RAYVISION Now is Applicable to RenderMan, the Classic Renderer

The leading cloud rendering services provider and the best render farm online, Fox Renderfarm, is here to introduce to you the software Universal Scene Description (USD).Universal Scene Description (USD) is the first publicly available software that addresses the need to robustly and scalably interchange and augment arbitrary 3D scenes that may be composed from many elemental assets. It not only is the core of Pixar’s workflow but also provides a way for other VFX and animation studio’s processes to allow 3D data to be interchanged between different digital content creation applications.The RenderMan 23.0 just released a few days ago has a high support for USD. Houdini 18's SideFX Solaris’ toolset uses USD as its supportable basic data. Other tools we often use, such as Maya and Katana, have also shown USD support Inclusive.How is USD Generated?In the process of making a CG film/game, a large amount of 3D data is usually generated, stored, and transmitted. This data is called "scene description". Collaborative applications in the process (such as modeling, shading, animation, lighting, special effects, and rendering) all have dedicated scene descriptions, which are suitable for specific needs and workflows respectively and other applications are unreadable and cannot be edited.USD is the first open-source software that emerged at the historic moment in this troubled situation. In simple terms, it is a powerful and concise exchange format that can describe the work of various departments without affecting the work, involving models, animations, materials, lights, cameras, and other necessary links in the production environment. USD enhances the predictability of multi-department collaboration, allowing artists to focus more on content creation without having to worry about data management issues. What about the USD process?Staging &x26; LayoutFor Pixar, the USD process is changing the way they create a whole new world. With this efficient and universal description format, artists can create and achieve more complex production effects, which can take a long time if completed using original technology.Early appearance development helps to achieve better final resultsThe artist can quickly preview his work through the imaging framework "Hydra" in the back and front of the USD process, while adding OpenGL approximations of textures, materials and lights. In this way, artists can feel the beauty of the film in the early stage of production, simplify the traditional approval process in the later stage of production, and have a positive impact on multi-department collaboration.USD LayersThe USD layering system is very similar to Photoshop when processing data. There are a series of operations that can be individually folded. Whether it is opened or closed will not affect other data. Artists who want to view the main lighting effect when creating the scene layout need only Just open the layer.Assets &x26; ShadingIn "Toy Story 4", Pixar created multiple variants for each asset. It is precisely because of the "Variant" system in USD that RenderMan can successfully call specific assets with different version's shapes, shades and textures.USD VariantIn this "Variant" system, any minor changes to the shadows and textures of assets will not affect the geometry that has already been loaded. Resource management is more efficient and more assets can be created with fewer objects.For example, the artist is making a shot at this time, and the art director wants to change the main color of the picture. What should I do? Just browse through the available variants of a particular asset and choose assets of different colors to match the atmosphere of the lens, without having to modify the entire sequence at all, and it will not have any impact on the work of other artists.USD includes material definition function. Artists can combine Pixar's proprietary shading tools with commonly used texture software such as Mari. At present, the internal shading system used by Pixar is slightly different from the tools used in the market. Therefore, RenderMan released a Mari approximation tool for Pixar Surface Material, which provides higher quality shading effects for the artist's texture work.RenderMan releases Pixar Surface approximation tool for MariTo make it easy for artists to manage assets, Pixar has also developed internal tools to handle USD and other conversion and tracking processes, and rely on independent and consistent USD API and Scenegrah to create tools that predict and access external processes and read Tool set for fetching, writing, and editing scene data.AnimationThere is an animation software Presto inside Pixar. Its design concept was refined and extracted into USD. Presto's first book was Brave 2012, which involved part of the Pixar open source project, including OpenSubdiv for high-performance subdivision surface evaluation, OpenTimelineIO for editing timeline information, OpenUSD And other research projects available to the public.Animation flowOne of the most powerful features of USD is the ability to load complex data sets, which take up less memory during transmission, which means that animators will get more control. For example, the character artist can process and preview the hair effect in real-time, so that he can present the character performance in a more precise way, and it can speed up the process of version iteration and make more detailed shots and sequences.With the help of this process, the