Who Uses Arnold Anyway ? an appeal to fans

[Sebastien Sterling]

Good evening/day everyone !


The people i am working for are currently debating whether or not to take on Arnold, as their official renderer on their next feature film. One of my character fx friends has been Beta testing it to great effect, and now has to make a case for the switch from 3DLIGHT to Arnold.



If there are any Arnoldites out their, i was wondering if you had any test renders demonstrating Arnolds efficiencies\ deficiencies VS other renderers; It doesn't matter if its softimage maya or modo.. or mental ray, PR man, vray, maxwell...

The extra data would be very much appreciated especially with identical scenes, written observations are equally welcome.

So if you've anything at all to share, many thanks ;)

[Steven Caron]

the classroom thread on this list provides you with some information. you should check that out and there are many many other threads about this on the solid angle hosted lists. if you are considering testing arnold for a production, contact them about joining.

we, whiskytree, inc., use arnold heavily... our work on thor, captain america, avengers, and an upcoming sci fi film all use arnold. we push arnold very hard, and while we do have pretty high render times, we are consistently happy with the output. 

arnold is known for having sampling noise issues, they are usually solved by increasing or properly balancing your sampling parameters, as any brute force raytracer would. this is where arnold gets a reputation for being 'slow' because in order to create the super clean result you need to render with higher sampling, which costs more, which equals slower render times. let me say though, its very impressive with the amount of content it can handle, so it's hard to describe it as 'slow'. its weaknesses are definitely indoor scenarios which are lit by something like the sky or sunlight. but i can say its consistency and stability is quite refreshing coming from mental ray. while i own a personal license of 3delight for softimage, i dont know how to compare it to 3delight to arnold in a production context.

s

[Sandy Sutherland]

Well we just finshed a full length feature rendered with Arnold, this is straight after one rendered with MR - and it was pure pleasure - unfortunately we have just wrapped up so there are no released images or videos I can share with you but I can tell you we rendered MB in the shots, and went from about 9+ passes to around 4 max.  The guys were so impressed to start with that we even rendered the previz and the Director loved it.

We did try putting a couple of the scenes we did render with Arnold through MR and the scope of complexity we got to and rendered quite happily with Arnold MR was unable to even start rendering.

We rendered in schedule too!  And were rendering a stereo feature - second one - and we were able to use Marc-Antoine's stereo shader which helped immensly on the farm as we were only loading the scene once to render both cameras - BTW we only had 100 machines in our small farm - mix of 8 core to 12 core 17s.

Cheers

S.

                                                              
Sandy Sutherland | Technical Supervisor

---

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Sebastien Sterling [sebastien...@gmail.com]
Sent: 15 March 2013 22:41
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Who Uses Arnold Anyway ? an appeal to fans

[John Clausing]

We just finished this with Arnold

http://vimeo.com/61292772

We love it,the integrated GI, and Final rendering are terrific.

It takes a bit of time to figure out the optimization, but we love its very unique look.

John Clausing

Director of CG

Poetica

Sent from my iPhone

[Sebastien Sterling]

Thanks Steven, a fist full of people here, have been beta testing Arnold for the past couple of months, however they seem to have come down pretty split 50/50 half.

pros -

• Amazing GI, catches so much more then 3Dlight
• can handle massive scenes
• Anything polygon renders really fast
• user friendly and intuitive (at least for basic operations)
• great feedback from previews
• sss is really nice too
  

cons-

• it's seems to struggle with fur and transparency, and that's a problem
• difficult to anticipate render times ( wild differences between users ranging from 6min to 48min to past an hour per frame)
• and of course the GRAINZZ ! (nothing you won't have heard before)
  

I am part of those who would like to see Arnold installed, however old habits die hard and there seems to be a fair amount of ill will on behalf of some of the testers, however things like fur we don't have the luxury to ignore; there are quite a few fur ballz in this feature, a few feathery ones too.

it would be safer not to purchase it and  that is why we of the pro Arnold are looking for external  examples and observations. which might tip the balance.

[Sebastien Sterling]

Ow and thanks John, i have been shown this prior by one of the color keyers, most haunting, its a pleasure to see fresh things, and definitely that is an incentive we are gunning for.

