What are the main characteristics and differences between the two? You have to download it directly from the official website, it will no longer be included in the Autodesk installer. Regarding Mental Ray, you can use it for free of charge for use on a single machine, with the same restrictions for Arnold (no network render and animations). If the system does not find valid licenses, however, batch renders will display a watermark.Īrnold for Maya is one of the most widely used rendering engines in the CG Industry, which often constituted a valid and simple alternative to the old Mental Ray for Maya.

The Price start at $1,220 for a single license, with a range of discounts for the bundle. Right now Arnold is free when used directly via Maya interface on a single workstation and limited to still frames (so no batch render for animations). The integration will follow the one already carried out last year for Maya 2017. But I wonder how many scenes are going to need converting? I’m sure some users will find a use for it.After the NVIDIA anticipations about the departure of Mental Ray and iray rendering as integrated render engines, Autodesk confirms official rumors that wanted Arnold to be the new 3ds Max 2018 integrated render engine. It essentially converts old Arch & Design, mental ray and standard items into physical materials, physical cameras and physical lights, that can be used in conjunction with the new Autodesk Raytracer Renderer (ART). There are tools to make your life easier, such as a tool called the Scene Converter. I think Autodesk lacks the balance in this release. In every release, artists want to see a healthy mix of improvements to the existing offering and the addition of new features which are going to push the software forward. That’s great, but the lack of new, groundbreaking features is a little disappointing. The documentation on these tools points towards the fact that the majority of new tools are there to make an artist’s life easier. According to Autodesk’s website there are 23 new features – though a quarter of these are enhanced versions of existing tools. I’ll stay out of that conversation and focus on reviewing the new features.

3ds max 2017 mental ray