I am using Rhino Gold (for jewelry) from Rhinoceros and I saw that Arnold hasn't a supported plugin for this program. Can Arnold be used as stand-alone program?
Yes, but you would you would have to somehow translate the Rhino scene to Arnold.
That's what plugins like MtoA do: they translate a Maya scene into an Arnold scene, and then render it with Arnold.
If you have access to linux or mac, you could try exporting to alembic and using Gaffer to shade and light.
Thanks guys. Unfortunately I am using Windows, I will look into it but clearly it is disadvantage not having a plugin dedicated for Rhino.
Hey Bogdan, so long as you export OBJs then Maya has an easy time dealing with Layers and letting you apply materials to each layer. But stick with Rhino 5. I found that Rhino 6 exports OBJs incorrectly, with layers merged together and instead interpreted as selection sets.