Vray vs. Renderman vs. Arnold.

DataDragon

I am new to rendering software, I'm looking to do realistic 3D renders, both still frames and animations.

Is there any clear difference between Vray, Arnold, or Renderman?

It seems that Renderman has somewhat of a higher credibility, given its involvement in movies like Ultron, Jurassic world, the lego movie...


What do you guys think?

Shrike

Octane is also worth a look, pretty easy to use too and renders in real time progressively, pretty cool but not as many features.

Arnold is said to have the most realistic renderings but theres probably a bigger learning curve also renders take a lot longer as it dosnt cheat,so have a strong computer, Vray is widely used and gives great results and should have most documentation , Rendermen seems more niche but I dont know. You should ask in a movie CG forum, hardly anyone uses offline here.

DireWolf

Any render engines out there these days can do realistic render. Go ahead and get started with whatever engine available to you. Once you get the idea down, it applies across the board. There may be technical differences but the core understanding of a good render is the same regardless.

If you use Blender, Cycle is an excellent free engine. Renderman non commercial is also getting ported over.

clinington

Arnold does give fantastic results. I learnt it a few years ago at University and there was a massive learning curve then as there was very little support available. However, Solid Angle seem to have some good support pages now. I highly recommend it for realistic renders. With that being said, another option for stills could be Keyshot... It is really easy to use!

Shrike

I dont know, Keyshot looks good, especially compared to default stuff or realtime but
their BRDF / lighting seems kind of off and you can recognize keyshot renders, its hart to pinpoint but
it looks a bit stilized and seems to be best suited for isolated objects / easy product renderings while most others are more complete allround engines I assume

clinington

Yes, quick and easy for still renders

Meloncov

There's a pretty fundamental difference in programming between RenderMan and Vray or Arnold. Arnold and VRay are both primarily ray-traced based renderers; RenderMan is primarily Reyes based. What this means in practical terms is that RenderMan can better handle extremely heavy scenes, but because it's using forty-year-old technology at its core, it requires much more tweaking to get realistic results. There's definitely a reason why its still pretty much the standard for big VFX houses, but as a general rule I wouldn't recommend it for individuals.

JedTheKrampus

Renderman also has RIS now which uses pathtracing or VCM.