Features
Memory-efficient, scalable ray tracer
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![Video: Take a tour of Arnold 6, a faster working environment that gives you more time for creativity]()
Arnold GPU
Arnold GPU allows users to switch seamlessly between CPU and GPU rendering. (video: 1:55 min.)
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![User interface of Maya with a black-and-white and color image of a hand, palm side up with fingers curled in Arnold RenderView]()
Subsurface scatter
High-performance ray traced subsurface scattering eliminates the need to tune point clouds.
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![User interface of Maya with a work-in-progress and completed image of the back of a blond woman’s wavy hair in Arnold RenderView]()
Hair and fur
Memory-efficient ray traced curve primitives help you to create complex fur and hair renders.
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![User interface of Maya with 2D and 3D images of 5 pool balls with a blurry ball in the 3D image in Arnold RenderView]()
Motion blur
3D motion blur interacts with shadows, volumes, indirect lighting, reflection or refraction. Deformation motion blur and rotational motion are also supported.
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![Billowing clouds of smoke mushrooming into the air]()
Volumes
The volumetric rendering system in Arnold can render effects such as smoke, clouds, fog, pyroclastic flow and fire.
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![User interface of Maya featuring a black-and-white image of beads and the other in color with pink, blue, and purple beads]()
Instances
Arnold can more efficiently ray trace instances of many scene objects with transformation and material overrides.
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![3D rendering of the surface of a dark, stormy ocean]()
Subdivision and displacement
Arnold supports Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces.
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![User interface of Arnold RenderView with a red circle displayed in the top left and the Attribute Editor panel open to the right]()
OSL support
Arnold now features support for Open Shading Language (OSL), an advanced shading language for Global Illumination renderers.
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![User interface of Maya featuring a lego-like 3D robot holding a gun and knife in Arnold RenderView]()
Light Path Expressions
LPEs give you power and flexibility to create Arbitrary Output Variables to help meet the needs of production.
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![3D rendering of a modern living room with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, minimalist décor, and suspended black fireplace]()
Adaptive sampling
Adaptive sampling gives users another means of tuning images, allowing them to reduce render times without jeopardising final image quality.
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![Caricature-like drawing of an old man’s face on the left and drawing of a man’s face without skin on the right]()
Toon shader
An advanced Toon shader is part of a non-photorealistic solution provided in combination with the Contour Filter.
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![Image of a white bathroom with soaking tub in front of tall windows and sunlight streaming in]()
Denoising
Two denoising solutions in Arnold offer flexibility by letting designers use much lower-quality sampling settings.
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Flexible and extensible API
Integrate Arnold in external applications and create customised shaders, cameras, light filters and output drivers.
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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.
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Standard Surface shader
This energy-saving, physically based uber shader helps produce a wide range of materials and looks.
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Standard Hair shader
This physically based shader is built to render hair and fur, based on the d'Eon and Zinke models for specular and diffuse shading.
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Alembic procedural
A native Alembic procedural lets users render Alembic files directly without any translation.
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Profiling API and structured statistics
An extensive set of tools lets users more easily identify performance issues and optimise rendering processes.
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Material assignments and overrides
Operators make it possible to override any part of a scene at render time and enable support for open standard frameworks such as MaterialX.
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Built-in Cryptomatte
Create ID mattes automatically with support for motion blur, transparency and depth of field.