[Steven Caron]

transparency is tricky for sure, but not impossible to improve. arnold is almost unmatched when it comes to fur/hair/strands, at least in the raytracing market. 

i would suggest, getting the solid angle crew to look at some of your issues. i am sure they would like to see you use it and would help address the fur and transparency issues you might have.

[Sebastien Sterling]

I understand from what I have heard that they are pretty hands on, good support is rare, this would be another bonus. would be good to get a dialogue going.

On 15 March 2013 22:56, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:

transparency is tricky for sure, but not impossible to improve. arnold is almost unmatched when it comes to fur/hair/strands, at least in the ray-tracing market. 

[John Clausing]

One other item to consider.......we do a lot of product work as well.

Most we choose to stick with MR. Because of Arnold's transparency issues.

The point being, use the best tool, why not have multiple renderers if one (MR) comes with Soft? They have different looks/capabilities for sure.

Pick what's best

J

Sent from my iPhone

[Greg Punchatz]

I agree with Steve about the fur and strands,  crazy crazy fast.  I do wish there was a publicly available hair fur shader that did dual scattering.  I am pretty sure some folks here on the list have developed their own, but I don't have those kind of resources here at Janimation to roll our own.

---

Greg Punchatz

Sr. Creative Director
Janimation
214.823.7760
www.janimation.com

[Sebastien Sterling]

The are pretty paramount on consistency, its been a problem in the past and that was with just 1 renderer

[Sebastien Sterling]

Yes some testers found the out of the box shaders a little lacking.

[Alan Fregtman]

We use it for everything here at Rodeo FX http://www.rodeofx.com/
and have been so happy with it there's even a press release about it: :)
http://www.awn.com/news/business/rodeo-fx-taps-arnold-boost-pipeline

It's really insane the sheer monstrosity of geometry and textures you can throw at it, and still get a sweet looking render out. We did mechanical metallic things for a recent movie that were really heavy, with dozens of 8k textures, with motionblur. Piece of cake for Arnie!

[Sebastien Sterling]

That sounds good Alan, the more testimonies we can get the better, especially like the bit about freeing up artists time to concentrate on the creative aspects

I assume the intuitiveness and ease of use is not a myths then ?

[Simon van de Lagemaat]

What are you going to be rendering?  

[Sebastien Sterling]

tropical island setting: foliage rocks, primitive inhabitation, water lots of water, seascapes (all this is fine

actual characters we have quite a few furry quadrupeds characters and 2 feathery ones as well

[Sebastien Sterling]

its the characters who will be the furry problem

[Tim Leydecker]

With Arnold, you have to embrace the concept of simplicity
in settings for tweaking wholeheartedly and accept it�s
meant to be unbiased, lean&mean brute force physical correct.

There are ways to optimize on a per shader level to
influence what an individual rays "sees" or "hits"
as well as optimizations here and there that help
get cleaner results with less than an infinite number
of rays.

What�s impressing is the memory footprint Arnold can household
with and the impression it gives in terms of chewing through
geomery in general. That�s the quick part...

You may end up not caring at all about the size of the scene
but just the amount of rays you can justify for rendering
and how best to distribte those rays.

E.g. once you have your rendertime ballpark figures for a total
amount of rays/pixel it may seem as if it�ll always render similar
amounts of time with similar rays/pixel settings.

I can�t comment on fur/feathers.

For mapped transparencies, VRay may sometimes be as tricky as Arnold.

I like VRay, the render quality, the chaos group and the licensing model
and would recommend to look at it as a qualified alternative to Arnold
depending on the kind of shots you have to do and artists available.

In terms of 3D lighting in general, it�s worth giving both renderers
a hard test in what their lighting tools can actually provide you with
and if baking to textures makes for a big part of your final image.

This also applies to how you plan to UV texture map things.

Make sure you check for limitations or workflows you may need come up with


Cheers,

tim

[Sandy Sutherland]

We did both furry and feathery characters for Khumba - all using strands -worked out very nicely! Also our setting was the Karoo with lots and lots of feinbos - dressing done using standins in Arnold!

S.

