Arnold Render vs Redshift are popular 3D renderers in the VFX and 3D animation industries. Both of these renderers work against the GPU card to produce high-quality renders. Each rendering engine will have strengths and weaknesses in the rendering process. Let us compare Arnold Render vs Redshift to determine which is the right render engine for your project.

Overview Arnold render vs Redshift

It’s hard for you to imagine if you compare two rendering engines like that, how to be fair and most objective.

We’ll break down both renderers side-by-side so you can see their strengths and weaknesses, and for different types of projects using additional 3D software. What type of renderer to use to ensure the best performance and best rendering.

Arnold is a Monte Carlo ray tracing renderer that gives you the most powerful feature sets and full control to build long-running visual effects and animation requirements. Arnold is used to rendering realistic 3D characters, creating photorealistic designs, finalizing scenes for film and TV, and designing visualization projects.

Arnold has two types of rendering: CPU and GPU. The Arnold GPU is designed to work with the NVIDIA GPU so artists can accelerate rendering and animation while also providing higher rendering quality.

Arnold uses Nvidia’s CUDA technology, which works on nodes that make it possible to process parallel tasks to save time without affecting rendering quality. As a result, the Arnold GPU renders scenes much faster, which makes it ideal for artists and studios that need to produce quality scenes in a fixed amount of time.

Redshift is the world’s fastest biased rendering engine; it’s a GPU-accelerated renderer for high-end rendering needs. It uses biased rendering along with powerful ray tracing and heuristics to speed up render times. Because it is a biased renderer, it generates approximations during rendering and shows the fastest time.

Redshift is tailored to meet the latest high-end product rendering requirements. Not only that, it’s specifically designed to support creative individuals and studios of all sizes, and Redshift offers powerful integration with industry-standard CG applications.

Compare Arnold render vs Redshift

There are many factors to compare between Arnold Render vs Redshift. In this article, we will only compare factors like: render methodology, GPU usage, render speed, feature, and cost. These are the factors that will affect the time and cost of rendering your project. Each rendering engine will suit different projects; see which render engine you are looking for.

Render methodology

As we said above, Arnold uses Monte Carlo ray tracing algorithms to simulate the physical behavior of light, while Redshift uses biased rendering combined with powerful ray tracing and heuristics to speed up rendering.

GPU Usage

Arnold uses both the CPU and GPU; it uses Nvidia’s CUDA technology.

Redshift uses both CUDA and OpenCL technologies and supports a wide range of GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. Redshift was the first renderer to use GPU, while Arnold developed from CPU and then developed more GPU cards.

Render Speed

Redshift is known to be one of the fastest rendering engines available today. It has a scene rendering speed many times faster than Arnold because the way it works is biased and takes advantage of the parallel processing power of multiple GPU cards.

Feature

Arnold render vs Redshift offers many features, including support for subsurface scattering, volumetric rendering, and illumination. However, despite the similar features, the two renderers also have different strengths. Arnold is more about creating realistic lighting and materials, and Redshift is more about speed and efficiency.

Therefore, for projects with a limited time that need to shorten rendering time while still ensuring quality, Redshift is the best choice. And when your project has plenty of time to ask for just perfect realism, don’t forget that Arnold is very good at this.

Cost

This is probably the easiest criterion to compare. With the price criteria, you will easily see that Arnold has a booking license compared to Redshift. Licensing and maintenance costs can add up over time. Redshift is generally more affordable, with flexible licensing for as many customers as possible to access their services.

Arnold GPU:

Paid every 3 years: $1,085/3 year
Paid annually: $380/year
Paid monthly: $50

Redshift renderer:

Redshift has a variety of packages with different price points to suitable your budget. Here is the pricelist of Redshift.

Forger (Professional Mobile 3D Sculpting): $1.37/month (annual); $2.12/month (monthly).
Zbrush (3D Digital Sculpting and Painting): $34.75/month (annual); $45.77/month (monthly).
Universe (Video Transition and Effects Plugins): $20.16/month (annual); $34.31/month (monthly).
Redshift (GPU-Accelerated, Biased Rendering): $24.29/month (annual); $49.67/month (monthly).
Red Giant (Everything from Red Giant): $61.02/month (annual); $95,46/month (monthly).
Cinema 4D (3D Animation Software): $65.27/month (annual); 109.84/month (monthly)
Maxon One (All Our Products in One Bundle): $119.75 (annual); $181.77/month (monthly)

Wrap up

Arnold render vs Redshift are both excellent renderers. We have relied on our experience and consulted other artists’ experiences to conclude the similarities and differences between these two renderers. Many studios use Redshift as their fast renderer of choice for short films, TVCs, and commercials. And Arnold was chosen to make movies with high realism.

See more: 3D Render engines compare: Redshift render vs Octane

3D render engines Compare: Arnold render vs Redshift – Which one is a powerful?