Pixar Announces New Features For Renderman
Pixar Animation Studios has announced it will release RenderMan Release 11 with support for ray tracing, global illumination and deep shadows. These new features, combined with significant performance gains, represent a major enhancement to the 3D rendering system. According to Pixar, RenderMan Release 11 employs an innovative hybrid rendering architecture that delivers global illumination and ray tracing effects under precise control of the artist as a natural part of the REYES architecture, meaning special effects such as reflections, refractions and color bleeding will be produced with greater accuracy. Also, because the renderer itself can calculate effects that previously required manual intervention, the artist's setup time for a shot can be dramatically reduced. The performance gains in Release 11 are the direct result of testing and analysis in Pixar's own intensive feature film production pipeline. Sophisticated improvements to hair and fur rendering, as well as shadows generation and the ability to handle dense scenes with high depth complexity, have led to dramatic performance gains. Pixar's RenderMan Release 11 will enter beta testing in June 2002 and will be released in the fourth quarter of 2002. For more information on RenderMan, including product descriptions and price lists, visit www.pixar.com/renderman/index.html.