Over the years at Pixar we have been relying on the industry standard REYES for rendering our movies, from Toy Story all the way to Brave and Cars 2. With Monsters University we started relying more and more on ray tracing and we implemented a physically based shading and lighting engine based on Brdf’s, area lights and integrators. More recently, many renderers, both commercial and proprietary, have started moving to a path tracing approach, which is completely different than Reyes. Pixar also wrote their own implementation, which is called RIS.

This course will cover how a studio can go through a transition from a hybrid raytracing engine, to a full path tracing system. What are the implications for shading and lighting and their workflows. What did we gain and what challenges are we facing by going more Physically based.
What is the status of different shading languages (RSL, C++, ISPC, OSL)?

How do they shape our choices and performance? What are the next generation tools that allow to make the best of this technology? Should a studio write their own or should they use something off the shelf?

I will try to untangle these questions in my course, with an outlook on what is the near and mid-term future in our industry.

Level

Intermediate

Prerequisites

While the topic is intuitively relevant to computer graphics, I do use some jargon the audience should be familiar with, such as BRDF, texture, ptex, “in-core” vs “out of core”, CPU/GPU, UV Parameterization, Shader, Displacement, Ray Tracing, and Rasterization. Those familiar with shading/rendering will likely keep up best.

Intended Audience

Computers Graphics practitioners of all stripes: from Technical Directors, to Pipeline Engineers, Shading Artists, Lighting Artists, Render Wranglers, and Software Developers, should find this course both interesting and useful.

Presenter(s)

Davide Pesare, Pixar Animation Studios

Davide Pesare is a Lead Engineer at Pixar Animation Studios with credits on Toy Story 3, Monsters University and several shorts. His specialty, as an artist, is shading, painting, rendering and lighting, while he has been developing software to support artists on all the same disciplines. He was deeply involved in the physically based technologies used in all shows at Pixar since Monsters University. Davide has worked on Visual Effects productions in the UK and Australia, with credits on Harry Potter 5 and 6, Narnia 2, Happy Feet, 300, Sweeney Todd, and several others. While he earned his Master Degree in virtual reality and multimedia in Madrid, Spain and Turin, Italy, his background touched on telecom technology as well as video-games, and industrial lighting, camera and projections as well as laser shows in night clubs and fashion events.