadro cards are functional. But they don't perform too well by comparison.

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[Nathan Shipley]

Yeah - the gaming cards are where it's at for GPU rendering.  

I've got a friend who just built a new workstation with 4 Nvidia GTX-980 Ti cards -- the gaming variety -- specifically for doing Octane renders.  It's insane how quickly he gets beautiful renders with full DOF and motion blur.  Look dev / lighting / texturing is basically interactive.

Anyone that I've worked with who uses Octane on a good workstation goes on and on about how great it is.

 - Nathan

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Really? That's interesting, especially as I'm in the market for a new system at the moment and of course the video card is paramount. Quadros have been the gold standard for a while now, but are falling short with GPU renderers? Even the latest and greatest M6000?

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From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of ryan harrington <ryanowenh...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 4:05 AM
To: maya_he3d
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Arnold vs Vray?

 

Redshift is very dependent on your gpu, a decent nvidia gaming card will turbo charge it. It's all about the cuda cores and the gpu ram. Quadro cards are functional. But they don't perform too well by comparison.

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[Sid]

Yep, I would also agree. I wouldn't bother with the Quadro cards unless you have a giant budget. The modern GTX gamer cards are fairly monstrous. 

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[Deke Kincaid]

Way more ram on Quados if you have lots of large textures.  As soon as you have to go "out of core" because of running out of texture memory then the speed falls off a cliff and you are essentially working at the same speed as Vray/Arnold.  Except render machine is more expensive per blade and takes up more space on a rack.

[ryan harrington]

I'd look for benchmarks for the new 1080 cards, they sound promising.

Away from my machine right now. Can't re, I think it's a gtx 980 with 4gig. It's been pretty robust.

I don't doubt it can be a problem but so far I've managed to get away with a moderately high texture count. redshift is pretty good at mip mapping (the first frame is slower as it's building localised mip maps).

I have maxed out with super heavy objects, nothing that couldn't be managed with a quick edit. You get good feedback about problem objects.

[ryan harrington]

[Jonathan Beals]

Along these lines, I've recently done a comparison using a cornel box & various scenarios among some popular render engines (Maxwell, Arnold, Renderman RIS, Vray, & Octane) that might be interesting for you al to look through. I chose the scene because of how deceivingly complex it can be to render clean due to the heavy reliance on in-directional rays. This comparison is not at all intended to be X is better than Y, but simply to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various render engines for myself. Another caveat is, it is difficult to determine "similar amounts of noise" so the render times should be taken as more of a generality than "this is the fastest this scene can render." I'm sure many of you can get faster render times. The final caveat is with Renderman. This was my first time really using it, and the render times are astronomical. I did everything I could to optimize the times as well as talk to renderman artists for tips, but I & they couldn't do anything (there are a limited number of settings to really mess up anyways). Maybe it was simply the cut I had + Windows 10. *shrugs shoulders*.

Notes on setup:

tried to visually match intensity of light by eye

material and color values were all the same 

-I did not try to match material looks per se, only the values. IE. what does .5 glossiness look like across the board.

turned off as many camera and other effects as possible to limit differences and to keep it simple

arnold doesn't have the area light visible because it can't render the shape, but it is set up correctly

everything was rendered in Maya 2016 (I did notice standalone versions rendered faster though)

no dispersion in renderman because they didn't have it in their shader

arnold was using alshaders for the glass, but the default ai standard for everything else

The most interesting nuggets I pulled out were:

1. How similar diffuse transport is between Maxwell, renderman & arnold. And how similar octane and vray are.

A. Conversely how different maxwell and octane are even though they are "unbiased"

2. Even using the same ggx brdf produced different looks between render engines

3. Unidirectional render engines suck at sharp metallic reflections, complex caustics, & dispersion (duh)

4. Everyone struggled with glass

Attached is the .pdf. Enjoy, and as always, any feedack or thoughts is appreciated. :)

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http://jdbeals.com/

[Nathan Shipley]

This comparison is great, Jonathan!  Thanks for sharing.

 - Nathan

[Ryan O'Phelan]

Can you share your test scene? I'd love to see redshift in that bunch. Especially the caustics. 

[SEQUENZ | Lars Gerstenmaier]

Thanks a lot, Jonathan. Great stuff. 

Amazing how slow Arnold and Renderman are, at least in this test. And we are complaining everyday about VRay’s speed ;-)

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<comparison.pdf>

[Jonathan Beals]

Here is a link to the scene:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByUZb47k7tz4LUhocnk3alR0MlE/view?usp=sharing

The dragon made the file 40MB which is why the link. If you want me to attach it to this email, I can delete the dragon and it'll be just a few KB. It's saved as an .ma file with lamberts on the walls with the correct diffuse color. Let me know if you would like any other format.

