Color Managment Off
Select Windows->Settings/Preferences->Preferences
Under Color Management
     Uncheck Enable Color Management
Select Save



Create a Scene
Create->NURBS Primitives->Cylinder->
     Select Caps:  Top
In the Channel Box
     Translate Y   1

Create->NURBS Primitives->Sphere
In the Channel Box
     Translate X  2.5
     Translate Y  1

Create->NURBS Primitives->Plane
In the Channel Box
    Scale X and Z  20



Add Shaders
 Click on this Hypershade icon located at the top of the screen.
Select the Materials tab
Click on the Lambert icon in the Create list 2 times to create 2 shader balls.
Double click one of the Lambert Shader balls to bring up the Attribute Editor
     Click the Map Button   across from color
     Add a Checker texture
Under the texture's Attributes
     Change Color 1 to value 0.4
     Change Color 2 to value 0.3
Under the place2dTexturetab
     Change Repeat UV to 16 (both)
Select the polygon plane and hold right mouse over the Lambert material.
     Select Assign Material to Selection

Hit 6 to see the texture

Arnold AiStandardSurface Shader
 Hypershade
Select the Materials tab, Add an Arnold material
Click on the aiStandardSurface icon
Select the sphere and cylinder
     Hold right mouse over the aiStandardSurface material
     Click Assign Material to Selection
In the Attribute Editor under Base, Change the Color value to 0.5



Add Lights
Arnold->Lights->Skydome Light
     In the Attribute Editor
          Change the Intensity value to .3
          Change the Shadow Color to .5
          Uncheck Cast Volumetric Shadow  (This will help speed up the render a bit.)

Arnold->Lights->Area Light
In the Channel Box
     Translate X  -10, Y  15 and Z  10
     Rotate X -45,  Y -45
     Scale X .2, Y .2, Z .2    TThis will give you sharper shadows.)
In the Attribute Editor 
    Change Exposure to 10
     Under the Shadows section change Shadow Color to a dark gray



Render Settings
Render Settings icon upper right    (Windows->Rendering Editors->Render Settings...)

Change Render Using to Arnold Renderer    (Arnold is the default)
Presets-> Import Render Settings->Default Settings   (This resets all settings)
Under the Common tab:
     Choose Image format: tif
     Uncheck Dither

Faster settings, no transparency
Under the Arnold Renderer tab:
Under the Sampling arrow:
     Set Camera (AA) to 3      (default 3)
     Set Diffuse to 2      (default 2)
     Set Specular to 1      (default 2)
     Set Transmission to 0      (default 2)
     Set SSS to 0      (default 2)
     Set Volume Indirect to 0      (default 2)

Under the Ray Depth arrow
     Set Total to 1      (default 10)
     Set Diffuse to 1      (default 1)
     Set Specular to 1      (default 1)
     Set Transmisssion to 0      (default 8)
     Set Volume to 0      (default 0)
     Set Transparency Depth to 0      (default 10)



Render an image to the Render View
Click the Render View icon upper right to open the window
Click the Render the Current Frame icon    from the window



Make the Skydome Light Invisible in Background


The Skydome light will show up in the background, blocking the alpha channel.
Select the aiSkydome Light in the Outliner menu or the Hypershade menu->Lights tab
In the Attribute Editor under Visibility, change the Camera value to 0



Use Preset Shaders
 Hypershade, Materials tab
Make a aiStandard shader
Press the Presets* button select a preset you would like to try.



Single Sided
Arnold rendering is very slow because it is calculating reflections, refractions, shadows, and ambient attributes. In order to help speed up the rendering make everything single sided.

Select all the objects in the scene.
Choose Windows->General Editors->Attribute Spread Sheet.
Select the Render Tab.
Click the Double Sided Column.
Input 0 to turn off all selected items at once.




If you do not see Arnold options
Install plug-in
Keep in mind that Autodesk did not develop Arnold; it is a plug-in for Maya, so you may have to enable it in the Plug-in Manager before you can see it as an option in your Render Settings window.
     To enable the plug-in:  Windows->Settings/Preferences->Plug-in Manager
     Check both the Loaded box and the Auto Load box next to mtoa.mll
     (Located near the bottom of the list.)