Arnold is an advanced Monte Carlo ray tracing renderer built for the demands of feature-length animation and visual effects rendering, largely used to create movies and video games.

Arnold must be downloaded and installed manually.  In this example we will download the Arnold software, move it to the /tmp directory where it will be accessible within the container, create a sandbox container that we can interact with it in writable mode, and manually install Arnold.  This is not the standard best-practices workflow for creating Singularity containers, but may be necessary in some cases where non-interactive installations are the only method available.

In order to download Arnold, you will need to sign in or create an account with AutoDesk:
https://www.solidangle.com/arnold/try/

From within the container, copy (or move) the installer to the /tmp directory where it will be accessible inside the container at runtime.

This example was tested using Arnold for Maya for Linux 64 bit 2018 version.

Here is the definition file that we will use to create a base sandbox container suitable for interactive installation of Arnold:

You can download the definition file with:

Build the base container like so:

Start up a shell, in a ––writable sandbox container

Install Arnold to /opt/arnold …

• Read through the License Agreement
• Type — accept — if accepted
• Enter — 2 — for the Install mode
• Enter — /opt/arnold — for the Install location

After completing the interactive installation procedure exit the container.

Download a sample file to your current working directory:
https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5ARP/.ass+File+Examples

We’ll use: cornell.ass

After downloading the file, move it to your current working directory (which should also be where your arnold/ sandbox container is located).

Run a quick test render (without render window):.

Any option after the image (in this case arnold/), will be passed to the kick program.

Check output at: cornell.jpg

With the cornell.ass example, you will get output like:

Optionally you can also build a SIF image from the sandbox install.

Please note that this is not considered to be a best practice workflow. If you create a SIF image from an interactive sandbox session, the definition file that is saved in the SIF sandbox will not reflect all of the changes that have been made to the image. However, with Arnold there is no alternative but to install interactively.

Now, you can test again using the SIF file:

If you have a License for Arnold, you can set the value of solidangle_LICENSE in the %environment section of the Definition file, or by running Singularity and giving it the value to pass into the container:

View the Arnold example repository at: https://github.com/sylabs/examples/tree/master/graphics/rendering/arnold