Award-Winning Technology
The developers of RenderMan have received some of the most prestigious awards in the industry.
2011 - Scientific & Engineering Award
David Laur (Senior RenderMan Developer) was honored for his work with Pixar's Alfred render queue management system. A total of six developers were honored for their work on various queueing systems which have allowed studios to process the large amounts of data required for 3D animation and visual effects. At the award ceremony David Laur pondered the possible effects of Academy recognition, "It's certainly true that nobody grows up to say 'I want to be a queuing systems engineer,'" he told the audience. "Now there'll be action figures.
Listen to a complete interview with David Laur discussing Pixar's Alfred at the Pixar Podcast
2010 - Scientific & Engineering Award
To Per Christensen (Senior RenderMan Developer), Christophe Hery, and Michael Bunnell for the development of point-based rendering for indirect illumination and ambient occlusion, and featured in Pixar's RenderMan. Much faster than previous ray-traced methods, this computer graphics technique has enabled color bleeding effects and realistic shadows for complex scenes in motion pictures.
2009 - The Coons Award (SIGGRAPH 2009)
This year's award is presented to Rob Cook (Vice President of Advanced Technology, Pixar Animation Studios) for his foundational contributions to physically-based reflectance models and distribution ray tracing and his enduring work on behalf of the SIGGRAPH community. The Steven A. Coons Award is given in odd-numbered years to an individual to honor that person's lifetime contribution to the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques.
2009 - The Gordon E. Sawyer Award
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Ed Catmull with the Gordon E.Sawyer Award, for a lifetime of technical contributions and leadership in the field of computer graphics for the motion picture industry, including his work with Pixar's RenderMan.
2001 - Academy Award of Merit - "Oscar®"
Ed Catmull, Loren Carpenter, and Rob Cook, were honored with an Academy Award® of Merit (Oscar®) “for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar’s RenderMan®.” This was the first Oscar awarded to the developers of a software package for its outstanding contributions to the field.
1993 - Scientific & Engineering Award
In 1993 the developers of Pixar's RenderMan (Loren Carpenter , Rob Cook, Ed Catmull, Thomas Porter, Pat Hanrahan, Tony Apodaca & Darwyn Peachey) won a Scientific and Engineering Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for RenderMan's contribution to the motion picture industry.