cluster production department can also easily visualize huge data sets and use simple versions of files for production. With the advantages of the USD fast cache system for real-time playback, then modify the "Schemas" (schemas is USD fast The core method of changing the scene) back to making assets.LightingA very critical part of USD is its ability to dynamically switch between rendering agents in the window (such as switching between OpenGL and RenderMan), which means that artists can access the best lighting effects in the early production stage, plus photographer With more accurate feedback from the director, the artist can concentrate on his creativity without worrying about the difference between the basic colors of his lens and the effects provided by the layout department.RenderingBefore color &x26; time correction and editing, final rendering means the last step in the process. With the ingenuity of USD and Hydra, RenderMan can render pixels in advance to help departments obtain better visual effects. So how many departments will deal with USD and RenderMan?If you can guarantee the high fidelity of the picture in the production process, the artist can preview the complex effects (such as depth of field, motion blur, and shadow) of the final rendering in real-time. Pixar always insists that the pixels are as complete as possible to avoid unnecessary pixel filtering and the possibility of subsequent image quality degradation. Therefore, the approximate rendering effect is a very basic function, which is especially important for the stereo department.The USD distribution provides tools such as USDView. This tool can load any type of USD file, ascii (usda), binary (usd), or archive (usdz). Artists can switch the rendering agent to RenderMan to see the lighting effects of the shot or asset. All these collaborative workflows have greatly improved the final effect of the picture, provided artists with a better creative environment, and made feedback more precise and productive.Is there Anything Imperfect in the USD?Speaking of the advantages of USD for a long time, is there any imperfection in it? of course. First, USD has no GUIDs (Globally Unique Identifier). USD uses a text &x26; hierarchical namespace to identify its data, which means that it is a "namespace path" that needs to be bound to a meaning primitive / attribute via name override.So when the internal namespace of the referenced asset changes, the higher-level coverage previously recorded in the referenced asset will disappear. One way to solve this problem is to identify the data through GUIDs and then use the overlay and The same GUIDs is associated. When solving the problem of namespace editing, GUIDs introduces other issues into the process and may limit the flexibility of composition. Therefore no GUIDs appeared.Secondly, USD is not an implementation or operating system. USD provides a lightweight and optimized scene graph for easy creation and efficient extraction of synthetic scene descriptions. The scene graph takes up less space, which is suitable for namespace hierarchy and attribute value resolution, and low-latency data access, while high-performance execution engines require high memory footprint and low-latency data access.How Compatible are the Software for the USD Process?HoudiniIn order to be compatible with the USD format, RenderMan has released an image processing plug-in hdPrman for USD Hydra. It also supports Houdini18 and its Solaris toolset for look-dev, which is based on USD.MayaThe USD open-source program has made Pixar technology have been affecting the VFX and animation film industries for many years. For example, the two studios LumaPictures and Animal Logic not only accepted USD but also put forward a lot of important feedback and development resources that benefit from users. Maya will soon launch these plugin resources to further improve the USD ecosystem.KatanaFoundry has been committed to supporting and creating a complete workflow. In the upcoming new version of Katana, the scalability of the USD toolset will match it well.Fox Renderfarm hopes it will be of some help to you. It is well known that Fox Renderfarm is an excellent cloud rendering services provider in the CG world, so if you need to find a render farm, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users? Thanks for reading!Reference: https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/overview.html

Aspera's software moves the world’s data at maximum speed, regardless of file size, transfer distance or network conditions. At the heart of our solutions is our patented FASP® transport technology – a breakthrough transfer protocol that leverages existing WAN infrastructure and commodity hardware to achieve speeds that are up to hundreds of times faster than FTP and HTTP. Supporting deployments on premise or on the public, private and hybrid cloud platforms, and covering a wide range of server, desktop and mobile operating systems, Aspera software delivers end-to-end security, 100% reliability and exceptional bandwidth control. On December 29th, RAYVISION was authorized by IBM to be the reseller of Aspera.10/12/2015 RAYVISION Established Cooperative Relationship with Redshift RAYVISION established a cooperative relationship with Redshift development team. Redshift is the world’s first render engine fully based on GPU computing. RAYVISION got the permit from Redshift to provide GPU rendering service and to be an agent to sell Redshift renderer.09/12/2015 RAYVISION Was Applicable to RenderMan RenderMan