Pixar Animation Studios Releases RenderMan For Maya 1.0 

EMERYVILLE, CA – (Nov 8th, 2005) Pixar Animation Studios today announced the release of RenderMan® for Maya, the studio's next-generation 3D rendering plug-in. Now all Maya® artists can enhance their productions with the functionality and prestige of Pixar's Academy Award®-winning RenderMan, the benchmark against which all other rendering solutions are measured.

As demonstrated in the making of such critically acclaimed films as Disney's presentation of Pixar's Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, as well as the majority of visual effects used in today's feature films, RenderMan has long been the established name in major motion picture filmmaking. With its seamless integration into Maya's workflow, Pixar's RenderMan for Maya is designed for intuitive ease of use while providing digital artists with the competitive advantages of RenderMan's legendary quality and performance. 

RenderMan for Maya is specifically engineered to deliver high-end feature film quality standards to a new and broader audience, and is the result of an extensive development effort placing as much importance on workflow integration as on pure rendering functionality. Proven during extensive production and beta testing throughout 2005, RenderMan for Maya has received outstanding reviews from its advance testers:

"Everyone knows that Pixar's RenderMan has long been the cornerstone of professional film visual effects work," said David Dozoretz at Persistence of Vision Entertainment, formerly of Industrial Light & Magic and the founder of the Star Wars Pre-Visualization Department. "Now, for the first time, RenderMan for Maya allows visual effects facilities of every size and incarnation to harness the power of RenderMan at a remarkable cost. It's fast, easy to use, and the quality is, as always, simply stunning."

"We are changing our current pipeline to render everything in RenderMan for Maya." said Gustavo Braga of Conspiracao Filmes Ltda, Brazil. "As the plug-in is so easy to learn and use, our artists are in love with it and it's clear to us that RenderMan for Maya is a major step forward."

"We already decided we would buy it the day it is released. I am painting the city walls with 'Renderman for Maya Rocks!'" said Alain Xerri, Head of R&D at Sparx*FX, France.

Available on both Mac OS X and Windows XP, RenderMan for Maya can be purchased directly from Pixar's online store at renderman.pixar.com for only $995. Optional floating licenses are available on purchases of 5 or more copies at no additional charge. 

About Pixar Animation Studios 

Pixar Animation Studios combines creative and technical artistry to create original stories in the medium of computer animation. Pixar has created six of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Pixar has won 18 Academy Awards® and its six films have grossed more than $3.2 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The Northern California studio will release its next film, Cars, on June 9, 2006.