Free Network Rendering 3ds Max 2018

[jamesw]

The new release of 3ds Max comes with Arnold renderer rather than Mental Ray which can be downloaded direct from Nvidia. There is now no free network rendering for high end render engines meaning whichever render engine the customer wants to use they will have to pay for render nodes.

If Autodesk has decided not to use Mental ray out the box with free network rendering please can Arnold which is owned by Autodesk have free network rendering capabilities?

[artificial.tv]

Perhaps it's a way to, instead of having changed the Node-policy of MR, to grind teeth into the nodes. *wink wink nudge nudge*

The disappearance of MR within 3ds max alltogether (while good ole' Scanline renderer is still amongst us) could be an indication of what the intention behind the move was, perhaps. 

I am really curious whether there could be some kind of clarification on the future handling of Arnold licensing,

as this would influence my decision on whether to invest in a new render-node or a bigger workstation instead.

I personally think it is unfair towards small "studios" or, like in my case, a one-man studio, to focus so much on pricing based on how many nodes are in use.

I'd rather see a focus on how many workstations are manned. Isn't that the difference between big and wealthy studios and small project-oriented operations, manpower? What you can't get around in today's time, though, are render-nodes to stay reasonably productive. Especially with photorealism. Me as an artist, i need render power but i can't afford the same running cost like a studio can, focusing on the same area.

This isn't doing the 3D/VR/Digital Art communities any favour. The direction this is taking will affect small studios heavily, while the big studios won't even notice a difference.

[electrotoast_old]

@jamesw With regards to MR, it was number 3 of the most used renderers behind Vray and Scanline. The majority of our customers are already paying for workstation and render nodes with Vray or renderer like Pencil+ that utilize Scanline. This is the case for even small or one-man studios that @artificial.tv mentioned. You do still have the same rendering capabilities with ART renderer and Scanline that are included.

With the acquisition of Solid Angle and since we were licensing MR with dwindling usage, it gave us the chance to re-evaluate what we offer with regards to rendering. What we've ended up doing was essentially making an Arnold workstation license available with each seat of Max. For render nodes, there are individual render-licenses and Arnold 5-packs available, which are on par with competitor pricing when you look at our inclusion of a 'workstation license'. In addition, there are very competitive cloud solutions that are offered from companies such as Google Zync, Amazon Thinkbox, and Microsoft Azure. You could end up spending less using those solutions as it would cost less maintenance, licensing, etc.

@artificial.tv Let me know if there's additional clarification you need around Arnold licensing you can check out their forums here.