@Lars. haha, yea I had the same exact thought. I was blown away by how slow renderman was and tried everything. Again, it could be all user error, but still incredibly interesting nevertheless.

<comparison.pdf>

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[justin hidair]

Wow, Octane seems to be 'The' option for speed. Great PDF Thank you!

[Ryan O'Phelan]

I just thought I would give this a whirl with Redshift 2,0 on windows 10. I didn't optimize anything really. 

I'm running a GTX980ti, which should be slower than the Titan, as far as I know. Just matched the sampling noise levels. Even going super smooth (noise thresh = .001) it was about 25 seconds. 

This render was 19 seconds at 1280x1280, which should match your test, right? I'm pretty sure I could shave off a few seconds with some GI optimization.

On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 11:53 PM, justin hidair <justin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wow, Octane seems to be 'The' option for speed. Great PDF Thank you!

--

[Ryan O'Phelan]

Both of these dragons took 29 seconds. Again, just standard redshift gold preset, one with reflection "Roughness" turned up to match. Same settings as the diffuse render. Sorry, if these images are big. I just didn't want to post a lossy image.

[Ryan O'Phelan]

The caustics render took a little more work as it's implemented in Redshift. This render took 44 seconds, after some optimization. Ok, I'm done. Hope that was helpful Sorry for the large images. :(

Ryan

[ryan harrington]

Thanks for doing this Johnathan and Ryan!

[Jonathan Beals]

A few things I noticed... 

1. Holy cow that is fast!!! It is even more incredible because I gave you the wrong camera by mistake and I didn't render at 1280, but at 640!! So your times are actually even faster!! 

2. I am amazed at how similar in look Redshift is with Vray

3. Is Redshift able to do/fake dispersion in the caustic render?

4. Can you see what the times are for a 640X640 and can I use your renders in my .pdf?

You are amazing, thank you so much. I love seeing this comparison!

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 3:06 AM, ryan harrington <ryanowenh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for doing this Johnathan and Ryan!

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[Ryan O'Phelan]

Yes, Redshift does dispersion. It looks like this:

http://docs.redshift3d.com/Content/Resources/Images/I/03000048.png

Redshift is pretty nice, but is still missing a bunch of really useful tools that other renderers have. I don't think the developers sleep at all, as they seem to have released a lot of features in the last year. This is the year that they catch up on features, and pull away on speed. 

R 

[Jonathan Beals]

Interesting, I am curious, what tools is the render engine missing currently? I don't know anything about it.

[Ryan O'Phelan]

Custom AOVs, a render frame buffer like vray's VFB, distributed rendering, no full support for primitives like curves, and xgen (they are working on it) directionality in area lights, barn door lights. I'm sure there's more, if I think about it.

I think I saw somewhere that they were working on many of these. 

R

 

[Ryan O'Phelan]

I just tried the diffuse cornell box at 640x640 and got 7 seconds witht the same quality. 

[Jason Brummett]

Can someone post the link to the *.pdf on the various renderers again?  I've inadvertently misplaced it.  Thanks in advance.  Redshift looks very interesting!

[Ryan O'Phelan]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByUZb47k7tz4LUhocnk3alR0MlE/view?usp=sharing

[Jason Brummett]

Thanks a bunch Ryan.  Is there not a PDF document that shows comparisons, maybe I wasn't reading previous posts as throughly as I should have..

[Ryan O'Phelan]

Oh, sorry Jason. Jonathan posted this PDF.

[Jason Brummett]

Thank you!

[John Draisey]

The learning curve is very easy. Once you understand to think in terms of "samples per pixel" you can easily hone render speeds and get the quality you expect.

I've used Redshift, Mental Ray and V-ray, and Arnold consistently puts them to shame. You can't use a Cornell Box to compare Arnold either, specifically because its speed isn't bound by geometric or volumetric complexity. While in software like V-ray there's a certain amount of time spent pre-processing a frame with lots of geometry, I've done several billion polygons using the Arnold Scene Source method with virtually no slowdown. You're only bound by the quality you want per pixel.

On Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 2:13:04 PM UTC-7, Steve Davy wrote:

So having spent the last couple of years switching from MR to Vray, I now see Autodesk is making Arnold its default renderer for Maya.

Anyone have experience using this render engine? What are the pros and cons compared with Vray? Is it worth making the switch and what's the learning curve like?

[Sebastian Schoellhammer]

I have really high hopes for this:

https://twitter.com/arnoldrenderer/status/812280211622477824

but I guess it'll take time.

