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EMERYVILLE, CA — Pixar Animation Studios announced that the RenderMan team will present new insights at SIGGRAPH 2012 into its very latest rendering technologies, including upcoming releases RenderMan Studio 4.0 and RenderMan Pro Server 17.0, along with live demonstrations of RenderMan On Demand, Pixar’s new cloud rendering service. Emphasizing the versatility and performance advantages of RenderMan’s hybrid architecture, the presentations will focus on features such as a sophisticated system for ray-traced multi-bounce global illumination, interactive ray-traced re-rendering, deep textures, and methods for Maya artists to manage and integrate VFX with a minimal learning curve. Special presentations from major studios such as Weta Digital, ILM, Cluster Studios, and Laika, will be complimented by RenderMan workflow demonstrations with affiliated solutions from The Foundry, Pixologic, GreenButton, Golaem, and Lollipop Shaders. Finally, demonstrations of Pixar’s cloud rendering service, RenderMan On Demand, will be presented regularly along with a special SIGGRAPH promotion offering free cloud rendering cycles to RenderMan users.

“In always rapidly paced advertising projects with tight deadlines, short budgets and a small team, RenderMan has proven to be the right tool offering superb creative power so our artists can create great imagery with quick response times, and it’s fun and thrilling to use,” said Armando “Doc” Ricalde CTO of Cluster Studios.

“RenderMan on Demand has been a lifesaver for us. On a recent job, an animation that would’ve taken a month to render in-house was rendered within a day on the cloud. Because of its speed and accessibility, it has become an integral part of our pipeline,” said Simon Sangar, Senior VFX Artist, Bradley and Montgomery.

To read the official speaker schedule please visit:  http://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman2012

Pixar’s SIGGRAPH 2012 booth (#644) in Los Angeles features regular demonstrations of the very latest RenderMan technology and products. The annual RenderMan Users Group meeting takes place on Wednesday August 8th at 6:30 pm in the Platinum Ballroom at the Marriott Live, 900 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles 90015.

Chris Arrant