Recently RandomControl released the new version of their renderer Arion which is the first renderer with hybrid unbiased technology for rendering. Comparing to their „flagship“ fryrender, RandomControl decided to build Arion on an entirely new technology designed to produce comparable output, but using every single computing device at your disposal. Basically Arion can use all the power of your computer to produce great and fast renders using multi-CPU / multi-GPU / multi-IP interactive rendering technology.

We got the opportunity to try and review Arion comparing his speed and quality with MentalRay and KeyShot 3.

 

 

Arion 1.6.x specification

Technology and Performance	Physical Lighting & Atmosphere
Hybrid acceleration (CPU+GPU+LAN) CUDA-based GPU sub-core. Multi-CPU / Multi-GPU / Multi-thread CPU sub-core. Based on highly optimized and clean code. SSE support. Distributed computing over the LAN.	Automatic Full Global Illumination. Physical Sun & sky. HDRI environment. Image-Based Lighting. Mesh emitters. Physically-based Sun & sky simulation. Accurate geo-location.
Physical Materials	Supported Modelling Platforms
Advanced material creation system. Global or mapped roughness. Fresnel. Custom IOR. Dielectric absorption. Opacity mapping. Dispersion. Bump / Normal mapping.	Autodesk 3ds Max. Maxon Cinema 4D. NewTek LightWave 3D. Autodesk maya . McNeel Rhinoceros 3D. Google SketchUp. SoftImage XSI. Luxology Modo.

 

 

Arion 1.6.x overview

Arion is a stand-alone render engine which basically means that you don’t render your image inside your 3D application but using Arion instead. To include Arion into the workflow of an artist RandomControl developed several plugins into the most used 3D applications including; Autodesk 3dsmax , Cinema4D, Autodesk Maya and more, to be able to export their desired scene into Arion. This export capability of Arion is one of his strong sides, it’s not only a simple model export but you can set-up your model, materials IDs, UV maps, atmosphere, lightning and cameras inside your favourite 3D application and then export this to Arion. The imported model or scene will preserve all these settings which you defined before allowing you to easily tune-up your final images inside Arion and set-up the materials. Arion is fully compatible with the file formats used by fryrender (.fry and .rcs). Thus, Arion and fryrender share and use the exact same plugins. Additionally, Arion can open/save scenes in the widely supported .OBJ format. So you can use Arion from virtually every modelling app in the market. The package of Arion which you can download as a trail or buy includes only the stand-alone renderer and you have to download the plugin for your 3D application separately. The downloaded package includes Arion himself, material library and sample scenes, like this it is "very" small and it don’t install unnecessary plugins and tools which the user wouldn’t use.

 

What’s new in Arion 1.6.x

In Short

Arion 1.6.x vs Arion 1.0

Uses all the GPUs -and- CPUs in your system simultaneously. Plugging an extra GPU delivers an immediate performance boost. 20x to 100x speed up per machine (hardware-dependent). Strictly physically-based. Fully unbiased (no cheats, no shortcuts). Does not need any kind of precomputations. Easy-to-use interactive WYSIWYG editing app. The real-time viewport -is- final quality. Production render engine features. Compatible with NetWarrior.

Improved GUI, now faster allowing to work with larger objects using lower amount of GPU memory Improved Arion Core, 75% smaller (minimum) memory footprint for grayscale textures Improved Arion Core, new setup-less (in-memory) Material Editor preview testroom. Added adoption of CUDA 4.1 RC2 Added support for an UNLIMITED number of  maps, materials and objects Added support for 16-bpp maps Added Physically-based Participating Media (fog) and Sub-Surface Scattering New Scenes Repository Many bug fixes and many other improvements

 

Arion uses all the GPUs -and- all the CPUs in your system simultaneously, not wasting a single flop available. Additionally, Arion can use all the GPUs and all the CPUs in all the other computers in your network forming a cluster for massive computation. This means that Arion will try literally to squeeze the computing potential of your computer to achieve a fast render. The GUI of Arion is well built and gives the user control about every single aspect of your scene including the atmosphere, materials, and lights.

After importing your exported scene into Arion, Arion starts to prepare the engine for Real-time rendering and immediately starts the render\preview process of your model\scene. Like inside KeyShot 3, the workspace which includes thereal-time rendered image is immediately redrawing according to your changes. Here it doesn’t matter if you change the material or just rotate your camera, Arion recalculate all the light properties to achieve a physically correct image and lightning.

 

 

Even that the GUI of Arion looks a bit too advanced for a user which never worked with it; it’s very intuitive and easy to use. After you import your scene you can notice that all the objects and materials are present in the left menu allowing you to re-arrange and create new materials for your render. The applying of the materials is made by a drag & drop system which is used in almost all application and users are familiar with this technique. The installer of Arion also includes a material library with different kind of materials from metal to fabric. The material editor allows you to create physically based materials using the options included in the editor and of course the uses of textures for diffuse, specular level and bump effects. For a better understanding of the materials, set-ups, lights and other settings of Arion, RandomControl prepared for a free download sample scenes which will help you to learn and understand the basics and features which can Arion give you.