3ds Max 2018 Replaces Mental Ray with Arnold!?

[doug_bowker_3D]

Autodesk Renderer Announcement

Summary: Max 2018 will ship with Arnold built in, instead of Mental Ray. As a "bonus", network rendering using said new renderer will now cost extra.

Tell me: how is this in any way an "upgrade" or benefit to a customer? Who is going to pay for retraining all of us who've never used Arnold before, not to mention the huge interruption in professional workflow this represents!

I've been an Autodesk customer for a long time, ever since r2.5, and I have to say this is the biggest customer slap in the face I've ever seen by the company. It's as if our subscriptions are like us paying for the privilege of getting abused! And of course they just calming roll this out as if it will be no problem whatsoever...

• No transition period is offered other than just staying with Max 2017.
• No support of conversion of scenes that use Mental Ray; that's all on the user to spend the time to figure out how to do it. 
• A major feature of many users pipeline is removed with the only option being to pay another $1k per year- just to keep using the software that was free!

And yes, I also do own VRay as well, which is entirely beside the point. I have over 15 years worth of models, scenes and projects that all use Mental Ray. I have dozens of materials and Materials Libraries built up, again over at least 15 years and the company is taking the stand that all this will be a minor inconvenience? Anyone who's been professionally working in a particular 3D workflow for any length of time is not going to just lightly open up a complex scene or project (some with thousands of objects and dozens of carefully tweaked lights) and just start "converting" things. You must be kidding me! So work that took days, maybe weeks either needs to be re-done all over again or now we pay an extra grand just to get us back to where we were before?  Thanks guys!

[ethan.penn6]

Arnold is becoming industry standard for almost all rendering. It's probably the most powerful system out there, and is great for live updated rendering. I would suggest taking the time to learn how Arnold works and practice it, just as you did for Mental Ray. It's not cost effective for Autodesk to continue to support both when one is quite superior to the other. I would definitely give it a shot and see what neat things you can create with Arnold! 🙂

[spacefrog_ · Accepted solution]

completely understand your frustration and anger, but there's already a thread here

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/3ds-max-2018-mental-ray-removed/td-p/6952889

BTW: Mental Ray for Max 2018 will be downloadable from Nvidia, so it doesn't disappear, you still can install and use it. At the moment it looks as rendering localy ( no batch/no backburner/ no networked/satellite)  will be free ...

[doug_bowker_3D]

Well, if we are talking Industry Standard then I think AD should be putting support towards something like RenderMan, which is now supported via Google Cloud Rendering, by Maya and used by true fx giants like ILM. But I'm not so much arguing which is better, more the way this is being implemented. Why not offer differing packages then? Or no renderer except scanline and save us the money? This is like being forced to pay for one at the obvious expense of the other...

I get that Arnold may be great, but again in my case we are talking about years of work and it's a lot more than just learning a new system: It's the time to convert previous work. I learned to use VRay in about a month, but it's not like I would think about switching all my Mental Ray projects over unless absolutely necessary.

I have dozens of projects that if a customer comes back to me and asks for edits etc. there will not be the option to say "Can we try a whole new look and feel this time around since my AD changed the render engine? First off they wouldn't understand, and second they would think I was out of mind for even asking. They are going to rightly expect that what I deliver looks exactly like what they got before- and often it will be used side by side. And again- sure I can buy a separate Mental Ray license but it's not a small cost on top of all the other expenses we have in this industry.

[timd1971]

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@Anonymous wrote:

completely understand your frustration and anger, but there's already a thread here

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/3ds-max-2018-mental-ray-removed/td-p/6952889

BTW: Mental Ray for Max 2018 will be downloadable from Nvidia, so it doesn't disappear, you still can install and use it. At the moment it looks as rendering localy ( no batch/no backburner/ no networked/satellite)  will be free ...

---

We don't use network rendering... just local.  We have hundreds of MR files and it would really suck to have to rebuild them when we use them to work with Arnold.

Do you think the free MR download for 2018 will be fine in our case?  I will check it out, hopefully no limitations on animation, resolution, etc.

[timd1971 · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Well, if we are talking Industry Standard then I think AD should be putting support towards something like RenderMan, which is now supported via Google Cloud Rendering, by Maya and used by true fx giants like ILM. But I'm not so much arguing which is better, more the way this is being implemented. Why not offer differing packages then? Or no renderer except scanline and save us the money? This is like being forced to pay for one at the obvious expense of the other...

I get that Arnold may be great, but again in my case we are talking about years of work and it's a lot more than just learning a new system: It's the time to convert previous work. I learned to use VRay in about a month, but it's not like I would think about switching all my Mental Ray projects over unless absolutely necessary.

I have dozens of projects that if a customer comes back to me and asks for edits etc. there will not be the option to say "Can we try a whole new look and feel this time around since my AD changed the render engine? First off they wouldn't understand, and second they would think I was out of mind for even asking. They are going to rightly expect that what I deliver looks exactly like what they got before- and often it will be used side by side. And again- sure I can buy a separate Mental Ray license but it's not a small cost on top of all the other expenses we have in this industry.

---

I agree.

[darawork]

The last time I heard of an Arnold was on TV's 'Different Strokes'.

What you talking 'bout Willis? Etc.
He used to get into so many capers.

Seems the 80's revival was not just tried to music and clothing.

I'm so glad I've now switched over to vRay solely.
The slow divorce of Mental Ray has become an unbearable trainwreck.

[timd1971]

Is there anything that makes it seamless to open a MR based max file and it can easily substitute / replace MR materials, lights, etc with Arnold ones and still have at least similar results??

Such a shame to throw all us MR users under the bus like that...but that's nothing not expected.

[Judith.Hageman]

AD did that for the ART renderer in Max 2017 (Scene Converter) so why not for Arnold?

