About 10 years ago, Pixar spun up an idea to inspire and engage the next generation of digital artists, which resulted in the genesis of Pixar’s RenderMan Art Challenge. Everyone, from students, to hobbyists, to visual effects (VFX) professionals, was invited to create a visual story based on the year’s theme. Each participant, equipped with their unique vision and narrative, VFX quality assets, and Pixar’s RenderMan tools, produced an incredible range of submissions. Finalists of the challenge received valuable prizes provided by sponsors like AMD.
Inside Out 2 © Disney/Pixar, rendered with Pixar’s RenderMan on AMD EPYC processors.
By every measure, Pixar’s RenderMan Art Challenge has been a success. Artists over the years have created breathtaking images, including works of detail-rich photorealism and stylized fantasy worlds. The contest has included participants from every continent except Antarctica, allowing individuals from around the globe to develop new skills and incredible portfolio pieces. For some, their submissions helped them land jobs at Pixar or other leading VFX and animation studios.
Yet, for most of its existence, participants in Pixar’s RenderMan Art Challenge faced a huge hurdle: infrastructure. Participants were invited to use Pixar’s RenderMan rendering software – the same software Pixar Animation Studios uses to render their in-house 3D-animated movie productions – but they had to provide their own hardware. Rendering is a compute-intensive process that requires powerful technology. Setting up suitable infrastructure to tackle high-fidelity 3D rendering can be cost prohibitive for many artists. Without the right equipment, rendering an image of film production complexity can take hours or days – if it's even feasible.
That's why, beginning in 2022, Pixar teamed up with AMD and Ranch Computing to give RenderMan Challenge participants free access to powerful compute services in the cloud. With equitable access to this technology at their fingertips, participants in the contest are on equal footing, and artists can instead focus on bringing their creative vision to life using the most advanced hardware available.
Delivering this level of equitable access makes it clear why the cloud – available from virtually anywhere – is becoming a central component of modern animation. Whether creating a single frame or a full-length movie, artists are constantly rendering. With the power of AMD EPYC™ processors available in the cloud, creatives can truly bring their ideas to life wherever and whenever inspiration strikes, even a last-minute Pixar RenderMan Challenge entry on a train commute in Japan … true story!
Pixar’s RenderMan “NASA” Art Challenge 2022 2nd Place Winner – Jamal Ulbricht, titled, “The Collector” – was rendered on a moving train through Japan on the AMD Creator Cloud hosted by Ranch Computing
Each year, Pixar chooses a new theme for the challenge – 2024’s theme, in collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), was "SciTech." Pixar gave contestants a variety of objects and shapes they could include in their scene. The rest was left to their imagination. Judges from Pixar, and occasionally outside organizations like Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the IEEE, evaluate the submissions. The judges also provide feedback and mentorship to participants during the challenge. The final results from the RenderMan “SciTech” Art Challenge are detailed in Pixar’s article here.
Pixar’s RenderMan Art Challenge 2024 participants had access to the AMD Creator Cloud, hosted by Ranch Computing and powered by 4th Generation AMD EPYC 9754 processors with an incredible 128 cores per processor and AWS VMs. Ranch Computing, who provisioned this cloud infrastructure to challenge contestants, enabled 26 users of the AMD Creator Cloud to render around 500 projects in total. Notably, of the 45 finalists of Pixar’s RenderMan Art Challenge 2024, 13 images were rendered on the AMD Creator Cloud, including the second place winner (shown below) and 5 honorable mentions.
Pixar’s RenderMan “SciTech” Art Challenge 2024 2nd Place Winner – Furkan Avci, titled, “I Got You, Buddy” – that was rendered on the AMD Creator Cloud hosted by Ranch Computing
"Helping 3D artists express themselves without hardware limitations has always been a leitmotif in the development of our company,” said Julien de Souza, CEO, Ranch Computing. "‘You create, we render’ is our guiding principle. Hardware is at the foundation of rendering compute, and we are glad to include AMD EPYC CPUs in our data centers.”
With access to AMD processors via the AMD Creator Cloud, participants have the opportunity to utilize the computing power that a growing number of media and entertainment professionals are using every day.
“We are pleased to work alongside Ranch Computing to help artists bring their incredible pieces to life,” said Kumaran Siva, Corporate Vice President, Strategic Business Development, AMD. “4th Gen EPYC processors are an excellent fit for rendering, as AMD Creator Cloud, hosted by Ranch Computing, has proven, and we’re excited to see how much further 5th Gen EPYC raises the bar.”
Elemental was Pixar’s first feature film to be rendered entirely on a brand new AMD-powered renderfarm, and the computational demands were so high, it would have been impossible to render that feature on the latest hardware from a few years ago.
Elemental © Disney/Pixar
Other major productions, like the 2024 family film, Inside Out 2, the 2023 sci-fi action film, The Creator, and the 2019 movie, Terminator: Dark Fate, were also rendered with Pixar’s RenderMan on AMD EPYC processors.
Meanwhile, AMD is working closely with businesses like RFX – a leading hardware and software solution provider for the VFX industry – to provide leadership rendering technology to Hollywood's top VFX & animation houses, post-production facilities, and movie studios.
With next-gen hardware like AMD EPYC processors and flexible and accessible compute in the cloud, artists can work more quickly and flexibly. They can also render new kinds of images that previously were impossible to create. Studios of every size and all artists, regardless of their experience, have the opportunity with AMD to render images like never before.
AMD is looking forward to partnering once more with Pixar this year in support of Pixar’s RenderMan Art & Science Fair during SIGGRAPH 2025 and beyond. With Pixar’s upcoming release of RenderMan XPU hybrid rendering engine, 2025 marks a momentous year ahead, not only for Pixar and AMD, but for the entirety of the film industry.