                                                              
Sandy Sutherland | Technical Supervisor

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Sebastien Sterling [sebastien...@gmail.com]

Sent: 16 March 2013 00:56
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Who Uses Arnold Anyway ? an appeal to fans

[Gerbrand Nel]

My short synopsis:
Arnold is easy to use and looks great!!
V-ray is hard to use and looks great!!
I love it when software doesn�t assume I have a PHD in "being smart".
If you need to switch to a new render, Arnold might be the faster
switch. You just give it to your lighting department and wait for the
pictures.
With V-ray you have to teach people all about optimizing.
G

[César Sáez]

I'm not a render guy but we use softimage+arnold in Justin (http://justinandtheknightsofvalour.com) and the lighters seemed much happier than in mental ray times :)

[Sebastien Sterling]

ow ! is Justin a full softimage pipline ?

[Alan Fregtman]

Not a myth at all! In Arnold really the quality comes down to like four sliders, where you basically crank up your samples. :p

 

I don't have experience with hair but I doubt it's terribly complicated.

 

[César Sáez]

Yes, we happily moved from 3dsmax to softimage 4~5 years ago :)

[Mirko Jankovic]

how HOW we can;t find more stories like this in spot light all over internet??

instead maya and max are pushed everywhere :)

SOftimage + Arnold = winning solution :)

[Jack Kao]

Semi-unrelated to the topic… But, that trailer looks awesome! Any plans of releasing this film in Asia when it’s ready?

 

On 16 March 2013 14:50, César Sáez <ces...@gmail.com> wrote:

… we use softimage+arnold in Justin (http://justinandtheknightsofvalour.com) and the lighters seemed much happier than in mental ray times :)

 

 

 

[Sebastien Sterling]

Not at all it is very heartening to see features being made with this pipeline. may there be many more ! i hope Justin does well and helps legitimize Softimage as a feature efficient pipeline.

[Jason S]

Awesome is a light word, leaves nothing to be desired from anything I've seen personally.
Where/when will it be released?

On 17/03/2013 9:43 PM, Sebastien Sterling wrote:

Not at all it is very heartening to see features being made with this pipeline. may there be many more ! i hope Justin does well and helps legitimize Softimage as a feature efficient pipeline.

On 18 March 2013 02:13, Jack Kao <jack...@grapecity.com> wrote:

Semi-unrelated to the topic� But, that trailer looks awesome! Any plans of releasing this film in Asia when it�s ready?

�

On 16 March 2013 14:50, C�sar S�ez <ces...@gmail.com> wrote:

� we use softimage+arnold in Justin (http://justinandtheknightsofvalour.com) and the lighters seemed much happier than in mental ray times :)

�

�

�

[Sebastien Sterling]

Looks like we are going to do this thing on Wednesday, any last pointer ? also could anyone tell me if once purchased some specific shaders become available ? this is more to do with the fur then anything else; its still a major concern, some people over here are wondering wether or not there might be specific shader or techniques available after purchases to speed things along.

still i would like to thank everyone for your testimonies your stats, renders, your observations and encouragement. your knowledge and input has been quite invaluable. i feel really blessed to have such a resource at my disposal. Cheers !

On 18 March 2013 02:39, Jason S <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

Awesome is a light word, leaves nothing to be desired from anything I've seen personally.
Where/when will it be released?

On 17/03/2013 9:43 PM, Sebastien Sterling wrote:

Not at all it is very heartening to see features being made with this pipeline. may there be many more ! i hope Justin does well and helps legitimize Softimage as a feature efficient pipeline.

On 18 March 2013 02:13, Jack Kao <jack...@grapecity.com> wrote:

Semi-unrelated to the topic… But, that trailer looks awesome! Any plans of releasing this film in Asia when it’s ready?

 

On 16 March 2013 14:50, César Sáez <ces...@gmail.com> wrote:

… we use softimage+arnold in Justin (http://justinandtheknightsofvalour.com) and the lighters seemed much happier than in mental ray times :)

 

 

 

[Steven Caron]

no, nothing becomes 'unlocked' after purchase. there are some publicly available shaders provided without support, but you can test this without needing to purchase arnold. having a shader writer around wouldn't hurt :)

[Stephen Blair]

Hi Sebastien

You already have access to everything. The Arnold testing and evaluation program includes it all.

