Pixar’s hybrid solution for CPU + GPU rendering combines available computing resources to accelerate production path-tracing. Starting from a system architecture that can leverage the latest developments in many-core CPU and GPU hardware, separately or in combination, RenderMan XPU™ is being built to handle the scale and complexity of Pixar’s feature animation projects.

RenderMan XPU's first use in the Studio has been focused on detailed look-development tasks, and this integration into Pixar’s pipeline was a significant milestone, with more roles and capabilities to come. The RenderMan team is excited to begin sharing this ongoing development work with our commercial customers.

Because the first release has been tailored to support interactive look development, you will see that there are many features still to be implemented that are required for complex shot production.  You should explore the documentation and experiment with XPU to understand what it is good for.  While we have tailored this first release to look development, it is useful for a wide variety of other tasks!

You can find more information about RenderMan XPU and what to be aware of as you use it in the pages below.