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Expanded introduction and infobox software, refreshed list of films, added TV series, mentioned co-development with Imageworks, and expanded Technology section, including GPU and sampling research with references.
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'''Arnold''' is a computer program for [[3D rendering|rendering]] three-dimensional, computer-generated scenes using [[Unbiased rendering|unbiased]], [[physically based rendering|physically-based]], Monte Carlo path tracing techniques. Created in Spain by Marcos Fajardo and later co-developed by his company Solid Angle SL (now owned by [[Autodesk]]<ref>[https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/solid-angle-joins-autodesk] Solid Angle, 6 August 2013</ref>) and [[Sony_Pictures_Imageworks|Sony Pictures Imageworks]], Arnold is one of the most widely used [[Photorealism|photorealistic rendering systems]] in computer graphics worldwide in 2021, specially in animation and [[Visual_effects|VFX]] for film and TV.
'''Arnold''' is a computer program for [[3D rendering|rendering]] three-dimensional, computer-generated scenes using [[Unbiased rendering|unbiased]], [[physically based rendering|physically-based]], Monte Carlo path tracing techniques. Created in Spain by Marcos Fajardo and later co-developed by his company Solid Angle SL (now owned by [[Autodesk]]) and [[Sony_Pictures_Imageworks|Sony Pictures Imageworks]], Arnold is one of the most widely used [[Photorealism|photorealistic rendering systems]] in computer graphics worldwide in 2021, specially in animation and [[Visual_effects|VFX]] for film and TV.
Notable feature films that have used Arnold include ''[[Monster House (film)|Monster House]]'', ''[[Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (film)|Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs]]'', ''[[Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'', ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'', ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger|Captain America]]'', ''[[X-Men: First Class]]'', ''[[The Avengers (2012 film)|The Avengers]]'', ''[[Space Pirate Captain Harlock (film)|Space Pirate Captain Harlock]]'', ''[[Elysium (film)|Elysium]]'', ''[[Pacific Rim (film)|Pacific Rim]]'', ''[[Gravity (2013 film)|Gravity]]'', ''[[Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(film)|Guardians of the Galaxy]]'', ''[[Star_Wars:_The_Force_Awakens|Star Wars: The Force Awakens]]'', ''[[Arrival_(film)|Arrival]]'' and ''[[Blade_Runner_2049|Blade Runner 2049]]''.<ref name="fxguide">{{cite web | url=http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-art-of-rendering/ | title=The Art of Rendering (updated) | publisher=fxguide.com, LLC | work=fxguide | date=10 April 2012 | accessdate=6 August 2013 | author=Seymour, Mike}}</ref> Notable television series include ''[[Game_of_Thrones|Game of Thrones]]'', ''[[Westworld_(TV_series)|Westworld]]'', ''[[Trollhunters:_Tales_of_Arcadia|Trollhunters]]'' and ''[[Love,_Death_%26_Robots|LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS]]''.
Notable feature films that have used Arnold include ''[[Monster House (film)|Monster House]]'', ''[[Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (film)|Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs]]'', ''[[Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'', ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'', ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger|Captain America]]'', ''[[X-Men: First Class]]'', ''[[The Avengers (2012 film)|The Avengers]]'', ''[[Space Pirate Captain Harlock (film)|Space Pirate Captain Harlock]]'', ''[[Elysium (film)|Elysium]]'', ''[[Pacific Rim (film)|Pacific Rim]]'', ''[[Gravity (2013 film)|Gravity]]'', ''[[Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(film)|Guardians of the Galaxy]]'', ''[[Star_Wars:_The_Force_Awakens|Star Wars: The Force Awakens]]'', ''[[Arrival_(film)|Arrival]]'' and ''[[Blade_Runner_2049|Blade Runner 2049]]''.<ref name="fxguide">{{cite web | url=http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-art-of-rendering/ | title=The Art of Rendering (updated) | publisher=fxguide.com, LLC | work=fxguide | date=10 April 2012 | accessdate=6 August 2013 | author=Seymour, Mike}}</ref> Notable television series include ''[[Game_of_Thrones|Game of Thrones]]'', ''[[Westworld_(TV_series)|Westworld]]'', ''[[Trollhunters:_Tales_of_Arcadia|Trollhunters]]'' and ''[[Love,_Death_%26_Robots|LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS]]''.