Fur is one of our strong points, at least if set up properly.

Thanks

Stephen Blair
Solid Angle Support

On 18/03/2013 6:11 PM, Sebastien Sterling wrote:

Looks like we are going to do this thing on Wednesday, any last pointer ? also could anyone tell me if once purchased some specific shaders become available ? this is more to do with the fur then anything else; its still a major concern, some people over here are wondering wether or not there might be specific shader or techniques available after purchases to speed things along.

still i would like to thank everyone for your testimonies your stats, renders, your observations and encouragement. your knowledge and input has been quite invaluable. i feel really blessed to have such a resource at my disposal. Cheers !

On 18 March 2013 02:39, Jason S <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

Awesome is a light word, leaves nothing to be desired from anything I've seen personally.
Where/when will it be released?

On 17/03/2013 9:43 PM, Sebastien Sterling wrote:

Not at all it is very heartening to see features being made with this pipeline. may there be many more ! i hope Justin does well and helps legitimize Softimage as a feature efficient pipeline.

On 18 March 2013 02:13, Jack Kao <jack...@grapecity.com> wrote:

Semi-unrelated to the topic� But, that trailer looks awesome! Any plans of releasing this film in Asia when it�s ready?

�

On 16 March 2013 14:50, C�sar S�ez <ces...@gmail.com> wrote:

� we use softimage+arnold in Justin (http://justinandtheknightsofvalour.com) and the lighters seemed much happier than in mental ray times :)

�

�

�

[Debdas Mohanty]

http://www.legendsofvalhalla.com/

this one also done with Arnold in ICELAND-Year 2012

[Gene Crucean]

Say what?

How on earth was fur/hair a problem for anyone using Arnold? Something else must have been very jacked up for this to make a "con" list. For me personally... I could give you a list a mile long about all of the pro's... and one single con. Interior rendering. Like the Classroom scene. Even then, you can make it look beautiful. It's just the main downside of it is that it takes a bit longer to render than all the other stuff.

--

Gene Crucean - Emmy winning - Oscar nominated CG Supervisor / iOS-OSX Developer / Filmmaker / Photographer

** Freelance for hire **
www.genecrucean.com

~~ Please use my website's contact form on www.genecrucean.com for any personal emails. Thanks. I may not get them at this address. ~~

[Raffaele Fragapane]

At some point, before it even hit SI afaik, it was struggling with some of the old paradigms for fur rendering. It's since earned this back alley talk reputation of struggling with fur, despite the fact nowadays it's probably the single strongest engine of its kind for it out there.

It's not unlike the myths that you need an RnD department to do anything with renderman at all, or that you can't do topology work in ZBrush and so on.

It should be dismissed, but a rumor will have been around the world before the truth had the time to put its shoes on.

[Nuno Conceicao]

I might try to guess some people try to set up the fur using transparency. Although it helps making it look softer, i managed to get quite nice results on my test without any transparency at all.

[Enrique Caballero]

We've used fur ( ice strands) and Arnold  for a few years now and have had no issues, its fine.  It is deathly slow at SSS though.

[Mirko Jankovic]

Enrique, are you using old SSS or new one Raytraced? It is FAST

[Sebastien Sterling]

Did you make thinner hairs and up the fur count ? Nuno ?

[Sebastien Sterling]

yes the SSS is very impressive from what we have tested

[Nuno Conceicao]

Yes and honestly its just amazing how much more hair it can handle without affecting the performance that much,  mental ray on the other hand it was always kind of hitting a wall after a certain hair count.

Using the pixel width optimization helps too.

When doing the transparent hair setup i also experimented setting the Auto-Transparency depth to less than 10, using 5 kind of still gives nice results and keeps the render times  considerably lower.

[Enrique Caballero]

mirko, just asked our shader guy, he says its the new one, but its slow due to the fact that they are layering a few shaders together, so my bad, turns out the SSS is quite fast

[Mirko Jankovic]

Yep, there is huge speed improvement over older version they have. Was more than surprise when I tested in on an character. Old scene that was slow to render just got new breath :)