Mental Images was bought in December 2007 by NVIDIA, trying to bring some freshness to the old Mental Ray. In 2003 Mental Images was awarded an Academy Award for their contributions to the mental ray rendering software for motion pictures. It has been used by the industry and professionals for over 28 years (the first release have been built in 1989 by Mental Images), Mental Ray has become a standard for photo realistic rendering across the film, visual effects, and design industries (Hulk, The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, The Day After Tomorrow and Poseidon are just few examples of products made using Mental Ray). Mental Ray is a feature-rich, programmable, biased ray-tracing render engine. 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. 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.

Arnold renderer 3ds max