Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) has acquired Solid Angle, developer of Arnold, an advanced, ray-tracing image renderer for high-quality 3D animation and visual effects creation used in film, television and advertising worldwide. Acquisition terms were not disclosed.
An efficient global illumination renderer used by more than 500 studios and thousands of independent artists, Arnold has been used on Academy Award-winning films such as “Ex Machina” and “The Martian” as well as Emmy Award-winning series “Game of Thrones,” among other popular features, TV shows and commercials.
“We’re constantly looking out for promising technologies that help artists boost creativity and productivity,” shared Chris Bradshaw, senior VP, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “Efficient rendering is increasingly critical for 3D content creation and acquiring Solid Angle will allow us to help customers better tackle this computationally intensive part of the creative process. Together, we can improve rendering workflows within our products as well as accelerate the development of new rendering solutions that tap into the full potential of the cloud, helping all studios scale production.”
“Autodesk shares our passion for numerical methods and computational performance and our desire to simplify the rendering pipeline, so artists can create top quality visuals more easily,” said Solid Angle founder Marcos Fajardo. “With Autodesk, we’ll be able to accelerate development as well as scale our marketing, sales and support operations for Arnold to better meet the needs of our growing user base. Working side-by-side, we can solve production challenges in rendering and beyond.”
As part of Autodesk, Solid Angle’s development team will continue to drive the evolution of Arnold, working in close collaboration with its user community. Arnold will remain available as a standalone renderer for both Autodesk products and third-party applications including Houdini, Katana, and Cinema 4D on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Both Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya will also continue to support other third-party renderers.
“As with other acquisitions, we are committed to supporting third-party applications with Arnold,” explained Bradshaw. “Our goal is to improve customers’ collaboration, creativity, productivity and efficiency across their entire pipeline, regardless of the tools they use.”
Arnold pricing and packaging is unchanged and Autodesk will continue to offer perpetual licenses of Arnold. Customers should continue to purchase Arnold through their usual Solid Angle channels.
