The successful animation studio currently known as 'Pixar', first began in 1979 by a millionaire named Alexander Schare, who at the time was the president of the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). He was searching for someone to help him make an animation from a sound recording he had in mind. Schare and a man named George Lucas, who had his own production company 'Lucasfilm', recruited a man named Ed Catmull who was a computer science, to head the Lucasfilm's computer division. The film was called 'Tubby the Tuba' and never got made, but they got settled in a studio in West coast in the same year to start the division of Lucasfilm Ltd.
In 1984, the division made their first short film 'The Adventures of Andre and Wally B' which then was premiered at 'SIGGRAPH'. As the division became more known, Steve Jobs in 1986 brought the computer graphics devision from George Lucas, and renamed the company 'Pixar.
They then finished making their short three dimensional film called 'Luxo Jr' shortly after. This then won an oscar for The Best Animated Short Film, which was the first time a 3D film had won.
The company then went onto creating more short films such as Red's Dream in 1987 which brought new aspects to the mood and atmosphere of animation (the rain effect and lighting pose), Tin Toy made in 1988 which received an Academy Award, and finally Knick Knack in 1989 which was the first film in the company to be made in stereoscopic 3D and won 2 CLIO awards. All three films were screened and premiered at SIGGRAPH.
Then the company agreed to make their first full length feature film collaborating with Disney in 1991. This was when the extremely successful three dimensional animation was released 4 years later, in 1995 called Toy Story. Toy story was not only the companies first animated feature film, but the worlds, and was the highest grossing film in 1995.
They then went on to producing films such as: A Bugs Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Monsters Inc in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2008, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007,WALL-E in 2008, UP in 2009, Toy Story 3 in 2010, Cars 2 in 2011, Brave in 2012, and their most up to date Monsters University released in 2013. It has now become a routine for Pixar to release one film per year, as their team has increased and they now have enough people and money to get a movie made in the space of a year.
The company is currently based in Emeryvill Califorina, and has won 26 Academy Awards, 7 Golden Globes and 3 Grammy Awards, and many more.
RenderMan
The company is not only known for its brilliant and successful animations, but the software it uses to create these computer generated animations. Pixar is known for its CGI animated features made with PhotoRealistic RenderMan and other products such as Pixar image computers and Marionette.
According to Wikipedia, RenderMan is a software used by Pixar and an API (application programming interface) for network distributed rendering of complex and ray-traced 3D views. According to Joe Letteri a VFX supervisor at WETA Digital, "RenderMan is the ultimate creative tool. It's the easiest and most flexible way to create a picture from an idea."
Some of the features of RenderMan include: Hybrid rendering, which allows people to easily control CG camera work, and two of the most important features are monition blur and depth of field. It offers advanced features such as a versatile re-rendering system, physically plausible shading, deep textures, and many more.
Another feature RenderMan has, which is described as on the RenderMan's website 'the secret of RenderMan's success' is the outstanding performance. It is described to a be fast, efficient, and configurable program. It offers an exceptional amount of memory and storage, which can save a large amount of textured maps, geometry and shaders. It can render with REYES, send the geometry to REYES, can split the geometry, dice and shade the geometry, and finally voilal the final picture. Lastly, due to it being built around REYES its really good at rendering displacements.
More about Pixar
Through out the years, and from the beginning Pixar has produced all of their films in the three dimensional style. This was extremely impressive, as at the time, 3D animation was just being introduced. This brought a whole new level to their characters, brought them to life and made the films more life-like and realistic.
The Genre Pixar tends to stick to are adventure and comedy, and these are a common pattern in their films. These suit their light hearted style, as Pixar tends to have some comedic characters (Mr Potato Head, Mike Waszowski etc...) which could add to the comedic element, and also bright colours which suites their target audience. Almost all of their films are rated 'Universal', or 'Parental Guidance', and their target audience was originally to a younger audience, although they have also attracted a much older generation. This is due to the original and entertaining plots, which both young people and older people can enjoy, and recently an older audience have been going to see Pixar films due to sequels of the films they watched years ago when they were young, for example, Toy Story 3.
Recently they have been earning an enormous box office profit from the sequels they're been producing, for example, the new Monsters University film, which is a sequel to the Monsters Inc film made in 2001, made 80 million US dollars. This was the biggest opening for an animation since Toy Story 3. They've also made a re-make of cars, which made a gross of 200 million US dollars.
They're currently makeing a sequel to the popular 'Finding Nemo' film, made 11 years ago in 2013, which is called 'Finding Dory' and will be released in 2015.
Sources:
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman-products
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderMan
http://pixar.wikia.com/Pixar_Animation_Studios
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jun/30/toy-story-3-pixar-animation
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman-features
http://www.pixar.com
The company is currently based in Emeryvill Califorina, and has won 26 Academy Awards, 7 Golden Globes and 3 Grammy Awards, and many more.
RenderMan
The company is not only known for its brilliant and successful animations, but the software it uses to create these computer generated animations. Pixar is known for its CGI animated features made with PhotoRealistic RenderMan and other products such as Pixar image computers and Marionette.
According to Wikipedia, RenderMan is a software used by Pixar and an API (application programming interface) for network distributed rendering of complex and ray-traced 3D views. According to Joe Letteri a VFX supervisor at WETA Digital, "RenderMan is the ultimate creative tool. It's the easiest and most flexible way to create a picture from an idea."Some of the features of RenderMan include: Hybrid rendering, which allows people to easily control CG camera work, and two of the most important features are monition blur and depth of field. It offers advanced features such as a versatile re-rendering system, physically plausible shading, deep textures, and many more.
Another feature RenderMan has, which is described as on the RenderMan's website 'the secret of RenderMan's success' is the outstanding performance. It is described to a be fast, efficient, and configurable program. It offers an exceptional amount of memory and storage, which can save a large amount of textured maps, geometry and shaders. It can render with REYES, send the geometry to REYES, can split the geometry, dice and shade the geometry, and finally voilal the final picture. Lastly, due to it being built around REYES its really good at rendering displacements.
More about Pixar
Through out the years, and from the beginning Pixar has produced all of their films in the three dimensional style. This was extremely impressive, as at the time, 3D animation was just being introduced. This brought a whole new level to their characters, brought them to life and made the films more life-like and realistic.
The Genre Pixar tends to stick to are adventure and comedy, and these are a common pattern in their films. These suit their light hearted style, as Pixar tends to have some comedic characters (Mr Potato Head, Mike Waszowski etc...) which could add to the comedic element, and also bright colours which suites their target audience. Almost all of their films are rated 'Universal', or 'Parental Guidance', and their target audience was originally to a younger audience, although they have also attracted a much older generation. This is due to the original and entertaining plots, which both young people and older people can enjoy, and recently an older audience have been going to see Pixar films due to sequels of the films they watched years ago when they were young, for example, Toy Story 3.
Recently they have been earning an enormous box office profit from the sequels they're been producing, for example, the new Monsters University film, which is a sequel to the Monsters Inc film made in 2001, made 80 million US dollars. This was the biggest opening for an animation since Toy Story 3. They've also made a re-make of cars, which made a gross of 200 million US dollars.
They're currently makeing a sequel to the popular 'Finding Nemo' film, made 11 years ago in 2013, which is called 'Finding Dory' and will be released in 2015.
Sources:
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman-products
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderMan
http://pixar.wikia.com/Pixar_Animation_Studios
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jun/30/toy-story-3-pixar-animation
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman-features
http://www.pixar.com
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