Cycle Computing HPC Job Bank
HPC in the Cloud


Dedicated to covering high-end cloud computing
in science, industry and the datacenter

Language Flags

Datanami
Digital Manufacturing Report
HPCwire

Pixar Launches RenderMan On Demand


New cloud rendering service available in collaboration with GreenButton

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Jan. 20 — Pixar Animation Studios today launched a new cloud rendering service called "RenderMan On Demand." Developed in collaboration with pioneering cloud services provider GreenButton, this service is now available on Microsoft's Windows Azure with Linux availability following later in 2012. "RenderMan On Demand" offers nearly instantaneous burst rendering access to hundreds and even thousands of additional cores, enabling artists and studios to deliver the highest-quality cinematic imagery with unprecedented economy and efficiency.

For two decades, Pixar's Academy Award-winning RenderMan has led the revolution in rendering visual effects and animation, and is the standard for creating the outstanding levels of visual photorealism that audiences expect. Today's announcement is the result of an extensive development effort incorporating the expertise and feedback of both RenderMan users and GreenButton technical personnel with production experience. The initial phase of "RenderMan On Demand" is targeted at small to medium-sized studios based on Microsoft Windows environments. Over the next two years "RenderMan On Demand" will be expanded into a comprehensive solution for users of all levels and studios of all sizes.

"We were investigating a private cloud solution but seeing the RenderMan solution from Pixar and GreenButton was great timing and is perfect for any of our RenderMan projects." said Darren Hyland, Head of R&D at Brown Bag Films. "From a speed and cost perspective, the cloud service is much more appealing than those we've used in the past" said Simon Sangar, Senior VFX Artist at Bradley and Montgomery. "The turnaround time is much faster due to the speed of RenderMan and also the robustness of the system."

"Working within a tight deadline has always been difficult especially when rendering animation at the very last minute," said Nicolas Chaverou, Golaem Crowd Project Manager. "In spite of the time difference, the process was very straightforward, asset upload and distribution on the Cloud, and 54 minutes of Cloud Rendering later it was in a wrap instead of the 20 days it would have otherwise required. Magic! In addition, GreenButton provided great support including feedback about improving our pipeline."

Availability

RenderMan On Demand is accessible through renderman.greenbutton.com. Pricing is based on the cloud computing industry metric of a CPU core hour, consisting of RenderMan license(s), computer (core) processing charges, and GreenButton managed service fees for one hour (or part thereof) and may vary depending on performance requirements. For further details about pricing and any other questions concerning Pixar's RenderMan, contact rendermansales@pixar.com or visit www.pixar.com.

About Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. Creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including "Toy Story," "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," "Ratatouille," "WALL•E," "Up" and "Toy Story 3." The Northern California studio has won 29 Academy Awards and its twelve films have grossed more than $6.5 billion at the worldwide box office to date. Pixar's latest film, "Cars 2," opened on June 24, 2011 and their next adventure, "Brave," takes aim at theaters on June 22, 2012.

About GreenButton

GreenButton is an award winning global software company that specializes in high performance cloud computing. The company provides a cloud platform for development and delivery of software and services that enable independent software vendors (ISVs) to move to the cloud and for their users to access cloud resources. GreenButton is Microsoft's 2011 Global winner for Windows Azure and 2011 ISV Partner of the Year. The company is dually headquartered in Wellington New Zealand, and Palo Alto, Calif., with a sales office in Seattle. For more information, visit www.greenbutton.com.

-----

Source: Pixar; GreenButton

May 21, 2012

May 18, 2012

May 17, 2012

May 16, 2012

May 15, 2012

May 14, 2012

May 11, 2012

May 10, 2012

May 09, 2012

May 08, 2012


Most Read Features

Most Read Around the Web

Most Read This Just In

Most Read Blogs

Arkeia

Feature Articles

Cloud Services Satisfy a Higher Calling

Higher education involves many collaborative projects that lend themselves to cloud services, however often those services are not tailored to the uniqueness of an academic environment. That's where the Internet2 NET+ project comes in. By partnering with 16 major cloud providers, the networking consortium is seeking to expedite the delivery of cloud services and by doing so advance research and innovation in the United States.
Read more...

Around the Web

NVIDIA Raises Its Game to the Cloud

May 17, 2012 | NVIDIA GeForce GRID, a cloud gaming platform announced at the 2012 GPU Technology Conference (GTC), seeks to reduce the the latency associated with cloud gaming.
Read more...

Breaking the Cloud Barrier

May 15, 2012 | New Microsoft report shows that beyond the expected financial benefits, cloud services may offer more comprehensive security features compared to in-house IT operations.
Read more...

Vendors Demo Next-Gen Sequencing Platforms for Pharma

May 14, 2012 | During the second annual Pistoia Alliance conference, three teams demonstrated their newly-implemented cloud-based next-generation sequencing platforms.
Read more...

Zunicore Offers Bare Metal by the Hour

May 10, 2012 | PEER1's cloud division, Zunicore, will soon be offering GPU-equipped servers on-demand.
Read more...

US Cloud Providers Struggle With Data Privacy Laws

May 08, 2012 | The Patriot Act leads foreign governments to question the security of US cloud services.
Read more...

Sponsored Whitepapers

Appro White Paper: Enabling Performance-per-Watt Gains in HPC

04/05/2012 | Appro | Designed to meet the growing global demand for HPC solutions, Appro's Xtreme-X™ Supercomputer delivers superior performance-per-watt and reduced I/O latency while bringing significant flexibility to HPC workload configurations including capacity, hybrid, data intensive and capability computing.

Exploring the Potential of Heterogeneous Computing

04/02/2012 | AMD | Developers today are just beginning to explore the potential of heterogeneous computing, but the potential for this new paradigm is huge. This brief article reviews how the technology might impact a range of application development areas, including client experiences and cloud-based data management. As platforms like OpenCL continue to evolve, the benefits of heterogeneous computing will become even more accessible. Use this quick article to jump-start your own thinking on heterogeneous computing.

Sponsored Multimedia

Newsletters

Intersect360 HPC500

HPC Job Bank


Featured Events









HPC in the Cloud Conferences & Events