
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
Try a Preset Click on Presets* Choose a shader from the list such as Jade and 100%
You can change the aiStandard shader to a Maya Standard shader. This way you can see a swatch of the shader ball in the Hypershade Window. Hold down the button next to Type Select Standard Shader
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 (There is a pointer on the light icon, this needs to aim at your objects.) Scale X .2, Y .2, Z .2 (This 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
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.)

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