Best,

Judith

[Isaac_Zuniga]

I'm not going to sugarcoat this, it is quite unprofessional that they did not tell the customers about this at least when they started considering it. (From what Nvidia says on their site, they made this an idea back in December.)

I've been an Autodesk user for about 7 years, but I have not been part of the online community until just a year ago. I'm starting to see a trend with Autodesk, and I sure hope that it's just a vocal minority I'm hearing this from; if it turns out to be true, then Autodesk may not live until 2100. (Just a generous guess.)

[timd1971]

Unfortunatly this kind of crap has long existed with Autodesk, and always will.

What irks me is how they built up all this clout of Mental Ray in max for so long and all of sudden just threw us all under the bus as if it's nothing. This is actually quite serious.

Again, it was expected though from Autodesk.... most things are these days.

I know Arnold is great, but so is/was MR. Obviously both Autodesk and Nvidia couldn't make a deal, so we suffer.

I'm all for giving Arnold a shot, but would have been civil if we had a warning and a transition period. They better **** well at least provide a converter that works FLAWLESSLY.... yeah right.

[stephen.d.green]

Yeah, they have form.

They pulled reactor with no advance notice outside of the beta team.

I'm not sure there's anything stopping them doing it a second time with PhysX implementation in Max, since that's nVidia as well.

[doug_bowker_3D]

As it turns out, for single images (and sequenced singles) Mental Ray for Max 2018 is still free after all. This certainly makes the transition easier, and though a few bugs still need working out, I can already see a few improvements. I'll likely wait a bit to spring for the full paid version, but seeing as how I already have a render farm invested in, I'll almost certainly want to get the multi-license. I can always do a revert to 2017 Save As in the meantime anyway.

Possible Silver Lining: Though having to pay more for what was free isn't preferable, the news coming out of Nvidia/Mental Ray is that we may indeed see some real updates and improvements now that they are on their own. You could also read this as: if they want people to pay for it, it needs to be worth it!

Arnold: I have to say, nothing from what I've seen with Arnold in any way makes me want to start converting all my scenes over. Or even using it for new scenes for that matter. I have VRay too, though it's not my favorite either, I can't see what Arnold brings to the table that VRay or Mental Ray doesn't.

Can anyone say exactly what would be the supposed benefit of Arnold over any other renderer? Being serious here! I'd really like to hear from someone who has equal experience with Arnold and some other software, and why they ended up using it over the others. I get that without a deep dive into it I may be missing something key that would make it really worth learning and using. But you know, time is always in short supply, so I need to know beforehand if it'd be worth the effort.

[Anonymous]

Bravo Doug! You have echoed everything I've been thinking since I've heard of this 'benefit' of giving us Arnold, and killing Mental Ray. This is a huuuuge kick in the sack to Max users who have used Mental Ray over the course of the last 8 or so years it has been with Max. 

We are seriously considering going over to Cinema 4D due to how AD has been treating its' users. For the users that have render farms dedicated to producing quality renders....you have been boned. In order to use your farm, you now need to pony up $$$$ ....So frustrating!!!

-Tim Leonard

[doug_bowker_3D]

Hey Tim! Nice to hear an old friend respond to my post!
Yeah, it's been an adventure with this new release, though at least single licenses of MR are free at the moment. I'm cautiously optimistic we might get something out of it if Nvidia accelerates their dev. on MR. Still, I feel like with Max 2018 I'm paying for a "new" renderer that I'm almost certainly not going to use, maybe ever. I have VRay too, but it's not my go-to, and I sure don't need a third one in the mix.

[Anonymous]

a cou ca racha, a cou ca racha, a cou CORONA, a cou CORONA!

Everyone, say it with me now!

a cou CORONA, a cou CORONA

(mental ray for 10 years to corona, never been so happy - Architectural Viz)

[Anonymous]

Perhaps we users should consider a class action suit? This seems like an unannounced change in terms of the subscription contract. Any Animator/Lawyers on the forum?

[Isaac_Zuniga]

You'd need a strong grounds if you want to take those kinds of measures against Nvidia.

This is something that you would have to talk to Nvidia about, 'cause Mental Ray is their product, not Autodesk's. Autodesk did not make the decision for Mental Ray to become "pay-to-use", as it was never their product. Autodesk had very little say over what was going to happen with Mental Ray, all they were able to do was make sure that the new version of Mental Ray works with 3ds Max 2018.

Mental Ray is Nvidia's product and decided to do this themselves. If you'd like to talk to Nvidia about this situation, you can create a post on their Mental Ray forums for 3ds Max 2018 here:

https://forum.nvidia-arc.com/forumdisplay.php?217-NVIDIA-Mental-Ray-for-3ds-Max

[Anonymous]

Good point with it being Nvidia's play....but that does not excuse Autodesk from not taking the appropriate measures to satisfy its' user base. Now that they own Arnold, they should have implemented the same deal...unlimited seats for users....NOT creating a money grab that essentially forces the hand of small studios to make the decision of whether or not to buy render engines for their render farm...when this was not a consideration before! Cinema 4D is looking better and better...

[Isaac_Zuniga]

Just because Autodesk "owns" Solidangle, doesn't mean that they have full control over the company.

Just like when Microsoft bought out Mojang, I remember seeing countless Minecraft videos on Youtube (some of which flooded my "recommended for you" tab because of Youtube's broken system...), of people guessing that Microsoft was going to control the entire game. Well, here we are, 2017; Mojang is still in control of Minecraft. The company is just under ownership of Microsoft, but that does not mean that Microsoft can directly control the game.

Same here with Autodesk, Autodesk merely bought a company; that does not grant it 100% control over the product that Solidangle creates. (Although, a deal could be worked out, potentially...)