Autodesk have done it again - This time with the Arnold Render

[Mokiki]

Overall its a win for autodesk customers because they'll get a solid renderer shipped with Autodesk Products for "free". How much it'll improve though over the years is another question.

[Morbid Angel]

Overall its a win for autodesk customers because they'll get a solid renderer shipped with Autodesk Products for "free". How much it'll improve though over the years is another question.

I wouldn't be so hasty about such comment. Mental ray was not a free rendered by a long shot. Yes it was free to use inside a UI, but it did have render licenses. I can't imagine Arnold being totally free.

Time will tell

[Dave_Wortley]

When they bought Shotgun they didn't make that free....

The Max MR users are the losers... they had Mental Ray free in 3dsmax... now we'll get a new renderer we'll probably have to pay for render nodes for.

That's my opinion.

[Mokiki]

I wouldn't be so hasty about such comment. Mental ray was not a free rendered by a long shot. Yes it was free to use inside a UI, but it did have render licenses. I can't imagine Arnold being totally free.

Time will tell

Oh I never used MR so I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the information

[Morbid Angel]

When they bought Shotgun they didn't make that free....

The Max MR users are the losers... they had Mental Ray free in 3dsmax... now we'll get a new renderer we'll probably have to pay for render nodes for.

That's my opinion.

Perhaps it won't be as expensive. I could be mistaken but current Arnold licensing scheme has no render licenses. So in my understanding for any render node you just need a regular license which costs. Perhaps they will have much more reasonable discount.

[^Lele^]

I guess it'll be down to market share.
When their client base being tiny, and very specific, they had to do things in a certain way (see the press release. 500 studios and a generic "thousands of artists" some of them in the process of joining still, apparently.).
We'll surely see what'll happen when the user base will broaden...

[raymarcher]

Weren't Mental Ray users already losers before the acquisition . This aquisition reminds me of Lightscape.

If they will give Arnold away for free how will they make money from the aquisition and how will they pay for further development? Take away budget from other tight DCC budgets? The money saved from Mental Ray is probably spent on Art if that lives on. I guess Autodesk will offer modular subscription models, one with and one without arnold.

Autodesk could think like, if they are willing to pay Solidangle for a good renderer then they will want to pay us too.

[glorybound]

Isn't Autodesk's main concern for the benifit of their end users?

[stevesideas]

1. Please don't sell Vray to Autodesk.
2. Chaosgroup/Vray isn't just about the renderer. For me it is also about the excellent support and friendly forums.

[LudvikKoutny]

Weren't Mental Ray users already losers before the acquisition . This aquisition reminds me of Lightscape.

If they will give Arnold away for free how will they make money from the aquisition and how will they pay for further development? Take away budget from other tight DCC budgets? The money saved from Mental Ray is probably spent on Art if that lives on. I guess Autodesk will offer modular subscription models, one with and one without arnold.

Autodesk could think like, if they are willing to pay Solidangle for a good renderer then they will want to pay us too.

I doubt we will see much more ART development, it was not really even development of the renderer itself, aside from a few shaders, but rather integration of it inside of 3ds Max. And they quickly realized how many limitations ART had. So nope, money is not going that way probably.

From what i heard, Autodesk pays quite a big bag of money for Mental Ray, renderer that actually gets worse with every new release. There has been substantial performance drop in Mental Ray for every version after 3.6, and I'd dare to say current 3.14 is somewhere at about 45-50% performance of what original 3.6 had in identical scenes. It makes perfect sense to get rid of it and replace it with Arnold. A lot more value for similar money I guess.

[vlado]

I don't think they were paying all that much for mental ray...

Best regards,
Vlado

[JezUK]

1. Please don't sell Vray to Autodesk.
2. Chaosgroup/Vray isn't just about the renderer. For me it is also about the excellent support and friendly forums.

+1,000,000

[vfxronin]

1. Please don't sell Vray to Autodesk.
2. Chaosgroup/Vray isn't just about the renderer. For me it is also about the excellent support and friendly forums.

ye that wont happen but make me wonder if a Foundry & ChaosGroup relationship may be ahead of us?
could help us all! vlado can finally fix Katana and nuke 3d systems ! hahah

[raymarcher]

Well, that part is under NDA... But it would be naive to assume that the question has not come up

Best regards,
Vlado

And Nvidia

[^Lele^]

"Relationships" between companies are unavoidable, i fear: we share the same territory (first to sell on the moon wins it.).
"Partnerships" are like being a teenager: short bursts of happiness, hopefully without too many bust-ups
"Mergers" and "Acquisitions", to me, always sound like one of the couple ate the other for breakfast.

Things can work without moving in together...