5.7.0.0 - Arnold for 3ds Max
27 March 2024
If you need the bug fixes from MAXtoA 5.6.6.4 or MAXtoA 5.6.6.3, please update to MAXtoA 5.7.1.0
MAXtoA 5.7.0.0 is a major feature release using Arnold 7.3.0.0.
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
3ds Max 2025 support MAXtoA 5.7.0.0 is the first release to support 3ds Max 2025. This also means support for 3ds Max 2022 has been retired.
Progressive dithered sampling: Arnold now supports dithered samples in progressive and adaptive rendering. Dithering brings nicer noise distributions at low AA sample counts. (ARNOLD-10739)
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before 7.3.0.0, AA=1 | 7.3.0.0, AA=1 |
Improved MaterialX support: Arnold can now render MaterialX node graphs mixing Arnold nodes with MaterialX standard library nodes. DCCs loading the Arnold node definitions benefit from the newly added UI metadata and provide a better user experience. Arnold also now uses MaterialX 1.38.8, this update brings new nodes in the MaterialX standard library, for a full list of changes please see the full release notes. (ARNOLD-14286, ARNOLD-14623, ARNOLD-14513)
Emission and per-light-group AOVs: Per-light-group indirect AOVs no longer include emission. Emissive surfaces now only appear in the "default" light group output. When using emission in shaders, the sum of the light group AOVs will now add up to the beauty pass. (ARNOLD-9453)
Evaluate autobump in SSS on GPU: Autobump will now be evaluated in the SSS computation with the GPU renderer when the
sss_use_autobump
option is enabled, this matches the behavior when rendering on CPU. (ARNOLD-8494)Device selection in the Intel Denoiser: It is now possible to toggle between Auto/CPU/GPU for OIDN denoiser imager. Arnold now also provides accurate timing information for the denoiser in the log. (ARNOLD-14524, ARNOLD-14526)
Batch renders now abort on license fail: Arnold now aborts if there is a license error in a batch render. The option
abort_on_license_fail
is nowtrue
by default, and applies to batch renders only. This means you don't have to check rendered image sequences for watermarks. Interactive renders do not abort, and have a watermark on license fail as usual. The environment variableARNOLD_FORCE_ABORT_ON_LICENSE_FAIL
overrides this default behavior (0 = batch and interactive render with watermarks on license fail, 1 = batch and interactive abort on license fail). (ARNOLD-13024)Add license checkout time to render statistics: The render statistics now include the "license checkout time", which is the time in microseconds spent on license checkout for a specific render. This is useful to users to diagnose long checkout times when rendering in batch. (ARNOLD-13497)
New network server configuration modes in the License Manager: You can now choose a license file or specify a three server redundancy setup on the network server configuration tab in the License Manager. (ARNOLD-14586, ARNOLD-14615)
Upgrade to OpenColorIO 2.3.2: OpenColorIO library has been upgraded to use version 2.3.2. For the list of changes see the release notes for 2.3, 2.3.1, and 2.3.2. (ARNOLD-14026)
Updated Alembic to 1.8.5: The Alembic procedural has been upgraded to use version 1.8.5 of the Alembic library. (ARNOLD-14448)
Autodesk Analytics Program: A newer version of the Autodesk Analytics Program (ADP) has been integrated into Arnold. This brings stability improvements. (ARNOLD-13805)
Update URL's in MAXtoA: The arnoldrenderer.com website has been retired, and all links inside MAXtoA have been updated to equivalent links at autodesk.com (MAXTOA-1707)
Improved export with USD for 3ds Max Several improvements have been added when using the Arnold template in MaxUSD. The scene hierarchy is now aligned better between MAXtoA and 3ds Max USD, instanced objects are now exported correctly, and inherited transformation matrices are now exported correctly. (MAXTOA-1679, MAXTOA-1680, MAXTOA-1681).
- Update to USD 23.11: The USD version was updated from 22.11 to 23.11 in the procedural. The USD Arnold procedural embeds a static version of USD 23.11, see USD 23.11 Changelog for all the changes related to this new version of USD.
