Direct Release: Pixar Animation Studios Licenses NVIDIA Technology for Accelerating Feature Film Production

SINGAPORE — August 11, 2015 — To accelerate production of its computer-animated feature films and short film content, Pixar Animation Studios is licensing a suite of NVIDIA technologies related to image rendering, the companies announced today.

The multi-year strategic licensing agreement gives Pixar access to NVIDIA’s quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) rendering methods. These methods can make rendering more efficient, especially when powered by GPUs and other massively parallel computing architectures.

“NVIDIA and Pixar have worked together for years to improve workflows in content creation,” said Steven Parker, vice president of engineering and CTO of rendering technology at NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA’s QMC sampling technology, Pixar can accelerate its creative process while continuing to produce visual imagery and animation of the very highest standard.”

“Pixar has long used NVIDIA GPU technology to push the limits of what is possible in animation and the filmmaking process,” said Steve May, vice president and CTO at Pixar. “NVIDIA’s particular QMC implementation has the potential to enhance rendering functionality and significantly reduce our rendering times.”

As part of the agreement, NVIDIA will also contribute ray-tracing technology to Pixar’s OpenSubdiv Project, an open-source initiative to promote high-performance subdivision surface evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures. This will enable rendering of complex Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces in animation with unprecedented precision.

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