Arnold Renderer and Cinema 4D.

Arnold, the advanced ray tracing renderer is Imageworks’ main renderer.

Solid Angle, now a leading provider of rendering software for animation and visual effects, entered into a partnership with Sony Pictures Imageworks back in 2004.

Named after an impersonation by visual effects artist Andy Lesniak of Arnold Schwarzenegger, it pays a fitting homage to the Solid Angle ethos of aiming for heights that brute force can help achieve.

Fifteen years into the partnership, Arnold has been established as the go-to solution for rendering in feature film production with the most leading VFX and animation facilities choosing Arnold as their preferred rendering solution.

Arnold gives us outstanding image quality and the ease of set up that today’s productions demand. I’m thrilled we are able to add it to the arsenal of tools at ILM.

John Knoll, ILM

In May 2015, Arnold was released for the 3D software we use here at PlusTwo, Cinema 4D. What Arnold will unleash from Cinema 4D is photo-realistic renders that allows very fast visual feedback, by being extremely responsive within the Interactive Preview Render (IPR). With a whole new level of material properties, and easy to use render settings, objects and meshes come to life with life-like accuracy.

From the previews I have seen, I am amazed at how quickly visual feedback from the IPR is produced. Although it is known to be slightly slower than its competitors, such as Octane and Vray, the results are still mighty impressive.

The main difference, though is the fact it is the only render plug-in that supports both animation and single-frame distributed rendering in Team Render, allowing the use of all computers in a local network to speed-up Arnold rendering. Another difference between other render engines is the ease of use within Cinema 4D. Something Solid Angle promotes with feedback from studios such as ILM, The Mill and Framestore.

Bridging MAXON Cinema 4D with Solid Angle’s Arnold will give direct access for Cinema 4D artist to one of the most advanced render engines out there.

So where have you seen Arnold? You will be surprised, so here is their showreel which demonstrates how visually powerful, and popular it is in the visual effects industry.