Video: GTC Keynote – Using GPUs at Pixar

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

imagesIn this video, Pixar’s Dirk Van Gelder and Danny Nahmias keynote the GPU Technology Conference 2014. While you may not think of Pixar in terms of HPC, the company is an undisputed leader in computing graphics. In fact, the first Academy Award ever given to a computer generated movie was Pixar’s Luxo Jr. in 1986.

Session Highlights:

  • Pixar uses Nvidia GPUs and NVIDIA software such as CUDA and OptiX to help their artists to create amazing content than has captivates audiences worldwide.
  • Nvidia and Pixar have been collaborating to incorporate NVIDIA OptiX into Pixar’s lighting tool; they use it to interactively light scenes prior to sending images out for final render. They use physically based illumination models to create visually rich imagery – including some things not previously possible such as interactively lighting characters with hair and fur in a scene.
  • They also show Presto, their proprietary in house software to deliver real-time artist feedback for character animation; VRender, which is a Pixar-developed volume renderer; and talk about the work they are doing with subdivision surfaces; specifically the OpenSubDiv API which uses tessellation techniques to interactively display complex smooth surfaces.