==Technology==
==Technology==


Originally written in [[C99]] and progressively rewritten in [[CXX|C++]], Arnold runs natively on [[X86|x86]] [[Central_processing_unit|CPU]]s, where it tries to take advantage of all available threads and [[SIMD]] lanes. Since March 2019 it supports [[Nvidia]] [[Nvidia_RTX|RTX]]-powered [[Graphics_processing_unit|GPU]]s through the use of [[OptiX]]. <ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/news/press-release-arnold-5-3-gpu/] Autodesk, 18 March 2019</ref> Its [[Ray_tracing_(graphics)|ray tracing]] engine is optimized to send billions of spatially incoherent rays throughout a 3D scene composed of geometric primitives including polygons, hair splines, and volumes. It often uses multiple levels of diffuse and specular inter-reflection so that light can bounce off of a wall or other object and indirectly illuminate a subject. For complex scenes such as the space station in Elysium, it makes heavy use of geometry instancing, which helps it render trillions of visible polygons in a reasonable amount of memory. It uses the [[OpenImageIO]] library for out-of-core rendering of large numbers of high-resolution texture maps. It has a fully programmable [[API]], and uses [[Shaders|shaders]] written in C++ or [[Open Shading Language]] to define the materials and textures.
Originally written in [[C99]] and progressively rewritten in [[CXX|C++]], Arnold runs natively on [[X86|x86]] [[Central_processing_unit|CPU]]s, where it tries to take advantage of all available threads and [[SIMD]] lanes for optimal parallelism. Since March 2019<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/news/press-release-arnold-5-3-gpu/ | title=Introducing Arnold 5.3 with Arnold GPU in public beta | date=18 March 2019}}</ref> it supports [[Nvidia]] [[Nvidia_RTX|RTX]]-powered [[Graphics_processing_unit|GPU]]s through the use of [[OptiX]]. Its [[Ray_tracing_(graphics)|ray tracing]] engine is optimized to send billions of spatially incoherent rays throughout a 3D scene composed of geometric primitives including polygons, hair splines, and volumes. It often uses multiple levels of diffuse and specular inter-reflection so that light can bounce off of a wall or other object and indirectly illuminate a subject. For complex scenes such as the space station in Elysium, it makes heavy use of geometry instancing, which helps it render trillions of visible polygons in a reasonable amount of memory. It can render large numbers of high-resolution texture maps thanks to its integration of the [[OpenImageIO]] library. It has a fully programmable [[API]], and uses [[Shaders|shaders]] written in C++ or [[Open Shading Language]] to define the materials and textures.<ref name="ACM ToG">{{cite journal | doi=10.1145/3182160 | publisher=Association for Computing Machinery | work=Transactions on Graphics | volume=37 | title=Arnold: A Brute-Force Production Path Tracer | date=August 2018 }}</ref>

⚫
Arnold is based on the [[Monte Carlo method|Monte Carlo]] [[Path_tracing|Path Tracing]] algorithm, making extensive use of [[Importance_sampling|importance sampling]] and other numerical techniques to improve the quality of rendered images. In particular, the Solid Angle and Imageworks teams published research throughout the 2010s that popularized the use of [[Solid_angle|solid angle]]-based sampling of area lights in production rendering<ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/egsr2013_spherical_rectangle.pdf] Solid Angle, EGSR 2013</ref><ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/egsr2017_spherical_ellipse.pdf] Solid Angle, EGSR 2017</ref><ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/egsr2018_projected_spherical_caps.pdf] Solid Angle, EGSR 2018</ref>, the use of equi-angular sampling for volumetric scattering<ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/s2011_equiangular_slides.pdf] Solid Angle, SIGGRAPH 2011</ref>, and the use of blue noise dithered sampling.<ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/dither_abstract.pdf] Solid Angle, SIGGRAPH 2016</ref>


⚫
Arnold is based on the [[Monte Carlo method|Monte Carlo]] [[Path_tracing|Path Tracing]] algorithm, making extensive use of [[Importance_sampling|importance sampling]] and other numerical techniques to improve the quality of rendered images. Throughout the 2010s, its team published research that popularized the use of [[Solid_angle|solid angle]]-based sampling of area lights in production rendering<ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/egsr2013_spherical_rectangle.pdf] Solid Angle, EGSR 2013</ref><ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/egsr2017_spherical_ellipse.pdf] Solid Angle, EGSR 2017</ref><ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/egsr2018_projected_spherical_caps.pdf] Solid Angle, EGSR 2018</ref>, the use of equi-angular sampling for volumetric scattering<ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/s2011_equiangular_slides.pdf] Solid Angle, SIGGRAPH 2011</ref>, and the use of blue noise dithered sampling.<ref>[https://www.arnoldrenderer.com/research/dither_abstract.pdf] Solid Angle, SIGGRAPH 2016</ref>


==History==
==History==


[[File:Marcos Fajardo, Siggraph 2013.jpg|thumb|Marcos Fajardo at [[SIGGRAPH]] 2013 in Anaheim, CA]]
[[File:Marcos Fajardo, Siggraph 2013.jpg|thumb|Marcos Fajardo at [[SIGGRAPH]] 2013 in Anaheim, CA]]
Marcos Fajardo is the chief architect of Arnold.<ref name="fxguide" /> The beginnings of what is now Arnold emerged in 1997 when Fajardo decided to write his own renderer. That year, he attended [[SIGGRAPH]], where his interest in [[stochastic ray tracing]] (a foundational part of Arnold's rendering technology) was piqued in discussions with friends attending the conference.<ref name="fxguide" />
Marcos Fajardo is the chief architect of Arnold.<ref name="fxguide" /> The beginnings of what is now Arnold emerged in 1997 when Fajardo decided to write his own renderer. That year, he attended [[SIGGRAPH]], where his interest in [[stochastic ray tracing]] (a foundational part of Arnold's rendering technology) was piqued in discussions with friends attending the conference.


