Faster is better.

What is Arion?

Arion is the hybrid-accelerated and physically-based light simulator developed by RandomControl. It inherits all our expertise in light simulation and makes it run on steroids, thanks to our very unique approach to massive CPU+GPU+LAN computation.

Arion is:

• an interactive WYSIWYG editing application.
• a super-high performance production renderer.

Arion's unique approach

Arion's 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.

In that regard, Arion is a grid-computing solution to the problem of light physics simulation. Simultaneous GPU+CPU+LAN, combined with our exhaustively optimized code, is what we call hybrid acceleration.

Some facts about Arion

• 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 (commandline renderer, compositing channels, etc...)
• Compatible with NetWarrior for hyper-fast cooperative still frame and animation rendering.

Click here to watch the video

Recorded on Core i7 + GeForce 285 GTX

Arion - More productivity for 3D professionals

Anyone doing rendering, from archvizzers to productvizzers, from individuals to large production studios, can benefit from Arion. Interactive editing and 20x to 100x faster physically-based rendering must sound good to everyone.

For example, the video on the left shows a live session in a productviz environment. A High-Dynamic Range image is illuminating the scene. As you can see, you can move around efficiently to pick the shot you want, and then it takes just a few seconds to get a clean, finished image.

Think of how many hours you could save with such tool. Also think of how much better results you could deliver, if you were able to see the impact of every parameter change as you make it.

Configure your scene in real-time

Hit render in your host app so the plugin exports your scene, and get it open in Arion in no time.

Edit the emitters and the environment to set the right mood. Now fine-tune your materials to get the exact look you're after. Every second you're seeing the final shot on screen, so you can focus in being creative. Now move around and ctrl-click to focus at the right spot.

Voilá. You've got the perfect shot.

Now lock the viewport and wait a little while, then press save, and snap. You're done.

This is the workflow you can expect from Arion.

Click here to watch the video

Recorded on Core i7 + GeForce 285 GTX

Click here to watch the video

Recorded on Core i7 + GeForce 285 GTX

Real fast production rendering

Having an interactive viewport with final-quality is bliss. Having a comfortable and familiar UI to drive that viewport is great too. But the potential of Arion does not stop there.

Arion is not just a real-time editor. It is a complete, industrial strength, unbiased and physically-based render engine. In fact, not only you can save the viewport to get a final render, but you can also set Arion to render off-screen at any resolution.

Moreover, Arion is fully compatible with the rest of our applications. This means, for example, that you can use NetWarrior to render large resolution still frames, or animations off-line, taking advantage of every CPU and every GPU in every machine in your LAN.

What OS / hardware is supported?

Arion v1.0 has been released for Windows only. However, the Mac OS X and Linux versions are in the works and will be released as soon as they're ready.

Arion supports all nVidia CUDA-enabled products (GeForce, Tesla and Quadro). There are no immediate plans to support other hardware APIs as of this moment.

Raw ray-tracing power using the AO channel

Recorded on Core i7 + GeForce 285 GTX