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[John Draisey]

Yup, I saw a preview of the GPU based Arnold last year at Siggraph, and it was a 2x speedup going from a high end Xeon to a high end GPU (quadro m6000, or a Titan). For hair it was a performance wash. But this screenshot is a huge improvement. Marcos Fajardo himself says GPU rendering is the future, so I'm excited to see what Solid Angle accomplished with Arnold 5. 

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[mgw]

yeah looks great, I'm currently testing redshift and it works like a charm. great looking renderings, noise-free in seconds. where arnold takes ages redshift seems to be at least 4-5 times faster. I'm talking 2 xeon 8 core 2.4GHz CPUs vs. 1 Geforce 980 Ti.

I'm currently thinking of investing in a Geforce 1080 and go full GPU rendering.

[Steve Davy]

The whole CPU versus GPU thing has been going on for years.

I'm curious, are any production houses using GPU rendering? I've never worked anywhere that has been, yet. What are the implications for network batch rendering?

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From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of mgw <mige...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 7:25 AM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: Arnold vs Vray?

 

[mgw]

I've been at a small studio, that used redshift as production renderer for commercials. on the redshift site are some references to agencies which use redshift as production renderer. I think at the moment it is more aimed at smaller studios where you don't have or need a huge pipeline. according to network rendering I have no clue.

[John Draisey]

No, none of the big studios use GPU rendering. Blizzard used Redshift for the Overwatch cinematics, but that's about it. Something Marcos Fajardo complained about was the fact that they have to create code for both Radeon and GeForce GPUs, so it's double the work. There's also limited RAM on GPUs at the moment. I use 64GB of RAM for my Arnold renders, but the most I can get on a GPU is 12GB. That's why the GPU renderers have been using system RAM in addition to the GDDR RAM.

From a cost standpoint, CPU rendering on blade servers is still the cheapest solution for big studios. GPU rendering is more for indie studios and freelancers who need a flexible hardware upgrade path.

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 9:57 AM, Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com> wrote:

The whole CPU versus GPU thing has been going on for years.

I'm curious, are any production houses using GPU rendering? I've never worked anywhere that has been, yet. What are the implications for network batch rendering?

---

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of mgw <mige...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 7:25 AM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: Arnold vs Vray?

 

yeah looks great, I'm currently testing redshift and it works like a charm. great looking renderings, noise-free in seconds. where arnold takes ages redshift seems to be at least 4-5 times faster. I'm talking 2 xeon 8 core 2.4GHz CPUs vs. 1 Geforce 980 Ti.

I'm currently thinking of investing in a Geforce 1080 and go full GPU rendering.

Am 01.03.2017 um 15:50 schrieb John Draisey:

Yup, I saw a preview of the GPU based Arnold last year at Siggraph, and it was a 2x speedup going from a high end Xeon to a high end GPU (quadro m6000, or a Titan). For hair it was a performance wash. But this screenshot is a huge improvement. Marcos Fajardo himself says GPU rendering is the future, so I'm excited to see what Solid Angle accomplished with Arnold 5. 

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 2:03 AM Sebastian Schoellhammer <sschoellhammer.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

I have really high hopes for this:

https://twitter.com/arnoldrenderer/status/812280211622477824

but I guess it'll take time.

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:43 AM, John Draisey <john.d...@gmail.com> wrote:

The learning curve is very easy. Once you understand to think in terms of "samples per pixel" you can easily hone render speeds and get the quality you expect.

I've used Redshift, Mental Ray and V-ray, and Arnold consistently puts them to shame. You can't use a Cornell Box to compare Arnold either, specifically because its speed isn't bound by geometric or volumetric complexity. While in software like V-ray there's a certain amount of time spent pre-processing a frame with lots of geometry, I've done several billion polygons using the Arnold Scene Source method with virtually no slowdown. You're only bound by the quality you want per pixel.

On Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 2:13:04 PM UTC-7, Steve Davy wrote:

So having spent the last couple of years switching from MR to Vray, I now see Autodesk is making Arnold its default renderer for Maya.

Anyone have experience using this render engine? What are the pros and cons compared with Vray? Is it worth making the switch and what's the learning curve like?

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[Steve Davy]

I would also assume that if every render node requires a $4k graphics card, there's going to be a pretty significant overhead for building a render farm that relies on GPUs...

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[John Draisey]

Exactly, and then there's electricity costs to top it off.

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 10:46 AM, Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I would also assume that if every render node requires a $4k graphics card, there's going to be a pretty significant overhead for building a render farm that relies on GPUs...

---

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of John Draisey <john.d...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 10:23 AM

To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: Arnold vs Vray?

 

No, none of the big studios use GPU rendering. Blizzard used Redshift for the Overwatch cinematics, but that's about it. Something Marcos Fajardo complained about was the fact that they have to create code for both Radeon and GeForce GPUs, so it's double the work. There's also limited RAM on GPUs at the moment. I use 64GB of RAM for my Arnold renders, but the most I can get on a GPU is 12GB. That's why the GPU renderers have been using system RAM in addition to the GDDR RAM.

