Pixar Animation Studios Releases RenderMan 23

Today Pixar released RenderMan^® version 23, featuring next level artist interactivity, enhanced support for Pixar’s USD (Universal Scene Description), and first class integration with SideFX’s recent release of Houdini 18 and its new Solaris features. This major release of RenderMan moves the entire platform to a new level to support the next wave of cutting edge animation and visual effects.

Version 23 improves the interactive artist experience on all content creation applications: Autodesk Maya, Foundry’s Katana, and SideFX Houdini. Important technical advances boost performance, stability, and enable new kinds of integrations. New features in Pixar’s USD allow all pipelines to more easily access the full capabilities of RenderMan.

“Pixar artists have always had ambitious goals and our culture is to continuously evolve RenderMan, USD, and our other technology to meet their needs. RenderMan 23 and the newest USD release each open up new creative possibilities. Used together they add up to even greater production leverage and quality. As always, we are excited to share these advancements with other studios across the film industry.”
– Steve May, CT0 – Pixar Animation Studios

RenderMan version 23 also delivers support for Houdini 18, recently released by SideFX, including its native USD Solaris tools that enable powerful new lookdev, layout and lighting workflows. Solaris artists have direct creative control of USD features and through USD’s Hydra they can immediately access the power of RenderMan. The core RenderMan for Houdini plugin has also been updated and extended for Houdini 18 to support the features in RenderMan version 23

This release also includes updates to system and library foundations to match the Visual Effects Reference Platform 2018, delivering state-of-the-art rendering technology to studios that are taking advantage of the latest hardware and content creation frameworks.

Complete details of the latest RenderMan release are available at renderman.pixar.com

Availability & Compatibility

RenderMan can be purchased by contacting [email protected] or through an authorized reseller. Existing customers with a maintenance agreement are entitled to a free upgrade. Version 23 is also available now to individuals for non-commercial use.

RenderMan now requires CPUs capable of running the full SSE4.2 instruction set. A minimum of 4GB of RAM is recommended. RenderMan is compatible with the following 64-bit operating systems: Linux CentOS/RHEL 7.2+, Windows 10 and 8.1, and macOS 10.13 and 10.14 (with 10.15 pending). RenderMan is also compatible with the following DCCs: Houdini 17.0, 17.5, and 18.0 (Indie available on the recent release of 17.5 and 18), Katana 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.5, and Maya 2018 (Update 3+) and 2019.

Dean Meyers

BE BRAVE AND ITERATE! Dean is visual thinker who blends experience and expertise across multiple disciplines (technology, marketing, design, art, performance and management) as a Design Thinking and Innovation Management Consultant, Trainer, and Transformational Coach. He is happiest when working visually in innovation, user experience, education, and transformation—even more when they are all combined into one! His goal with VizWorld is to create and hold the space for visual thinkers who are looking for news and information about applied design thinking practices and innovation in life, education and work.