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.

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Source: Pixar; GreenButton