Solved: Maya 2017 Student version, Mental Ray and Arnold License

Anonymous · ‎07-26-2016

So if I get Maya 2017 Student version how does Arnold work with it? I heard with Arnold you have to have a separate Arnold License to use it if that is the case will Mental Ray be available for 2017? If using the student license for Maya 2017 is the user stuck with the Maya software Renderer if they dont get an Arnold License?

DarrenP · ‎07-27-2016

Maya 2017 comes with Arnold its an optional install

Maya 2017 does not come with mental ray if you need mental ray you would have to buy it from Nvidia but i don't think they have released the Maya 2017 version yet

more info:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Changes-t...

DarrenP
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.

Anonymous · ‎07-27-2016

Oh okay. So student license users would be stuck with the Maya software rendered if they dont buy Mental Ray or Arnold?

maurice.patel · ‎07-27-2016

You can render using Arnold from within Maya UI (Foreground processing) this is a full quality non-watermarked render. You will only need Arnold licenses for background rendering (Batch). You can do this by either purchasing a license or by running tests (watermarked) and then using a service like Zync. The watermarked batch rendering allows you to get to final results faster and then you can always switch to FG rendering in Maya, use a service or if it makes more sense buy a license

dgorsman · ‎07-27-2016

Perhaps @maurice.patel can confirm this, but as far as I know students also get unlimited cloud credits for Autodesk cloud rendering.

Plus there may be institutional licenses for Arnold or MR available to the school (again, this should be clarified - especially for school software admins), where students would be doing the bulk of the work out of school and submitting renders on the school system rather than doing everything on their own computer.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.

Anonymous · ‎08-04-2016

I have used Zync successfully to render a 120 frame sequence not realizing that I could not do this locally. If Arnold can be used for a single frame render, we should be able to render an animated shot on a single machine. Isn't Maya an animation software?

Anonymous · ‎08-04-2016

Yes it is an animation software. However, Maya's built-in software renderer is not that great. Previously Maya came with Mental Ray renderer for free. However in 2017 it has to be purchased from Nvidia. For students using the Free version of Maya, previously they could just use Mental Ray for free since it came with Maya, but now students will have to pay for it. From what I am told, they can use Zinc as an alternative to buying Mental Ray or Arnold. I am assuming is either Free for students, or at least fairly affordable since it is being suggested.

Anonymous · ‎08-05-2016

Thanks, this was actually a rhetorical question. In any case, Zync is by no mean a free service for students or otherwise. The service is however cheap and easy to set up. As an example, I did render 120 frames with a 4 min/frame (6-core mac pro) render time in 13 min using 40 Preemptible machines at a total cost of $10. Hope this help. Of course with a little python coding, sequential frames can be saved directly from the renderview into your temp folder. Lets keep this one hush hush.....

Anonymous · ‎08-05-2016

You don't actually need to be sneaky, you can already render a sequence from the render view. F6(to get to the 'Rendering' menu)>Render>Render Sequence. That'll open up Render View and do a foreground render of you scene. It's a little bit hidden since it's not in any menu of the actual Render View window.

Russ

Anonymous · ‎08-06-2016

Is that using Arnold or the Maya Software renderer? Also Would there be a watermark on it if using Arnold? Furthermore would that lock up the computer like typical render view rendering would since it isnt running in the background like Maya Batch?

Anonymous · ‎08-06-2016

It will work with Arnold or Maya software. There is no watermark. I assume it will take take full control of Maya like the Render View regularly does, unless that behaviour has been changed in 2017, I didn't actually try to use maya while it was rendering.

Anonymous · ‎08-06-2016

I'm rendering a 240 frame animation with two lights and the asSkin shader using the Render Sequence command on a Mac Laptop as I write this. It isn't terribly fast, but unlike previous versions with Mental Ray, it appears that the computer is not locked up. Maya is locked up, of course, but the rest of the computer is still usable. I haven't looked into it, but it might be possible to instantiate Maya and run two copies.

Also, you can pause the rendering by getting Maya's PID number using Top or the Activity Monitor and using the "kill -STOP <PID> " and resume it by "kill -CONT <PID>" commands. If you are on the Mac, that is. I don't know the process for doing that on the PC.

Hope this helps!

Excelsior!

Eric Kunzendorf

Jacksonville University

Anonymous · ‎11-03-2016

In my initial tests I have found that the 'Render Sequence' option is limited to x resolution <= 1024. Maya 2017 crashes if the x res. is above that.

Anonymous · ‎11-03-2016

Sorry, I spoke too soon. The x<=1024 resolution limitation for (Arnold) 'Render Sequence' is likely related to our test system (a headless blade running Windows server OS). The same scene rendered via Render Sequence at full HD res on a Windows 7 box

Anonymous · ‎03-29-2017

I attempted to do that, but a window popped up saying I needed to buy a license. Is there a way around that?

mspeer · ‎03-29-2017

Hi!

There is no need to buy a license for rendering inside Maya (Preview or Render Sequence) for Arnold and Mental Ray.

If there is an error message when trying a batch render using Arnold without a license, here are some options:

https://support.solidangle.com/display/AFMUG/Licensing

Mental Ray does not allow batch rendering without a license as far as i know.

Anonymous · ‎03-29-2017

Thank you!

Anonymous · ‎04-17-2017

Hi, there,

i had the same issue, whatever i did, no good, didn't work, but finally i reinstalled Maya 2017 and made sure the Arnold option is checked and in a blink of an eye, all is fine 🙂

Best wishes

totoo

Mdaquibxxx · ‎06-08-2017

How can i do foreground render for multiple frames in maya 2017 Using Arnold. How can i get a sequence of rendered images without the watermark.
Again i am not talking about batch render.

maurice.patel · ‎06-08-2017

Hi,

You will need an Arnold license to render Arnold sequences from Maya. As Arnold does not yet support the licensing system used by Autodesk for its free student software it is not part of The Autodesk Education program yet. However because we do offer educational discounts to institutions you could talk to your school about getting Arnold licenses. Student licensing is something we are looking at as part of our Solid Angle integration but its too early for us to be able to share anything yet.