From a cost standpoint, CPU rendering on blade servers is still the cheapest solution for big studios. GPU rendering is more for indie studios and freelancers who need a flexible hardware upgrade path.

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 9:57 AM, Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com> wrote:

The whole CPU versus GPU thing has been going on for years.

I'm curious, are any production houses using GPU rendering? I've never worked anywhere that has been, yet. What are the implications for network batch rendering?

---

From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of mgw <mige...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 7:25 AM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: Arnold vs Vray?

 

yeah looks great, I'm currently testing redshift and it works like a charm. great looking renderings, noise-free in seconds. where arnold takes ages redshift seems to be at least 4-5 times faster. I'm talking 2 xeon 8 core 2.4GHz CPUs vs. 1 Geforce 980 Ti.

I'm currently thinking of investing in a Geforce 1080 and go full GPU rendering.

Am 01.03.2017 um 15:50 schrieb John Draisey:

Yup, I saw a preview of the GPU based Arnold last year at Siggraph, and it was a 2x speedup going from a high end Xeon to a high end GPU (quadro m6000, or a Titan). For hair it was a performance wash. But this screenshot is a huge improvement. Marcos Fajardo himself says GPU rendering is the future, so I'm excited to see what Solid Angle accomplished with Arnold 5. 

[Deke Kincaid]

No, none of the big studios use GPU rendering.

Eh....many do.  Maybe not as the primary renderer for features but at the speeds are hard to ignore.  It just takes time to build the infrastructure to support using it for everything.  Commercials/VR/Episodic is an instant win.

From a cost standpoint, CPU rendering on blade servers is still the cheapest solution for big studios. GPU rendering is more for indie studios and freelancers who need a flexible hardware upgrade path.

Quadro M4000 are US$799 and have 8gb vram.  Nvidia grid is an option.  At scale, you are never paying retail for any of these cards.  The speed difference is so huge that the number of machines you need is 1/10th so who cares if the system is more expensive.

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 10:23 AM, John Draisey <john.d...@gmail.com> wrote:

No, none of the big studios use GPU rendering. Blizzard used Redshift for the Overwatch cinematics, but that's about it. Something Marcos Fajardo complained about was the fact that they have to create code for both Radeon and GeForce GPUs, so it's double the work. There's also limited RAM on GPUs at the moment. I use 64GB of RAM for my Arnold renders, but the most I can get on a GPU is 12GB. That's why the GPU renderers have been using system RAM in addition to the GDDR RAM.

From a cost standpoint, CPU rendering on blade servers is still the cheapest solution for big studios. GPU rendering is more for indie studios and freelancers who need a flexible hardware upgrade path.

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 9:57 AM, Steve Davy <stevi...@hotmail.com> wrote:

The whole CPU versus GPU thing has been going on for years.

I'm curious, are any production houses using GPU rendering? I've never worked anywhere that has been, yet. What are the implications for network batch rendering?

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From: maya...@googlegroups.com <maya...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of mgw <mige...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2017 7:25 AM
To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: Arnold vs Vray?

 

yeah looks great, I'm currently testing redshift and it works like a charm. great looking renderings, noise-free in seconds. where arnold takes ages redshift seems to be at least 4-5 times faster. I'm talking 2 xeon 8 core 2.4GHz CPUs vs. 1 Geforce 980 Ti.

I'm currently thinking of investing in a Geforce 1080 and go full GPU rendering.

Am 01.03.2017 um 15:50 schrieb John Draisey:

Yup, I saw a preview of the GPU based Arnold last year at Siggraph, and it was a 2x speedup going from a high end Xeon to a high end GPU (quadro m6000, or a Titan). For hair it was a performance wash. But this screenshot is a huge improvement. Marcos Fajardo himself says GPU rendering is the future, so I'm excited to see what Solid Angle accomplished with Arnold 5. 

[Hernan S]

To run RS you do not need a 4K card at all, is actual more beneficial to get one of the Geforce 1080 or something like that. Get 2 of cards run RS and you will say ohh shit that was fast! (full depth of field, MB, etc) . On the other hand when you have already a pipeline, renderfarm, etc is going to be difficult to switch. So both have their places, but GPU rendering is awesome if you are as freelancer/small studio or you are starting your pipeline. There is definitely some pro and cons on both sides. 

Besides RS feels very much at home for me at least since I've been using Vray for a while. 

my 2 cents.

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[Dillon Bailey]

Hey nice test!

Can you post your scene setings for VRay and Arnold?

Light settings, global settings, material settings?

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