Related Offer: Stream Monsters University on Amazon Video now Instead of frames, scenes are described in terms of layers and references, a much more modular approach to traditional 3D modeling.
This collaborative interface allows many Pixar artists to work on the same scene or model, but on different layers, without stepping on each other’s feet.īy managing each aspect of the scene individually - the background, the rigging, the shading, and more - an animator can work on a scene while an artist is touching up the characters’ look, and those changes will be reflected in renders across the board. The result is Universal Scene Description, or USD. One of Presto’s early limitations was its inability to handle collaborative work, so Pixar set out to bring the functionality into its workflow. Even a close-up focused on Woody’s badge looked spot-on. It helps that it was just Woody and Buzz on a gray background, but textures were sharp, animation was clean, and reflections were accurate and realistic. Grabbing Woody’s foot and moving it up and down also articulates his other joints, and the fabric in surrounding areas.Īs a long-time Pixar fan, I couldn’t immediately point out any artifacts or graphical oddities in the live demo. The models for characters aren’t just individual pieces. Presto’s interface might look familiar to anyone who has spent time in 3D modeling applications like Maya or 3DSMax, but it has workflow innovations that help artists in different parts of the process stay focused on their work, and not have to deal with unnecessary information.Īt the same time, animators and riggers can find an extensive amount of data relevant to their particular role, and multiple methods of articulating parts of the mesh. Fortunately, during the presentation at GTC, we were treated to a live demo.Ī lot of the Pixar’s articulation, animation, effects, and subdivision happen in real time. Pixar doesn’t show it off in public often. The modeling software, built in cooperation with Maya, is responsible for everything from scene layout, to animation, to rigging, to even simulating physics and environments. PrestoĪt the heart of Pixar’s software suite is the reclusive, proprietary Presto. Add to that the schools of fish in Finding Nemo, or the swarms of robots in Wall-E, and the need to develop software in-house only becomes more pressing. Mater, from Cars, is made up of over 800 meshes, and almost all of them are deformed in some way. There are over 100 billion triangles in a small shot, more than even the fastest gaming desktop could handle. If the team needs a little more oomph, there’s a dual-CPU configuration with two of the 16-core chips, a pair of M6000s, and 128GB of RAM.Īnd even those machines are pushed to their limit during an active work day. The standard machine at Pixar is powered by a 2.3GHz, 16-core Intel processor with 64GB of RAM, and a 12GB Nvidia Quadro M6000.
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That’s why the company built its own systems purpose-built for movie making.
Part of the challenge specific to Pixar is that most machines are built for speed, not beauty. A unique challengeĪs you might imagine, Pixar’s cutting-edge 3D animation demands impressive hardware. Related offer: Stream your favorite Pixar movies on Amazon Video nowĪt Nvidia’s GPU Technology conference three Pixar employees - graphics software engineer Pol Jeremias, lead software engineer Jeremy Cowles, and software engineer Dirk Van Gelder - explained how movie making led to software creation, with some appearances from favorite Pixar characters thrown in for good measure. That’s led to Presto, a program built for Pixar in cooperation with Maya, as well as a library of real-time rendering and modeling tools. The team at Pixar doesn’t just color and animate though, and the tech side there is constantly searching for new ways to improve the work others are doing. Some of the most complex frames in Finding Dory took over 600 hours to render.