25 March 2026

MAXtoA 5.9.0.0 is a feature release using Arnold 7.5.0.0.

Installation

• Download Arnold for 3ds Max from your Autodesk Account. See Download Arnold for more information about downloading MAXtoA from your Autodesk Account.
• Follow these installation instructions.

Enhancements

• MAXtoA for 3ds Max 2027 MAXtoA 5.9.0.0 adds support for 3ds Max 2027, and drops support for 3ds Max 2024. The last version for 3ds Max 2024 was MAXtoA 5.8.5.0.

• MAXTOA_USE_ARV_IN_BACKBURNER By default, MAXtoA does not show Arnold RenderView on render nodes (for example, Backburner). Based on user feedback, MAXtoA now uses the environment variable MAXTOA_USE_ARV_IN_BACKBURNER, with the options 0 = Off, 1 = display if enabled in the scene, and 2 = always show it for all scenes.

• Better backfacing normal: Interpolated normals facing away from the camera could produce darkening artifacts on low-poly meshes. Such normals are now bent toward the view direction to prevent this. (ARNOLD-6993)

• Unify Gaussian filter on GPU: The GPU camera code now uses the same Gaussian filter implementation as the CPU. This provides a closer match and more consistent results between CPU and GPU. (ARNOLD-17059)

• OpenColorIO 2.5.1: Arnold now includes OpenColorIO 2.5.1. This update includes all fixes and small improvements since the 2.5.0 release. See the full release notes for more details. (ARNOLD-17324)

• Upgrade Autodesk Analytics Program: Arnold includes a newer version of the Autodesk Analytics Program (ADP), which brings stability and performance improvements. (ARNOLD-16814)

API Changes

• AtMatrix API: Now supports inequality comparisons via operator!=. (ARNOLD-17354)
• Distributed Kick: kick has two new command-line parameters: --tile y x and --merge, for splitting a render over multiple processes. --tile y x takes two integer arguments specifying tile y out of x total tiles (for example, --tile 0 4 renders tile 1 of 4, '--tile 1 4' renders tile 2 of 4, and so on). Each tile is saved with the tile number as part of the file name (for example, example.0002_0_4.exr). After you render all tiles, run kick --merge with the same command line to merge the tiles into the final image. (ARNOLD-16921)

Incompatible Changes

• Bloom now defaults to aperture mode: The lens_effects imager's bloom mode now defaults to using the aperture mode instead of the deprecated simple mode. (ARNOLD-17295)

• Bloom dispersion enabled by default: The bloom dispersion used in aperture mode now defaults to 1. (ARNOLD-17305)

• USD doubleSided attribute ignored by default: The UsdGeom doubleSided attribute is false by default, so geometry renders as single-sided, which is different from the default Arnold behavior. To prevent unexpected renders and unwanted artefacts caused by this difference, Arnold now ignores this USD attribute and uses the Arnold-specific primvars:arnold:sidedness instead. usd#2099 You can roll back this change by disabling the new options attribute usd_override_double_sided (ARNOLD-17312)

• Cryptomatte with instances: The Cryptomatte attribute object_split_instances is now disabled by default, so that Cryptomatte produces smaller manifests for instances and returns the same hash for all instances of the same object. (ARNOLD-17320)

• Still API compatible with 7.4: No Arnold ABI has been modified/removed, so Arnold 7.5 is still backwards compatible with shaders/plugins compiled for Arnold 7.4. (ARNOLD-17301)

• Autodesk Network Licensing version: Arnold 7.5 switches to ARNOL_2027 licensing.

  • Single-user subscriptions will work with Arnold 7.5. The plugin installers automatically register the new version. If you do not use a plugin, then after you download Arnold, open the Arnold License Manager and click Register.
  • Existing network licenses will not work with Arnold 7.5. Log on to your Autodesk account to generate your new ARNOL_2027 licenses.
  • If you do not run the installers, and you manually register Arnold, then use--pk C0PS1 --pv 2027.0.0.F with the AdskLicensingInstHelper command.

• macOS 12: Arnold now requires macOS 12 or later. (ARNOLD-15807)

• Improved API Safety with [[nodiscard]] Annotations: The Arnold API now uses [[nodiscard]] on key return values to help plugin developers catch unintended mistakes at compile time. If your code fails to compile, it likely means a return value that affects behavior was being ignored. This change helps surface issues earlier, making your custom plugins more reliable and easier to debug. Update your code to use the returned value where appropriate, or remove calls that have no effect. (ARNOLD-16995)

USD Enhancements

• USD 25.11: Arnold USD now uses USD 25.11. See the USD release notes for more information.

Bug Fixes

• MAXTOA-1323 - Cancelling the creation of Arnold procedurals (such as USD or Alembic) caused a crash
• ARNOLD-17045 - Fixed procedural curves not having transparent shadows
• usd#2533 - Connections to shader with multiple outputs not properly authored to USD
• usd#2519 - Fix transform of cameras under procedurals
• usd#2526 - Update the arnold frame value when changing frame in solaris
• usd#2542 - Remove dependency on usdSkelImaging in the scene index.
• usd#2530 - Support uniform and vertex-interpolated primvars that are indexed
• usd#2532 - Fix crashes in IPR with ArnoldGinstance primitives

System Requirements

• Autodesk 3ds Max 2025, 2026, 2027
• Windows 10 or later, with the Visual Studio 2019 redistributable.
• CPUs need to support the SSE4.1 instruction set.
• GPU rendering requires an NVIDIA GPU with the Maxwell architecture or later. We recommend 591.28 or higher drivers.
• Optix denoiser requires an NVidia GPU with CUDA Compute Capability 5.0 and above.
• Intel OIDN GPU support is limited to:
  • Intel Xe dedicated and integrated GPUs
  • NVIDIA GPUs using Turing or newer architectures
  • AMD GPUs with RDNA2 (Navi 21 only) and RDNA3 (Navi 3x) architectures