Pixar Announces RenderMan Pro Server With New Pricing; State of the Art Technology at a New Price.Business Editors EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 9, 2003 Pixar Animation Studios (Nasdaq:PIXR) today announced RenderMan(R) Pro Server, a new software package featuring an upgraded version of Pixar's RenderMan(R) 3D rendering software. RenderMan(R) Pro Server bundles several tools frequently used in film and video productions. The new release, priced at $3,500, showcases recent engineering efforts focused on increased rendering performance. Complex scenes using subtle lighting effects will see significant gains and a new rendering mode boosts throughput by automatically harnessing the full power of modern multi-processor systems. RenderMan(R) Pro Server makes industrial strength rendering available to more studios than ever before while expanding what is possible in the realm of high-end special effects special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. . "Anyone who gets a chance to see Finding Nemo will really be amazed by the incredible effects Pixar's own artists have created using RenderMan(R). It's great that these new rendering features are now available to our customers," said Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation Studios. RenderMan 11.5 will be released in July 2003 and is entering beta-testing immediately. Pixar's RenderMan(R) Pro Server Components -- PRMan, Pixar's PhotoRealistic RenderMan For other uses, see RenderMan (disambiguation). PhotoRealistic RenderMan, or PRMan for short, is a proprietary photorealistic RenderMan-compliant renderer. It primarily uses the REYES algorithm but is also fully capable of doing ray tracing and global illumination. (R) renderer -- Irma, shading and lighting development re-rendering tool -- AlfServer, enables distributed parallel rendering Parallel rendering (or Distributed rendering) is a method used to improve the performance of computer graphics creation software. The rendering of graphics requires massive computational resources for complex objects like medical visualization, iso-surface generation, and on server farms and idle desktops -- Additional utilities formerly bundled in the RenderMan(R) Toolkit New Features in Pixar's RenderMan(R) Release 11.5 New Features -- 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 In mathematics, complex geometry is the study of complex manifolds and functions of many complex variables. and shaders. -- New algorithms dramatically accelerate indirect illumination Battlefield illumination provided by employing searchlight or pyrotechnic illuminants using diffusion or reflection. a. Illumination by diffusion: Illumination of an area beneath and to the flanks of a slightly elevated searchlight or of pyrotechnic illuminants, by the light scattered , ambient occlusion Ambient occlusion is a shading method used in 3D computer graphics which helps add realism to local reflection models by taking into account attenuation of light due to occlusion. , and other effects associated with global illumination Global illumination algorithms used in 3D computer graphics are commonly used to add realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light which comes directly from a light source (direct illumination . -- The shader compiler performs significant new code analysis to improve memory usage and rendering performance. Enhancements -- The quality of indirect illumination and ambient occlusion has been improved, especially for animation. -- Particle effects render faster and with fewer artifacts artifacts see specimen 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 interpolation In mathematics, estimation of a value between two known data points. A simple example is calculating the mean (see mean, median, and mode) of two population counts made 10 years apart to estimate the population in the fifth year. improvements. "Deep Shadow" Improvements -- More efficient for larger images -- New API New API (also referred to as NAPI) is an interface to use interrupt mitigation techniques for networking devices in the Linux kernel. Such an approach is intended to reduce the overhead of packet receiving. for custom control About PhotoRealistic RenderMan(R) Leading digital effects Synthetic sounds and animations created in the digital domain. Reverberation, morphing and transitions between video frames are examples. See digital video effects. houses and computer graphics specialists use Pixar's RenderMan(R) because it is the highest quality renderer available anywhere and has been production tested through successful use in feature films for over ten years. Pixar's RenderMan(R) is stable, fast, and efficient for handling large scenes with complex surface appearances and lighting. RenderMan's(R) powerful shading language A shading language is a special programming language adapted to easily map on shader programming. Those kind of languages usually have special data types like color and normal. and anti-aliased motion blur allow designers to believably integrate stunning synthetic effects with live-action footage. In addition, RenderMan(R) is backed by Pixar's technical staff who understand the challenges of creating digital effects. For more information on RenderMan(R), including product descriptions, pricing information, and access to customer support and sales, please visit www.pixar.com. About Pixar Animation Studios Pixar Animation Studios (Nasdaq: PIXR, www.pixar.com) combines creative and technical artistry to create original stories in the medium of computer animation. Pixar has created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of our time: Academy Award(R)-winning Toy Story (1995); A Bug's Life (1998); Golden Globe-winner Toy Story 2 (1999); and the Academy Award(R)-winning Monsters, Inc. (2001). Pixar's latest film, Finding Nemo, was released on May 30, 2003 to widespread critical acclaim. The Northern California studio's five films have earned more than $1.8 billion at the worldwide box office to date. Pixar's next releases are The Incredibles (November 2004) and Cars (holiday 2005). Pixar Animation Studios films are released by Walt Disney Pictures. |
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