5.6.6.0 - Arnold for 3ds Max
13 December 2023
MAXtoA 5.6.6.0 is a minor feature release using Arnold 7.2.5.0.
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
Imagers automatically sorted in a logical order: When you add imagers, they are automatically applied in the most useful order (for example, Light Mixers go first in the list). You can still re-order them manually if necessary. (MAXTOA-1304)
Imager setups can be exported and imported: A set of imagers can be exported to and imported from arnold files (.ass, usd), for exchange between scenes or to use as presets. (MAXTOA-1647)
Object selection in ARV: In the past, selecting objects by clicking in the Arnold RenderView worked during an interactive rendering only. Now, it works after a production rendering also. (MAXTOA-1644)
OSL Include Paths expanded: The OSL compiler in MAXtoA now loads include files from the same directories used by 3ds Max for OSL files. (MAXTOA-1673)
GPU renderer overhaul: A large part of the GPU renderer was rewritten using NVIDIA OptiX 8. This allowed numerous improvements such as much faster startup times, lower GPU memory usage, better scaling on multiple GPUs, and faster renders overall. (ARNOLD-9882)
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- Global light sampling in volumes: Global light sampling is now supported in volumes. The render time speedup when using global light sampling in volumes depend on the number of lights, but even scenes with only a few lights are faster to render. (ARNOLD-13095)
Below is an equal time render comparison of a scene containing 351 motion blurred mesh lights inside an atmosphere_volume.
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With GLS | Without GLS |
- Improved thick curves intersector: Curves in thick mode are on average 10% faster (in some cases, more than 100% faster) and they look better in closeups. (ARNOLD-2875, ARNOLD-8549 and ARNOLD-14391)
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7.2.4 | 7.2.5 |
- Distance shader in reflections: The distance shader now properly handles secondary paths such as reflections. (ARNOLD-13883)
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7.2.4 | 7.2.5 |
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7.2.4 | 7.2.5 |
- Overlay imager: A new imager that allows you to decorate or tag your renders by printing text over the rendered images. Overlay text can use any of the system fonts (TrueType or PostScript), or custom fonts defined via the
OPENIMAGEIO_FONTS
environment variable. You can include scene and system information, and render statistics, with pre-defined tokens, such as<frame_time>
,<samples>
, and<camera>
. See the Overlay Imager documentation for the full list of tokens. (ARNOLD-14188)
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Overlay imager used to add text to the rendered image | Using tokens with an overlay imager |
GPU denoising in Intel Open Image Denoise: The Intel denoiser was upgraded from version 1.4.1 to 2.1.0, which brings real-time denoising through NVIDIA and Intel GPU support. (ARNOLD-12547)
Toon light-group AOVs: The toon shader now outputs AOVs for direct lighting from lights that have a label in their
aov
parameter. The toon light-group AOVs are named with the toonaov_prefix
parameter. For example, if a light hasaov = "keylight"
and a toon shader hasaov_prefix = "myprefix_"
, then the toon light-group AOV is named "myprefix_keylight". (ARNOLD-9602)Automatically create non-existent paths to tx file: Generating a .tx file (maketx, autotx, AiMakeTx) now works even if the paths to the output .tx file do not exist: Arnold now creates those paths. (ARNOLD-14703)
Faster overlapping volumes: Arnold renders a few percent faster when there are many overlapping volumes. (ARNOLD-14353)
Scene unit conversion for light intensity: Scene unit conversion is now supported for light intensity in nested procedurals. If a procedural contains a light and its scene units do not match the procedural units, the light intensity is scaled to match the procedural. Conversion is in place for Arnold ass file procedurals, but we do not yet support USD and arbitrary procedural formats. (ARNOLD-9205)
Scene unit conversion for volume density and emission: Scene unit conversion is now supported for volume density and emission in nested procedurals. If a procedural contains a volume and its scene units do not match the procedural units, volume density and emission are scaled to match the procedural. Conversion is in place for Arnold ass file procedurals, but we do not yet support USD and arbitrary procedural formats. (ARNOLD-9206)
Improved profiling: Procedural and volume intersection times are now listed separately, instead of being included with the parent BVH. Profiling has also been added in other areas, in particular multithreaded code where helper threads were not being accounted for. This should result in higher quality statistics. (ARNOLD-14443)
GPU: Better compatibility with CPU rendering: The following CPU features have been ported over to the GPU.
