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For over 30 years RenderMan has been at the forefront of the visual effects revolution, and today RenderMan is a high-performance renderer built to tackle the most complicated 3D scenes imaginable.  RenderMan version 24 redefines look-development workflows with RenderMan XPU™, Pixar's hybrid CPU + GPU renderer, as well as battle-tested shading technology from Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar while bringing new visual possibilities with the all-new Stylized Looks rendering toolset. 

This release represents exciting changes to the rendering framework, which has been tested and proven on feature films such as Soul, The Lion King, Ford Versus Ferrari, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, establishing RenderMan as the most advanced and versatile rendering platform available.

Pixar's commitment to users continues with the introduction of more examples, tutorials, and enhanced documentation for users of all levels.

RenderMan 24 - Main Features

RenderMan XPU — RenderMan XPU is a powerful new renderer, making use of your GPU and CPU to generate images. The GPU modes improve interactivity over CPU rendering only while providing lightning speed for artists working in modeling and lookdev. Assets can then be rendered in shots using RenderMan RIS on your existing farms for identical looks and final frames.

RenderMan version 25 provides a next level AI denoiser that allows you to substantially reduce render times, new MaterialX Lama features from ILM, and new features in Stylized Looks.  RenderMan XPU brings support for LPEs and a new texture cache that provides faster render times on machines low on GPU memory.

RenderMan 25 - Main Features

AI Denoiser — Originally developed at Disney Research, in conjunction with Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Industrial Light & Magic, the AI Denoiser brings machine learning to denoising.  It maintains sharpness even in the most difficult of scenes, such as those with hair and fur, or those with lots of points-based effects.  The AI Denoiser will allow you to cut off your renders substantially earlier than before, saving you time on your render farm.

MaterialX Lama improvements — Our partnership with Industrial Light & Magic continues with RenderMan 25.  First introduced in RenderMan 24, MaterialX Lama brings users MaterialX Lama — Our partnership with Industrial Light & Magic means users have access to a component-based and physically plausible shading system know as Lama for "Layered Materials". This system is available in RenderMan RIS and is a part of the MaterialX standard.  Use it for high-end effects and shading, covering everything from skin and hair to gemstones and clothing. Create, render, and even save complex networks for use in your projects. Presets are available to get you started.

Stylized Looks — Users can now take advantage of non-photorealistic or stylized rendering in RenderMan RIS, producing images that look like they were hand-drawn or painted. This rendering effect is extremely flexible and allows control down to individual custom texture usage and profile line tweaks or blurring.

Live Statistics — Watch your rendering resource usage live, thanks to a completely redesigned statistics system with a focus on interactivity and extensibility.

OpenColorIO — Robust support for the industry-standard ACES color management system and other color spaces in all bridge products, including the interactive RenderMan Image Tool.

Other Highlights Include:

Bump Roughness — Innovative system developed at Pixar Animation for rendering micro details such as scratches efficiently and automatically, without expensive sampling.

Blender — A new plugin for Blender is now available for users with modernized workflows and support for more Blender options such as the Grease Pencil.

USD — Further improvements to USD mean better and easier results from sharing assets and rendering in RenderMan. Systems like Houdini's Solaris see improved support and increased options.

OSL — All patterns can now be rendered natively in OSL, improving interoperability in shading pipelines and enabling the hybrid architecture of RenderMan XPU™.

New Patterns — Extend your look-dev toolset with Phasor Noise, Hex Tiling, and more, including a better and more efficient way for layering and rendering Bump Maps.

  RenderMan 25 brings improvements in how light interacts between material layers, as well as new iridescence material response.

Stylized Looks improvements — RenderMan’s toolset for generating non photorealistic images receives various updates, including numerous enhancements to give artists more control over Toon shading, Illustrative lighting through hatching & watercolor, and Linework.

Lookdev improvements in RenderMan XPU — These features make XPU renders an even closer match to RIS in a wider variety of look development scenarios by providing support for features such as LPEs and trace groups.

Enhanced Cameras in RenderMan XPU — Use interactive rendering for dialing in depth of field, vignetting, and other camera effects.

And More —  Read all about the new features in version 24 25 in the the Release Notes.

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