Pixar Animation Studios empowers creators with Microsoft Azure

Imagination is both priceless and free. However, translating what a creator envisions into two-dimensional or three-dimensional images using computer software can be prohibitively expensive. Rendering, the process of generating a high-fidelity digital image or 3D model from computer graphics, is the most compute-intensive part of creating art. Rendering is key to modern animation and moviemaking because it’s used for everything from a single frame to a whole film.

Pixar Animation Studios, a subsidiary entirely owned by The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®–winning film studios with world-renowned technical, creative, and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. The Northern California studio has created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Cars, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, Coco, and Turning Red. Pixar's objective is to combine groundbreaking technology and world-class creative talent to develop computer-animated films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages.

The original idea for the RenderMan® Challenge was to provide a platform for the creative community to engage with Pixar Animation and create their own vision and narratives using the tools and assets that Pixar provided. The challenge supports the rendering community, enabling its members to shine and get to know others in the community, plus access the best toolset. The competition also provides the participants with mentorship from professional artists and industry experts, including the RenderMan judges.

“When I came up with the idea for the RenderMan Challenge, I didn’t realize how much of an impact it would have on people and their lives,” says Dylan Sisson, RenderMan Specialist at Pixar. “It’s really given people a platform to express themselves creatively and also find a path for themselves in their own journey in their own career.” The RenderMan Challenge has so far drawn participation from every continent except Antarctica. Entrants range from students to professionals in visual effects and animation.

Each challenge has its own theme defined by Pixar. The tenth challenge in 2023 was named “Lost Things.” Pixar provided an assortment of many types of objects and shapes that entrants could choose to put into a scene about that object. The genre was the contestant’s choice, from whimsy to horror. Judges from Pixar—and sometimes organizations such as NASA—base their decisions on both narrative and technical execution.

High-performance tools for all entrants

For prior competitions, the contestants themselves had to supply the infrastructure to render their images. But for most artists, owning or accessing the high-powered hardware at home for rendering was nearly impossible. And without that hardware, it can take hours to days to render an image, if it’s even possible to render it with a typical home setup.  That’s not to mention that every change requires a re-rendering of that image.

The situation changed with the 2022 RenderMan Challenge. Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) helped remove the barriers to entry by providing and sponsoring the infrastructure contestants would need at no cost to the challengers. RenderMan participants had the use of Microsoft virtual machines with AMD processors, specifically Azure Virtual Machines HBv3-series using AMD EPYC™ 7V73X processors with L3 cache 3D V-Cache. The powerful AMD processors enable high-performance computing, and Microsoft Azure provides a purpose-built, high-performance computing (Azure HPC) infrastructure to support workloads such as rendering. Because artists can re-render so quickly on the cloud, they can create more iterations and achieve a better final quality that makes the images more believable.

Previously, entrants were constrained by the limits of the technology readily available to them. Artists learning the craft, whether hobbyists or future professionals, were under pressure to first equip themselves with the best technology. With the partnership of Microsoft Azure and AMD, entrants get access to world-class technology that simplifies the process and enables them to render and re-render to make their images as believable as possible. The result: amazing content that allows viewers to immerse themselves in the story itself.

The RenderMan Challenge is now an invitation to creatives around the world to work with the best technology to create stunning visions and narratives. The challenge encourages people who may never have considered themselves creators to explore the artists within. RenderMan entrants have moved to new countries. They’ve opened doors to new careers.  And some have become professional animators, including one finalist and a winner who now have jobs at Pixar because of the challenge.

“With the cloud and rendering with elastic compute on Azure, you can render new types of images,” notes Sisson. “It’s not just delivering faster, but also enabling creatives to render things that they couldn’t otherwise create. From the RenderMan perspective, the cloud’s becoming an essential part of the infrastructure for studios all around the world, from big studios to smaller studios, and it’s an essential component to being in the industry these days.”

As Sisson says, “We’re seeing an exciting new level of talent and imagination, thanks to AMD and Microsoft Azure technology, that enhances what people can do through extra compute and access to the best software and best hardware.”

A bright future

Contestants now can use for free the same industry tools experts employ, and every entrant gets the same professional advantage. They have the cloud infrastructure and tools to empower them to work faster, more flexibly, and in the location of their choice. As all participants have equal technology available to them, anyone anywhere can take part in the RenderMan Challenge.

“Today, with the software for RenderMan, we’re light years beyond where we were ten years ago,” notes Sisson.  We’re providing algorithms that allow creators to interact with the virtual lights, materials, and geometry like they would on a real-world film set. That requires a lot of compute. By providing more compute to everyone who’s a participant in the challenge, we’ve enabled them to create whatever they want. We’ve lowered the barriers so they can realize their creative vision.”

“With every challenge, the entries get better and better,” says Sisson, “That’s a testament to the creators, but it’s also a testament to the technology that they have available. Having the most cutting-edge rendering software paired with sophisticated and powerful rendering hardware on the Azure cloud empowers artists to create things that improve with every challenge.”

Find out more about Pixar Animation Studios on Twitter and Facebook. See more about the competition and past submissions at Renderman Challenges.