is widely used in producing top-level moving images because of its extremely high quality and speed. It’s an essential rendering solution used in high level fields such as animation and film VFX. And besides the Pixar and Disney, many other famous production companies such as ILM and Sony are also using the RenderMan as one of the final solutions for rendering. On December 9th, RAYVISION was applicable to RenderMan.30/11/2015 RAYVISION Proudly Became a Sponsor of Evermotion Annual Challenge Founded in 1998, Evermotion is a famous 3D model resource network in global CG industry. Evermotion creates and develops products that help CG artists with their 3d visualizations by speeding up their workflow and increasing their quality of output. As one of the world’s leading cloud render farm, RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) sponsored so many world-class challenges. This time, RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) proudly became a sponsor of Evermotion annual challenge.18/09/2015 “Baahubali - The Beginning” Become Indian’s Top-Grossing Movie As 2015 India’s top budget film, the historical Indian epic blockbuster “Baahubali - The Beginning” become Indian’s top-grossing movie. This movie was directed by renowned Indian director S.S. Rajamouli, co-starring Prabhas and Rana Daggubati. Baahubali's CGI visual effects were collaborated with a local company Makuta VFX. RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) was tasked with the responsibility of rendering the movie. RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) as rendering expert and probably one of the world’s largest render farms are eager to work with any production houses to produce top quality special effects as well as animations.20/08/2015 RAYVISION Cooperated with the World’s Fastest Supercomputer Tianhe-2 Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defense Technology is the fastest supercomputer in the world. A group of computer scientists and engineers who twice a year release the "Top500" list of fastest supercomputers measured the Tianhe-2 at 33.9 petaflops (quadrillions of calculations per second). That's nearly twice as fast as the Titan, which was relegated to the second spot on the list. RAYVISION partners with Tianhe-2 National Supercomputing Center in GuangZhou to provide better cloud rendering service.20/07/2015 RAYVISION Sponsored Shandong University “Visual Computing Summer School” Talents Cultivation Shandong University Visual Computing Summer School was opened on July 20th, 2015 in Qindao, Shandong, sponsored by RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) and other companies. More than 20 world-famous Visual Computing experts were invited to give lectures on general theory and development of Visual Computing, which can be compared with the SIGGRAPH Conference. Baoquan Chen, the president of SIGGRAPH Asia 2014, acted as the principal of the Visual Computing Summer School. Michael Liang, the president of RAYVISION, delivered a speech at the conference and gave his best wishes to the attendees.10/07/2015 “Monkey King: Hero Is Back” Became a Myth in the Chinese Animation History In the era that Chinese animations are easy to become box office flop, the animated film rendered by RAYVISION survived and become a hit. As a backstage hero of Oscar Best Animated Short Film “Mr. Hublot”, RAYVISION rendered abundant magnificent Chinese Animation, such as “Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn”, “The Legend of Qin”, “10,000 Years Later”, “Robb Rabbit”, “Three Pigs and the Lamp”. “Monkey King: Hero Is Back” is the most outstanding animated film that becomes a massive hit and a myth in the history of Chinese Animation.16/06/2015 Mili Pictures Partners with RAYVISION Inc. to Make World-class Movies During Shanghai International Film Festival, Mili Pictures held a press conference announcing Mili Pictures officially teamed up with RAYVISION to form a strategic partnership. In the future 3 years, Mili Pictures will partner with RAYVISION to make 12 world-class movies to enter the international market.01/06/2015 RAYVISION Developed “Drag-and-Drop” Render Submission RAYVISION’s highly praised Fox Renderfarm cloud render farm released a new generation of rendering platform. Instead of traditional web submission method, it was improved to “Drag-and-Drop” submission. You can get thousands of computing nodes from RAYVISION with only one second, and through API you can easily and seamlessly connect with present work environment pipeline, which realized fully-automated rendering.01/05/2015 RAYVISION Established Coopreative Relationship with Chaosgroup V-ray Chaosgroup is the developer of famous V-ray renderer. They have a large number of users in China. In 2011, RAYVISION has become V-ray’s official authorized render farm. This time, RAYVISION and Chaosgroup reached a long-term cooperation agreement.28/04/2015 Aliyun Partners with RAYVISION Inc. to Provide Global Visualization Cloud Computing Services On April 28th, 2015, Simon Hu, president of Aliyun Computing Co., LTD and Michael Liang, president of RAYVISION Inc., held a press conference in Alibaba’s Hangzhou headquarter announcing Aliyun officially teamed up with RAYVISION to form a global strategic partnership to provide global visual cloud computing services. Many honorable guests attended the press conference and gave praised speeches such as Michael Liang, the president of RAYVISION Inc., Zhang Qiang, the CEO of Alibaba Pictures Group Limited, Mr. Laurent Witz, the