Autodesk releases Arnold 7.4.5
Autodesk has released Arnold 7.4.5, the latest version of the production renderer.
The update adds new features for creating non-photorealistic renders and motion graphics effects, including new Line and Nearest Points shaders, and speeds up rendering of volumes.
New Line shader generates non-photorealistic render effects
Arnold 7.4.5 introduces new features for creating stylized renders, including a new Line shader.
It generates lines procedurally over a surface, making it possible to simulate traditional media effects like pen or pencil hatching, etching, or – by combining it with noise and textures – brushstroke-like textures.
However, it can also be used to create repeating geometric patterns suited to motion graphics work, as you can see from the video below.
Stylized renders created in Arnold 7.4.5 by Autodesk in-house artist Lee Griggs.
New Nearest Points shader can generate motion graphics-style effects
Another new feature suited to motion graphics work is the Nearest Points shader.
It samples point clouds from OpenVDB files or the vertices from Points, Curves and Polymesh nodes and returns a range of data types, including average distance from a sample point.
When mapped to a color gradient, the results are reminiscent of the similarly motion-graphics-friendly Distance shader introduced in Arnold 7.2.1.
Performance improvements when rendering volumes
The update also improves performance when rendering volumetric effects like clouds.
When rendering on CPU, the Volume node now accepts OpenVDB files with mipmapped grids, which speeds up renders anywhere between 1.5x and 5.2x in the demo scenes shown above.
Other improvements mean that volume rendering on GPU is up to 3.5x faster.
Other new features and workflow improvements
In addition, the Lens Effect imager gets an Aperture Dispersion parameter (above), which controls color dispersion in the new aperture bloom mode.
The Cryptomatte shader gets a new option to control whether instances should share masks or have separate masks.
There are also a number of smaller workflow and performance improvements, plus new OSL functions, and updates to USD workflow.
Support in the integration plugins
All of Arnold’s integration plugins have been updated to support the new features:
3ds Max: MAXtoA 5.8.5
Cinema 4D: C4DtoA 4.8.6
Houdini: HtoA 6.4.6
Katana: KtoA 4.4.5
Maya: MtoA 5.5.6
System requirements and availability
Arnold 7.4.5 is available for Windows 10+, glibc 2.17+ Linux and macOS 11.0+. Integrations are available for 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Katana and Maya.
GPU rendering is supported on Windows and Linux only, and needs a compatible NVIDIA GPU.
The software is rental-only, with single-user subscriptions costing $55/month or $430/year.
Read a full list of new features in Arnold 7.4.5 in the online documentation
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