Early versions of Fajardo's renderer were called RenderAPI.<ref name="fxguide" /> The name Arnold emerged when one of Fajardo's friends suggested it after mocking an [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] film they saw in a theater.<ref name="fxguide" />
Early versions of Fajardo's renderer were called RenderAPI. The name Arnold emerged when one of Fajardo's friends suggested it after mocking an [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] film they saw in a theater.<ref name="fxguide" />


In 2004, Fajardo entered a licensing and co-development agreement with [[Sony_Pictures_Imageworks|Sony Pictures Imageworks]], which resulted in separated branches for the commercial and proprietary versions of Arnold.
⚫
Solid Angle, the company behind Arnold, was purchased by [[Autodesk]] in early 2016. The acquisition was announced officially on April 18, 2016.<ref>http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/solid-angle-joins-autodesk</ref>

⚫
Solid Angle, the company behind Arnold, was founded in 2009 and purchased by [[Autodesk]] in early 2016. The acquisition was announced officially on April 18, 2016.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/solid-angle-joins-autodesk | title=Solid Angle joins Autodesk | date=18 April 2016}}</ref>


On 4 January 2017, the [[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] recognized Fajardo with a Scientific and Engineering award (Academy plaque) for "the creative vision and original implementation of the Arnold Renderer."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Giardina|first1=Carolyn|title=Oscars: Scientific and Technical Awards Winners Revealed|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/oscars-2017-scientific-technical-awards-winners-revealed-960765|accessdate=January 5, 2017|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=January 4, 2017}}</ref>
On 4 January 2017, the [[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] recognized Fajardo with a Scientific and Engineering award (Academy plaque) for "the creative vision and original implementation of the Arnold Renderer."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Giardina|first1=Carolyn|title=Oscars: Scientific and Technical Awards Winners Revealed|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/oscars-2017-scientific-technical-awards-winners-revealed-960765|accessdate=January 5, 2017|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=January 4, 2017}}</ref>
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====United States====
====United States====
* [[Luma Pictures]]
* [[Luma Pictures]]
* [[DreamWorks_Animation|DreamWorks Animation]]
* [[Reel_FX_Creative_Studios|Reel FX]]
* [[Psyop_(company)|Psyop]]


====Canada====
====Canada====
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* [[The Embassy Visual Effects]]
* [[The Embassy Visual Effects]]
* [[Hybride technologies]]
* [[Hybride technologies]]
⚫
* [[Cinesite]]
* [[Arcana Studio]]
* [[Arcana Studio]]


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* [[Framestore]]
* [[Framestore]]
* [[Cinesite]]
* [[Cinesite]]
* [[Moving_Picture_Company|MPC]]
* Freefolk
* [[The_Mill_(company)|The Mill]]
* [[Aardman_Animations|Aardman]]
* [[Milk_VFX|Milk VFX]]
* BlueBolt


====Germany====
====Germany====
* [[Trixter (company)|Trixter]]
* [[Trixter (company)|Trixter]]
* Sehsucht


====France====
====France====
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====Norway====
====Norway====
*[[Storm Studios]]
* [[Storm Studios]]

====Sweden====
* Important Looking Pirates


====Hungary====
====Hungary====
*[[Digic Pictures]]
* [[Digic Pictures]]


====Poland====
====Poland====
*[[Platige Image]]
* [[Platige Image]]


====Spain====
====Spain====
*[[Ilion Animation Studios]]
* [[Ilion Animation Studios]]
* [[El Ranchito]]


===Oceania===
===Oceania===
====Australia====
====Australia====
* [[Rising Sun Pictures]]
* [[Rising Sun Pictures]]
* [[Luma Pictures]]


===Asia===
===Asia===
====India====
====India====
* [[Prana Studios]]
* [[Prana Studios]]

====Japan====
* [[Marza_Animation_Planet|Marza Animation Planet]]
* [[Square_Enix|Square Enix]]
⚫
* [[NHK]]


