RenderMan Pro Server, a new software package featuring an upgraded version of Pixar Animation Studios' RenderMan 3D rendering software (version 11.5), will be released in July, 2003 and repriced at $3,500. The new release showcases increased rendering performance indicative of the studio's recent work with FINDING NEMO. Complex scenes using subtle lighting effects should see significant gains, and a new rendering mode boosts throughput by automatically harnessing the full power of modern multi-processor systems.
Pixar's RenderMan Pro Server Components:* PRMan, Pixar's PhotoRealistic RenderMan renderer. * Irma, shading and lighting development re-rendering tool. * AlfServer, enables distributed parallel rendering on server farms and idle desktops. * Additional utilities formerly bundled in the RenderMan toolkit.
New Features in RenderMan 11.5:* Multi-processor rendering allows multiple CPUs on the same machine to work on the same frame in parallel for faster throughput. * Sub-sample resolution z-stencil buffers enable new types of geometry blending and clipping effects. * Aggressive acceleration. * Sophisticated improvements in scene analysis which substantially reduce the time spent in shader execution for scenes with highly complex geometry and shaders. * New algorithms dramatically accelerate indirect illumination, ambient occlusion and other effects associated with global illumination. * The shader compiler performs significant new code analysis to improve memory usage and rendering performance. New Enhancements: * The quality of indirect illumination and ambient occlusion has been improved, especially for animation. * Particle effects render faster and with fewer artifacts due to improved RiPoints. * Motion blur has been enhanced for fast moving objects in scenes with a high depth of field. * Subdivision surfaces handle textures more accurately due to "facevarying" interpolation improvements. * "Deep Shadow" improvements. * More efficient for larger images. * New API for custom control.
For more information about RenderMan, including product descriptions and price lists, please visit www.pixar.com.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
