Max 2021 Arnold compositing problems

[eodeo]

Arnold is still not working for compositing. Transparent materials still don't have proper alpha channel and the new default material in 2021 - physical material - can't be setup to have transparent alpha in Arnold.

Matte/shadow is still lacking proper reflections that are not ghost like.

Lastly a word on ART rendeder. Ever since you abandoned Mental Ray, you haven't fixed ART to be able to render composites. It used to do it perfectly, but without the MR shaders- the "environment/background switcher" and "matte/shadow/reflection" specifically, ART can't be used for compositing any more. I was so happy that Max 2021 ships with the new OSL map "environment/background switcher", only to find out that only Arnold can use it, but Arnold is still mostly useless.

I know it's only been 3 years and 3 different Max releases since you dismantled native Max compositing options, but I teach 3d compositing, so it's important to me to be able to tell students why we're using old Max and how new Max still isn't fixed. Why not?

[jon.bell]

Hi Eodeo,

Thank you for your post. Would you be able to archive this exact scene setup and upload it to me so I can test this with the newest version of Arnold? The latest MaxtoA plugin is 4.0.3.17, which you can download from the Solid Angle website, so I'm curious if this issue is still present. (Your image shows a 3.x version of the plugin.)

Please let me know, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Best regards,

[eodeo]

Thank you very much for your reply! I wasn't happy with the tone of my original post. I've let my bitterness show through. I had this problem for years and it still isn't fixed. I am using the latest version of Arnold and I have tried many versions in between. With every new Max release, my hope goes up briefly only to be disappointed again.

Here is another scene I've just made to display the problems. (it's a very simple scene) Arnold is not only bad for compositing, it is also slow and produces noisier results while lacking details, like waves in the water.

Arnold renders the scene for 21 seconds, while ART renders it in 15. This is not an isolated instance. To make matters worse, it looks like ART has been made artificially slow in the newer versions of Max. ART is several times slower in both Max 2020 and 2021 compared to ART in Max 2017. New ART is also lacking the MR shaders that are available in Max 2017 with MR(mental ray) installed. These shaders make compositing possible.

At first, I was pleased that Arnold was bundled with Max, because it was so much faster than ART. Quickly I became puzzled by how slow ART was. Only when I've tested several scenes in newer and older Maxes, have I noticed that ART was noticeably faster while looking better compared to Arnold, but only when used in Max 2017. Newer ARTs produce the exact same quality of image, but take several times longer to render. While not a fan of conspiracy theories, it does look like Autodesk limited ART to make Arnold look bearable, if not good by comparison.

Lastly, please note that Arnold is incapable of rendering proper alpha for the physical material glass. ART does it perfectly. Reflections of the scene being reflected back on the 3d geometry look properly only in ART.

Scenes for Max 2017, 2020 and 2021 are in the attached archive.

Thank you for reading. Help much appreciated!

Arnold 21 sec, Max 2021

Max 2021- Arnold MaxtoA 4.0.3.17,  21 seconds render time

Max 2017- ART with mental ray, 15 seconds render time.

ART 15 sec, Max 2017

[jon.bell]

Hi Eodeo,

Thanks for your update, and no need to apologize -- I'm happy to help however I can here! (I love rendering and materials in 3ds Max.) 🙂

We did discover an issue with the ART renderer in 2020 (I need to test 2021) where some code changes actually made it slower for some scenes, and we logged that as a defect. (It's being worked on.) It definitely wasn't intentional, and our goal is to get those slowdowns fixed so that ART is as fast or faster than in previous versions of 3ds Max.

I'm forwarding your test scene to our Arnold developers and will see what they say. I'll also work to see about setting up a good Matte/Shadow/Reflection pass with Arnold and will report back as soon as I can.

Thanks for your help on this, and I'll be in touch with you soon!

Take care,

[eodeo]

Thank you! You have made my day!

I love both rendering and teaching others about it. Max is the best. I've been using Max since r1 and I love it.

Since I have your ear, or eyes, I'd love it if ART was restored to the simple and powerful renderer it was briefly in Max 2017. It just needs its speed back and those two MR shaders- environment/background switcher and a proper matte/shadow/reflection material that Arnold appears to be missing too.

Newly added OSL map environment/background switcher sounds like a great start and job half way already done. Now ART just needs to support it as well.

Thank you!

[jon.bell]

Hi Eodeo,

Thank you for your patience on this. I'm still testing this scene and conferring with the Arnold devs, and when I have an update for you I'll let you know.

Take care, and I'll talk to you soon!

[eodeo]

Thank you very much. I know pandemic is messing everyone's life, but I hope yours isn't upside down.

[madsd]

Tried your scene, and just scratched the way you build it up and instead tried to replicate what the bottom image shows, disregarind physical reflectanse and energy conserving rules, bypassing rays, and I can get that very pale and dark look, but it involved some bypassing here and there, I didnt save it out, what I want to say is, I can build it up so it looks very close to the other image.
I dont think that one is right and the other is wrong, the setup is what is needed so you dont get a double integration in the reflection based on the reflection on the object in the reflection and some kind of additive thing that is going on, you can cancle it out.

Anyways, it shouldnt be like that, but on the other side, I am also not sure MR is giving a physical correct matte, it looks like some pseudo reality, and Arnold does not go down that route pr default, it has to be customized.

I could be wrong, but thats how I feel after dabbling with it.

[jon.bell]

Hi Eodeo,

I just wanted to follow up with you on this question, and on Mads' comments as well (and he definitely knows what he's talking about!) 🙂

I forwarded your info and scene to the 3ds Max/Arnold developers, and they did note that they were working on improving the Matte/Shadow/Reflection workflow for Arnold in Max.

I'm not sure when those specific improvements will be released in Arnold, but for now, my advice would be to render separate AOVs for shadows, reflections, lighting and so forth and then composite those elements separately, if possible. (I would include those AOVs embedded into .exr files, and then if you're using After Effects or Photoshop, use the open-source Pro-EXR plugins to handle them.)

Can you please let us know if this information helps?

Thanks again, and take care!

[eodeo]

Thank you for your help. I was hoping Autodesk would fix this problem so I wouldn't have to bother with AOVs. Since they haven't, could you please tell me how to setup AOVs to get the proper reflection? Thank you.

[simone.nastasi]

has this ever been fixed? The matte reflection still looks wrong, max 2021.3, maxtoA 4.3.1.2

[simone.nastasi]

has this ever been fixed? The matte reflection still looks wrong, max 2021.3, maxtoA 4.3.1.2

[CiroCardoso3v]

Check on Arnold Answers. You will have a better reply from the Devs

[eodeo]

It's still broken. I've written on Arnold answers, to devs and I even mentioned it to a Arnold producer in person. He didn't believe that such a trivial problem even exists. Clearly he didn't look into it. I'm all out of ideas. It's been broken for 3 years now since I've first reported it.

I'm seriously thinking about switching to vray. It sounds like it has improved a lot over the last few years. The last chance for them to fix it is fall of this year, when I start teaching that course again. I'm not sure I'll continue to use Max 2017/MR/ART as I have thus far. With Max 2022 around the corner, Max 2017 is nearly 5 years old. And no one bothered to fix this since...

[simone.nastasi]

"Our shadow matte shader is a basic one and it does only additive blending as you noticed. We are planing to improve it in the future and address these more complex cases, but I have no ETA at the moment."

That's from june 2018 in arnold answers.
https://answers.arnoldrenderer.com/answers/6020/view.html