==See also==
==See also==
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==External links==
==External links==
* {{Official website|https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/solid-angle-joins-autodesk}}
* {{Official website|https://www.arnolrenderer.com}}
* [https://www.autodesk.com/products/arnold/overview Autodesk product page]
* [https://www.autodesk.com/products/arnold/overview Autodesk product page]


Revision as of 15:53, 26 February 2021

Arnold
Original author(s)Marcos Fajardo
Developer(s)Solid Angle, Autodesk, Sony Pictures Imageworks
Stable release
6.2 / January 2021
Written inC++
Operating systemLinux, Windows and macOS
TypeRendering system
LicenseProprietary commercial software
Websitewww.arnoldrenderer.com

Arnold is a computer program for rendering three-dimensional, computer-generated scenes using unbiased, physically-based, Monte Carlo path tracing techniques. Created in Spain by Marcos Fajardo and later co-developed by his company Solid Angle SL (now owned by Autodesk) and Sony Pictures Imageworks, Arnold is one of the most widely used photorealistic rendering systems in computer graphics worldwide in 2021, specially in animation and VFX for film and TV. Notable feature films that have used Arnold include Monster House, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Alice in Wonderland, Thor, Captain America, X-Men: First Class, The Avengers, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Elysium, Pacific Rim, Gravity, Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.[1] Notable television series include Game of Thrones, Westworld, Trollhunters and LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS.

Technology

Originally written in C99 and progressively rewritten in C++, Arnold runs natively on x86 CPUs, where it tries to take advantage of all available threads and SIMD lanes for optimal parallelism. Since March 2019[2] it supports Nvidia RTX-powered GPUs through the use of OptiX. Its ray tracing engine is optimized to send billions of spatially incoherent rays throughout a 3D scene composed of geometric primitives including polygons, hair splines, and volumes. It often uses multiple levels of diffuse and specular inter-reflection so that light can bounce off of a wall or other object and indirectly illuminate a subject. For complex scenes such as the space station in Elysium, it makes heavy use of geometry instancing, which helps it render trillions of visible polygons in a reasonable amount of memory. It can render large numbers of high-resolution texture maps thanks to its integration of the OpenImageIO library. It has a fully programmable API, and uses shaders written in C++ or Open Shading Language to define the materials and textures.[3]

Arnold is based on the Monte Carlo Path Tracing algorithm, making extensive use of importance sampling and other numerical techniques to improve the quality of rendered images. Throughout the 2010s, its team published research that popularized the use of solid angle-based sampling of area lights in production rendering[4][5][6], the use of equi-angular sampling for volumetric scattering[7], and the use of blue noise dithered sampling.[8]

History

Marcos Fajardo at SIGGRAPH 2013 in Anaheim, CA

Marcos Fajardo is the chief architect of Arnold.[1] The beginnings of what is now Arnold emerged in 1997 when Fajardo decided to write his own renderer. That year, he attended SIGGRAPH, where his interest in stochastic ray tracing (a foundational part of Arnold's rendering technology) was piqued in discussions with friends attending the conference.

Early versions of Fajardo's renderer were called RenderAPI. The name Arnold emerged when one of Fajardo's friends suggested it after mocking an Arnold Schwarzenegger film they saw in a theater.[1]

In 2004, Fajardo entered a licensing and co-development agreement with Sony Pictures Imageworks, which resulted in separated branches for the commercial and proprietary versions of Arnold.

Solid Angle, the company behind Arnold, was founded in 2009 and purchased by Autodesk in early 2016. The acquisition was announced officially on April 18, 2016.[9]

On 4 January 2017, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized Fajardo with a Scientific and Engineering award (Academy plaque) for "the creative vision and original implementation of the Arnold Renderer."[10]

Notable studios using Arnold

North America

United States

Canada

Europe

United Kingdom

Germany

France

Norway

Sweden

  • Important Looking Pirates

Hungary

Poland

Spain

Oceania

Australia

Asia

India

Japan

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Seymour, Mike (10 April 2012). "The Art of Rendering (updated)". fxguide. fxguide.com, LLC. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  2. ^ "Introducing Arnold 5.3 with Arnold GPU in public beta". 18 March 2019.
  3. ^ "Arnold: A Brute-Force Production Path Tracer". Transactions on Graphics. 37. Association for Computing Machinery. August 2018. doi:10.1145/3182160.
  4. ^ [1] Solid Angle, EGSR 2013
  5. ^ [2] Solid Angle, EGSR 2017
  6. ^ [3] Solid Angle, EGSR 2018
  7. ^ [4] Solid Angle, SIGGRAPH 2011
  8. ^ [5] Solid Angle, SIGGRAPH 2016
  9. ^ "Solid Angle joins Autodesk". 18 April 2016.
  10. ^ Giardina, Carolyn (January 4, 2017). "Oscars: Scientific and Technical Awards Winners Revealed". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 5, 2017.


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