There almost seems to be a ton of third party render engines options in the last little while. Arnold, RenderMan, V-Ray, Thea, Corona, etc. Question is which is best for you?
PixelBump’s Stephen Sprinkles steps away from the Cinema 4D tutorials for a bit, and offers a comparative look into the RenderMan and Arnold render engines for Maya.
Comparing Pixar’s RenderMan and SolidAngle’s Arnold Renderer in Maya.
Pixar recently released RenderMan as free for personal use, with the commercial version weighing in at an attractive $500 / license. The most recent version of RenderMan included a new RIS engine.
RIS is RenderMan’s a highly optimized mode for rendering global illumination. It was built to specialize in rendering scenes with heavy geometry, hair, volumes, and irradiance with world-class efficiency in a single pass.
Stephen works through rendering high poly scenes with both the Arnold Renderer and RenderMan, with IBL lighting, and then runs the paces of studio lighting setups.
He also has a comparative look at sub surface scattering, rendering Maya Fluids, Smoke, and Explosions, renders from FumeFX as well as Maya particle renders to round out the testing.
Stephen hopes that by the end of the video you will be able to decide which render engine is right for your workflow and projects. Visit PixelBump’s website for more great tutorials.
Verafx
Wonderful review and comparison. I didn’t think reyes was necessary until the end.