Check Out Arnold’s new Random Walk SSS & Other Features in Arnold 5.02

The Solid Angle team posts a look at some of the new shading features that are in the latest version of Arnold (MtoA 2.1.0 and Arnold 5.02). Most impressively is a new physically accurate Subsurface Scattering model that uses random walk SSS. Random Walk SSS provides results that are leaps and bounds over the previous method. Not only does the random walk method look more real, but it also is faster – by a lot.

Also shown in the video is a new car paint shader that is intended to be a one-stop workhorse for creating realistic car material. MtoA 2.1.0 also includes some new features for Arnold Renderview.

Solid Angle included several improvements in Arnold shadow matte shader. Now you can replace a combination of several nodes with a system that can work natively in the shadow matte shader.

MtoA 2.1.0 gives much better control over AOV’s thanks to revamps to the browser. There is also a more straightforward way to set light groups, light path expressions, and AOV shaders.

Subdivision Frustrum Culling also makes its way into the latest version. Now you can restrict mesh subdivision displays in the frustum of the camera, to optimize large scenes.