director of “Mr. Hublot” who won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 86th Academy Awards, Nickson Fong, the winner of lifetime Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Awards in 2013 as well as representatives from famous VFX and animation studios.24/04/2015 “Uncover Mystery of Oscar” Movie Seminar Was Held in Beijing Film Academy “Uncover Mystery of Oscar” Movie seminar was held in Beijing Film Academy on April 24th, 2015. It was jointly organized by Beijing Film Academy, China Film Industry Research Institute and RAYVISION. Many experts in entertainment industry attended this seminar. Laurent Witz (the director of Mr. Hublot) and Nickson Fong (Oscar winner for Technical Achievement) uncovered mystery of Oscar and discussed the creation of Oscar works from director’s perspective and movie technology.06/03/2015 RAYVISION’s Input Storage Was Upgraded to SSD Storage RAYVISION’s storage server was upgraded to expensive SSD storage, with which there is no pressure for RAYVISION’s rendering platform, even if hundreds of thousands of machines are rendering a huge amount of files at the same time. It completely solved the problem of network io rendering storage, improved rendering efficiency further, and reduced the probability of frame lost.20/02/2015 RAYVISION Cooperated with CGTrader to Sponsor Their CG Challenges CGTrader is the highest growing, hippest and happening 3D model market on the Internet. It’s 230,000+ model library will serve all of your needs. Human faces, medical equipment, interior details, stylized characters and more are available. As for now, RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) has sponsored 6 CGTrader Challenges: 3D SciFi Challenge, CG Flora & Fauna Challenge, CG Game Characters Challenge, First Model Challenge, Science/Medical Challenge and CG Wildlife Challenge.27/09/2014 Michael Liang, the President of RAYVISION Inc. Was Invited to Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival The 23th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival was held in Lanzhou province, China, from September 24th to 27th in 2014. Reputed as China's top film gala, the annual China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival has the longest history and greatest influence. It launches a series of cultural activities every year, including the appraisal of awards, the exhibition of Chinese and foreign new films, the academic seminars, the film trade fair, international cultural exchanges and entertainment performances. The festival is best known for its focus on academic fields, the extensive participation of the masses, and the unfixed host city. Michael Liang, the President of RAYVISION Inc. was invited to Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival and delivered a speech on the China Film Industry Development & Financial Investment Summit Forum.08/08/2014 “The Legend of Qin” Start a Trend of Chinese Animation “The Legend of Qin” produced by Sparkly Key Animation Studio is a motivated 3D animated film. The animation was adapted from a Taiwanese novel. Since its creation, it has attracted so many young Chinese audiences. RAYVISION provide the cloud render service for this animation. It takes 8 months with over 6000 scenes and 300 to 400 machines.31/07/2014 “Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn” Won the Best Animated Visual Creativity Award Adapted from a popular online game, “Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn” was released on July 31st, 2014. This animated film was directed by Song Yuefeng, rendered by RAYVISION, and produced by Mili Pictures and NASDAQ:GAME. The story and plot were designed by Bill Borden. It is a big-budget animated film with the features of epic, fantasy, adventure and war. “Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn” won the Best Animated Visual Creativity Award in Canadian International Film Festival.29/07/2014 RAYVISION Sponsors CG Talents Cultivation Activity In order to educate and discover talent in CG industry, RAYVISION sponsors CG talents cultivation activity of SILKROAD EDU. RAYVISION provides coupons and cloud render farm courses for the outstanding students. Besides, RAYVISION’s cloud render technical team for 86th Oscar Best Animated Short Film will deliver lectures to these students face to face, and introduce the world’s most advanced cloud rendering technology to the future CG talents.23/06/2014 Malaysian Flick “Ribbit” to Premiere at Niagara Fest Malaysian Flick “Ribbit” to Premiere at Niagara Fest. The rendering part of this cartoon movie has been done by Fox Renderfarm which belongs to RAYVISION Inc. Canada’s Niagara Integrated Film Festival (NIFF) is taking place June 19-22, showcasing a hand-picked selection of films around the world. One of the premieres that will be featured at the event is the global debut of Malaysian animated film “Ribbit” from KRU International’s Kartun Studios. “Ribbit” won the Best Family Film Award at NIFF.03/03/2014 “Mr. Hublot” Won the 86th Oscar Best Animated Short Film Award “Mr. Hublot” is a Luxembourg/France co-produced 11 min animated film won the 2014 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. Produced, written and directed by Mr. Laurent Witz and co-directed by Alexandre Espigares. Designed by sculptor Stephane Halleux, the story is set in a realistic world that is a combination of steam punk and a bizarre futuristic world. As “Mr. Hublot” rendering partner behind the scenes, RAYVISION (Fox Renderfarm) participated in the whole rendering process.