Pixar Releases RenderMan Pro Server 15.0

Press Release from Pixar Animation Studios

EMERYVILLE, CA – (September 30th, 2009) Pixar Animation Studios today released version 15.0 of its Academy Award® winning RenderMan Pro Server software. This landmark release introduces many powerful innovations, including unlimited threading per machine, volume primitives, important additions to the RenderMan Shading Language (RSL), support for Disney's forthcoming open-source Ptex per-face painted textures, imager shaders, an API for subdivision surfaces, and more. RenderMan Pro Server 15.0 also delivers major performance increases for production scene rendering in the areas of ray tracing, ambient occlusion, improved thread scalability, and optimized memory management.

The introduction of unlimited threading enables studios and artists to maximize the full power of their rendering hardware, allowing each license of RenderMan to utilize any number of threads on the latest multi-core platforms. RenderMan Pro Server 15.0 is the first product to introduce unlimited threading, and will be followed by the next versions of RenderMan Studio and RenderMan for Maya.

"RenderMan Pro Server 15.0 packs an impressive number of great new features that we were able to deploy extremely quickly in our pipeline," said Philippe Leprince, CG Pipeline Supervisor at Double Negative, London. "Refinements to the RenderMan Shading Language, texture mapping and threading, allowed us to make our shading pipeline more efficient while increasing overall quality. Ptex by itself is a revolution and we are reeling from the consequences as we integrate it into our upcoming shows."

"With RenderMan Pro Server 15.0's impressive new features and handsome performance improvements, Pixar shows once again that it is not content to rest on its laurels. The perpetual cycle of improvements makes the tools a joy to use and a sound investment too," said Chris Bone, Head of Research and Development at Animal Logic, Sydney.

Availability

RenderMan Pro Server 15.0 is compatible with Mac OS X, Linux 32-bit and 64-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit, and Windows Vista 64-bit HPC Server. Separate upgrade pricing from RenderMan Pro Server 14.0 to 15.0 is also available. Evaluation copies of RenderMan Pro Server 15.0 are available upon request. In addition, Pixar's maintenance program benefits customers with access to ongoing support and free upgrades for an annual price. For more information please visit www.pixar.com [1] or contact rendermansales@pixar.com [2].

About Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. Creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL•E and most recently, Up. The Northern California studio has won 21 Academy Awards® and its ten films have grossed more than $5 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The next film release from DisneyoPixar is Toy Story 3 (June 18, 2010).