Can ARNOLD render resolution free?
 

I am new to Maya and rendering with Arnold so I have a basic question.

In Maya when we press 3 for smooth preview that action raises poly count of the selected object while in smooth mode for whatever was set as a subdivision number. (2 by default). So when I import 5k poly mesh, press 3 to smooth preview, I see in HUD that it goes up to 80 thousand polys. Which if I was to do the same thing for a lot of them would put huge strain on the system (as expected).


Now when rendering with Arnold (AIstandardSurface shader), if I select my 5K mesh and I go to Attribute Editor - Shape - Arnold - Subdivision and I set CatClark as a Type and 5 for Iterations (subdiv levels)..... in this scenario Maya's HUD still reports 5K mesh but the thing is super smooth (as expected). So...is this mean that Arnold can subdivide mesh for the rendering purposes completely freely and separately from number actual polys in the scene ?

Like you can render million polys and have actual 1000 polys in a scene ?


Thank you

Yes basically Arnold will subdivide at render time so its independent. Be careful of going to high when you start to get to the 100s of millions off Poly's mark then ram is going to become a concern.