Pixar RenderMan (also known as RenderMan) is a photorealistic 3D rendering software produced by

Pixar Animation Studios Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney S ...

. Pixar uses RenderMan to render their in-house 3D animated movie productions and it is also available as a commercial product licensed to third parties. In 2015, a free non-commercial version of RenderMan became available.

Name

To speed up rendering, Pixar engineers performed experiments with parallel rendering computers using

Transputer The transputer is a series of pioneering microprocessors from the 1980s, intended for parallel computing. To support this, each transputer had its own integrated memory and serial communication links to exchange data with other transputers. ...

chips inside a Pixar Image Computer. The name comes from the nickname of a small circuit board (2.5 × 5 inches or 6.4 × 13 cm) containing one Transputer that engineer Jeff Mock could put in his pocket. During that time the

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

Walkman is a brand of Personal stereo, portable audio players manufactured by Sony since 1979. It was originally introduced as a portable Compact Cassette, cassette player and later expanded to include a range of portable audio products. Since 2011, ...

was very popular and Jeff Mock called his portable board Renderman, leading to the software name.

Technology

RenderMan defines cameras, geometry, materials, and lights using the RenderMan Interface Specification. This specification facilitates communication between 3D modeling and animation applications and the render engine that generates the final high quality images. In the past RenderMan used the Reyes Rendering Architecture. The Renderman standard was first presented at 1993

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...

, developed with input from 19 companies and 6 or 7 big partners, with Pat Hanrahan taking a leading role. Ed Catmull said no software product met the RenderMan Standard in 1993. RenderMan met it after about two years. Additionally RenderMan supports Open Shading Language to define textural patterns. When Pixar started development,

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

described the original goal for RenderMan in 1991: During this time, Pixar used the C language for developing Renderman, which allowed them to port it to many platforms. Historically, RenderMan used the Reyes algorithm to render images with added support for advanced effects such as ray tracing and global illumination. Support for Reyes rendering and the RenderMan Shading Language were removed from RenderMan in 2016. RenderMan currently uses

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

path tracing Path tracing is a rendering algorithm in computer graphics that Simulation, simulates how light interacts with Physical object, objects, voxels, and Volumetric_path_tracing, participating media to generate realistic (''physically plausible'') R ...

to generate images.

Awards

RenderMan has been used to create digital

visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...

for Hollywood blockbuster movies such as '' Beauty and the Beast'', '' Aladdin'', '' The Lion King'', '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day'', ''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...

'', ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

'', ''

Avatar Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...

'', '' Titanic'', the ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

'' prequels, and ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

''. RenderMan has received four Academy Scientific and Technical Awards. The first was in 1993 honoring Pat Hanrahan, Anthony A. Apodaca, Loren Carpenter, Rob Cook, Ed Catmull, Darwyn Peachey, and Tom Porter. The second was as part of the 73rd Scientific and Technical Academy Awards ceremony presentation on March 3, 2001: the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...

' Board of Governors honored Ed Catmull, Loren Carpenter and Rob Cook with an Academy Award of Merit "for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar’s RenderMan". The third was in 2010 honoring "Per Christensen, Christophe Hery, and Michael Bunnell for the development of point-based rendering for indirect illumination and ambient occlusion." The fourth was in 2011 honoring David Laur. It has also won the Gordon E. Sawyer Award in 2009 and The Coons Award. It is the first software product awarded an Oscar.''And the Oscar goes to...''
IEEE Spectrum, 2 April 2001.

Filmography

Feature films

*''

'' (1995) *'' Bug's Life'' (1998) *''

Toy Story 2 ''Toy Story 2'' is a 1999 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and the first sequel to Toy Story. It is the second installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and was directed by J ...

'' (1999) *'' Chicken Run'' (2000) *'' Monsters Inc.'' (2001) *''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Lee Unkrich, and produced by Graham Walters, from ...

'' (2003) *''

The Incredibles ''The Incredibles'' is a 2004 American animated superhero film written and directed by Brad Bird. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures, the film stars the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Spencer ...

'' (2004) *'' Valiant'' (2005) *'' Chicken Little'' (2005) *'' Cars'' (2006) *'' The Ant Bully'' (2006) *'' Ratatouille'' (2007) *'' Space Chimps'' (2008) *''

WALL-E ''WALL-E'' (stylized with an interpunct as ''WALL·E'') is a 2008 American animated Romance film, romantic science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, produced b ...

'' (2008) *'' Up'' (2009) *''

Astro Boy ''Astro Boy'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Kobunsha's ''Shōnen'' from 1952 to 1968. The 112 chapters were collected into 23 volumes by Akita Shoten. Da ...

'' (2009) *''

Toy Story 3 ''Toy Story 3'' is a 2010 American animated comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The third installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' series, it was directed by Lee Unkrich, the editor ...

'' (2010) *'' Cars 2'' (2011) *'' Brave'' (2012) *'' Monsters University'' (2013) *'' The Lego Movie'' (2014) *'' Inside Out'' (2015) *'' The Good Dinosaur'' (2015) *'' Finding Dory'' (2016) *'' Cars 3'' (2017) *'' Coco'' (2017) *''

Incredibles 2 ''Incredibles 2'' is a 2018 American animated superhero film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Written and directed by Brad Bird, it is the sequel to '' The Incredibles'' (2004) and the second full-length instal ...

'' (2018) *'' Toy Story 4'' (2019) *'' Onward'' (2019) *''

Soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

'' (2020) *'' Luca'' (2021) *'' Turning Red'' (2022) *'' Lightyear'' (2022) *''

Elemental An elemental is a mythic supernatural being that is described in occult and alchemy, alchemical works from around the time of the European Renaissance, and particularly elaborated in the 16th century works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsu ...

'' (2023) *'' The Garfield Movie'' (2024) *'' Inside Out 2'' (2024) *'' Elio'' (2025)

Notable studios using RenderMan

North America

United States

Pixar Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...

* Industrial Light & Magic * Disney Animation * Laika * Tippett Studio

Canada

* Bardel Entertainment * Bron Studios * Mr. X * Spin VFX

South America

Brazil

* StartAnima

Europe

United Kingdom

* DNEG * Locksmith Animation * Moving Picture Company

France

* Mac Guff * TeamTO * Zag Inc.

Germany

* Rise FX * Trixter

Asia

China

* Base FX * Light Chaser Animation Studios

South Korea

* Dexter Studios

References

External links

* {{3D software 3D computer graphics software for Linux 3D graphics software IRIX software Pixar Proprietary commercial software for Linux Rendering systems RenderMan Custom software projects 3D rendering software for Linux