- Light instances: You can now instance lights with a Point Instancer. (usd#1705)
- Visibility and Mattes on instances in Hydra: In the Hydra Render Delegate, the Arnold visibility and matte attributes now work on instances. (usd#1635)
API changes
Builtin metadata: Nodes and their parameter definitions have been augmented with more metadata that could be useful across DCCs. The metadata that has been included are the following: animateable, default, help, gpu_support, hide, linkable, max/min, softmax/softmin and units. Some of these metadata were previously distributed as separate mtd files in each DCC. (ARNOLD-10265)
Remove _private functions from BSDF API: The functions
AiMicrofacetBSDF_private
andAiMicrofacetRefractionBSDF_private
(included to support dielectric priority) have now been removed from the BSDF API. The functionsAiMicrofacetBSDF
andAiMicrofacetRefractionBSDF
now takedielectric_priority
as an optional argument. (ARNOLD-14166)Expose conductor Fresnel mode as an enum in AiMetalBSDF:
AiMetalBSDF
has been modified to accept anAtMetalFresnelMode
enum argument, selecting between the original "Gulbrandsen" conductor Fresnel model and the new "F82-tint" model. (ARNOLD-14165)Expose random walk version in the closure API:
AiClosureRandomWalkV2BSSRDF
has been removed, and instead the existingAiClosureRandomWalkBSSRDF
has been modified to accept anAtRandomWalkVersion
enum argument, selecting between the original v1 and v2 SSS modes. (ARNOLD-14164)Expose thin walled transmission in the public BSDF API:
AiMicrofacetBSDF
has been modified to accept an optionalthin_walled_transmission
argument, which specifies the fraction of the BSDF considered to represent a thin-walled dielectric. This is used to implement thin-walled transmission in Standard Surfaces. This was previously implemented in a way that circumvented the API, which has been fixed to be more explicit with this change. (ARNOLD-14167)Provide azimuthal roughness to AidEonBSDF:
AidEonBSDF
has been modified to accept aroughness_azimuthal
argument, specifying the specular roughness for azimuthal scattering specifically. This is in addition to the existing roughness argument specifying the specular roughness for longitudinal scattering. (ARNOLD-8325)Removed AiADPSetIntroShown() and AiADPDialogStrings(): These deprecated functions were removed from the Arnold API. (ARNOLD-13805)
Change AiUniverseCacheFlush API to receive a non-const universe: The AtUniverse passed into
AiUniverseCacheFlush()
was changed fromconst
to non-const. (ARNOLD-14548)Remove deprecated AiGPUCachePopulate functions: Deprecated functions
AiGPUCachePopulate()
,AiGPUCachePopulateStatus()
,AiGPUCachePopulateRemainingSeconds()
, andAiGPUCachePopulateTerminate()
have been removed. (ARNOLD-14570)Remove deprecated AiRenderSetCallback function: Deprecated function
AiRenderSetCallback()
has been removed. (ARNOLD-12583)
Incompatible Changes
This version breaks binary compatibility: Shaders, procedurals, and other plugins compiled against older versions of Arnold are not compatible with this version of Arnold and need to be updated and recompiled.
Autodesk Network Licensing version: Arnold 7.3 switches to
ARNOL_2025
licensing. (ARNOLD-14292)- Single-user subscriptions will work with Arnold 7.3. 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 7.3. Log on to your Autodesk account to generate your new
ARNOL_2025
licenses. - If you do not run the installers, and you manually register Arnold, then use
--pk C0PQ1 --pv 2025.0.0.F
with theAdskLicensingInstHelper
command.
abort_on_license_fail defaults to true: Arnold now aborts by default if there is a license error in batch renders. You can revert to the previous behavior by setting the
abort_on_license_fail
tofalse
, or by using the newARNOLD_FORCE_ABORT_ON_LICENSE_FAIL
environment variable. (ARNOLD-10455, ARNOLD-13024)Emission and per-light-group AOVs: Per-light-group indirect AOVs no longer include emission. (ARNOLD-9453)
Bug Fixes
MAXTOA-1692 - Some materials (such as Car Paint) showed up invisible in the viewport
MAXTOA-1694 - Crash in ARV when using the "Average Pixels" in the pixel inspection window
MAXTOA-1698 - Crash in some cases when opening SME using a scene rendering an animation
MAXTOA-1697 - Performance regression for starting a rendering. Especially affected material editor Swatch rendering, since many many small renderings happen in sequence.
MAXTOA-1701 - Backslashes in OSL includepaths could cause Arnold to parse the paths incorrectly
MAXTOA-1702 - The list of cameras in Arnold RenderView were not updated correctly
MAXTOA-1706 - When exporting to .ass with "options" disabled, the color management options were still exported.
MAXTOA-1720 - When using the Alembic procedural, a confusing warning about not being able to set the "objectpath" was printed, but the procedural still worked.
ARNOLD-14246 - [MaterialX] Promoted attributes and nodegraph interfaces are ignored
ARNOLD-14601 - [MaterialX] Missing enum values in node definitions
ARNOLD-14612 - [MaterialX] Ignored color space on standard library image nodes
ARNOLD-14646 - [MaterialX] Crash when using the distance node in USD
ARNOLD-14561 - [MaterialX] Crash when mixing Arnold and standard library shaders
ARNOLD-14287 - Rare crash when compiling OSL with LLVM during IPR
ARNOLD-14634 - Error when denoising unsupported pixel type AOVs in OIDN and OptiX
usd#1758 - Fix several crashes by returning a default value when an attribute type is not recognized.
usd#1756 - Registry should declare filenames as assets in GetTypeAsSdfType.
usd#1770 - Fix exr driver always rendering float with husk when productType is arnold.
usd#1772 - RectLight texture uvs are now consistent between husk, kick and other renderer.
usd#1776 - Fix incorrect PointInstancer instance orientations in the render delegate.
usd#1769 - Fix curve uvs when they are vertex interpolated.
usd#1784 - The aov layer name is now correctly taken into account when rendering exrs with husk and using the arnold productType.
System Requirements
- Autodesk 3ds Max 2023, 2024, 2025
- Windows 10 or later, with the Visual Studio 2019 redistributable.
- CPUs need to support the SSE4.1 instruction set.
- GPU rendering works requires an NVIDIA GPU with the Maxwell architecture or later. We recommend 537.13 or higher drivers.
- Optix™ denoiser requires an NVidia GPU with CUDA™ Compute Capability 5.0 and above.