Multiple render sessions with GPU (ARNOLD-14145)
When rendering on GPU and using per-face displacement shaders, autobump will now match the displacement shader assigned to each face. Previously, autobump would use the first shader applied. (ARNOLD-12796)
Motion blur on the implicit sphere primitive. (ARNOLD-12955)
Skydome_light.shader parameter. (ARNOLD-13641)
The "polygons" edge type in the wireframe. (ARNOLD-12804)
OSL LPE writing via debug closures. (ARNOLD-13907)
Image shader "file" wrap mode. (ARNOLD-12578)
ID mode in utility shader. (ARNOLD-14159)
edgelength mode in utility shader. (ARNOLD-14122)
The GPU renderers texture filtering logic has been improved such that there is a closer match to the CPU renderer. (ARNOLD-12578)
A number of fixes have been made to the GPU renderer's color management logic such that there is a closer match to the CPU renderer. (ARNOLD-12382)
Updated Autodesk Network License Manager:: Autodesk Network License Manager (NLM) server version 11.19.4.1 is available and includes support for RHEL/Rocky Linux 9 operating systems. You can find the NLM installer in the license/installer folder, and from the Arnold License Manager. (ARNOLD-14429)
USD Enhancements
- USDZ files supported as file format: You can render usdz files with kick, and load them with the
usd
procedural. usd#1726. - Orthographic cameras in Hydra: Orthographic Cameras are now supported in the Hydra render delegate. usd#612.
- Pixel Aspect Ratio in Hydra: The Arnold Render Delegate now supports the pixelAspectRatio parameter in RenderSetting primitives usd#658
API changes
- Multiple render sessions on GPU: The GPU can now render multiple render sessions at the same time. (ARNOLD-14145)
- Font API: A new API
AiFontGetFamilies
andAiFontGetStyles
returns the list of available system fonts (e.g. "Arial", "Times New Roman") and font styles (e.g. "Regular", "Bold", "Italic").AiFontGetFilename
returns the path of the file that defines a given font family and style. (ARNOLD-14395)
Incompatible Changes
- Minimum NVIDIA driver requirements for Arnold GPU: Arnold GPU requires 535.104 or higher drivers on Linux and 537.13 or higher on Windows.
- GPU cache pre-population deprecated: The GPU cache pre-population has been deprecated and calling these functions will now do nothing. (ARNOLD-12135)
Bug Fixes
MAXTOA-1668 - Using 3ds Max Photometric lights crashes when rendering on GPU
MAXTOA-1667 - In some cases (for example, when using OCIO v1 color management config files) Arnold RenderView displays black.
MAXTOA-1660 - "Export Materials" when exporting from SME did not work in 3ds Max 2024
MAXTOA-1682 - Sometimes when using Substance2 nodes, the viewport turned black, and some maps might render black
MAXTOA-1642 - A crash when updating XRef materials has been fixed
usd#1709 - Procedural failures if schemas are present
usd#1713 - Fix coding error "attempt to get string for GfVec4f"
usd#1732 - Force the color AOV to be interpreted as the Arnold beauty pass
usd#1735 - Fix usdskel geometry and motion blur interpolation outside the keyframe boundaries
usd#1524 - Fix material binding on instances under a SkelRoot
usd#1718 - Support primvars:arnold attributes in Arnold typed schemas
System Requirements
- Autodesk 3ds Max 2022, 2023, 2024
- Windows 10 or later, with the Visual Studio 2019 redistributable.
- CPUs need to support the SSE4.1 instruction set.
- GPU rendering works on Windows and Linux only and requires an NVIDIA GPU of the Ada, Ampere, Turing, Volta, Pascal, or Maxwell architecture. We recommend using the 535.104.05 or higher drivers on Linux and 537.13, or higher on Windows. See Arnold GPU for more information.
- Optix™ denoiser requires an NVidia GPU with CUDA™ Compute Capability 5.0 and above.