1. What Is Arnold?
Arnold is an advanced Monte Carlo ray tracing render engine, built to meet the demands of VFX and animation production. It uses the specific method of ray tracing called Monte Carlo ray tracing or path tracing that sends many random possible light paths at each pixel then averaging them to find the correct final results. Today, Arnold is widely used at over 300 studios worldwide including ILM, Framestore, MPC, The Mill, and Digic Pictures. Due to its popularity, Arnold was bought by Autodesk in 2016. It was the primary renderer of dozens of films from Monster House and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to Pacific Rim and Gravity. This render engine now is available as a standalone renderer on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. Arnold now is available for Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, Cinema 4D, and Katana. It is the built-in interactive renderer for Maya and 3ds Max.
Arnold uses CPU-based rendering mostly. Recently, Arnold introduced the ability to use GPU rendering in early 2019. Arnold’s intuitive interface makes it easy to toggle between CPU and GPU rendering, maintaining the same settings with a single click. However, many said that GPU rendering is less effective than CPU rendering on Arnold because the renders on GPU give more noise than that of CPU.
2. Best Render Farms for Arnold
Arnold consistently delivers exceptional image quality and is designed for a streamlined production pipeline. Generally, Arnold requires a render farm for animation or VFX projects. Without a render farm, Arnold can be quite slow. It often takes a considerable amount of time—even hours or days—to render a project via CPU. To accelerate render times, increasing the number of render nodes that can process multiple frames simultaneously is an ideal solution. However, building a powerful workstation or your own render farm with many render nodes can be costly, running into thousands of dollars. Additionally, the cost of obtaining floating licenses for all nodes can be a significant financial hurdle. Beyond the initial investment in robust machines and licenses, you must also account for factors such as electricity bills and maintenance costs, which can add up significantly. Is there a more cost-effective way to reduce your render time? The answer is yes: render farms. They harness the power of hundreds of CPU render nodes to efficiently complete your projects.
- Fox Render Farm
- Rebus Farm
- IRender
This list of top render farms for Arnold was compiled through extensive research, user feedback, and testing. The ranking is based on various criteria, including usage time (upload time, setting file time, render time), cost, cost per frame, and support.
