https://www.awn.com/news/dreamworks-animation-release-moonray-open-source Skip to main content Animation World Network Search form Search [ ] [Search] Visit AWN on Twitter Visit AWN on Instagram Visit AWN on Google Plus Visit AWN on FlipBoard Subscribe to AWN Log In | Register * Home * News * Blogs * AnimationWorld * VFXWorld * Events * Forums * Jobs * More + Interviews + Reviews + Galleries + All Categories + AWNtv o Most Recent Videos o Top Playlists o All Video Categories + Animation Industry Database + Filmporium Store + How To Succeed in Animation DreamWorks Animation to Release MoonRay as Open Source Studio's state-of-the-art MCRT renderer, used on the upcoming 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' and previous films like 'The Bad Guys' and 'Croods: A New Age,' includes a USD Hydra render delegate and multi-machine / cloud rendering via Arras. By Dan Sarto | Friday, August 5, 2022 at 7:55am In Business, CG, Films, People, Technology, Visual Effects | ANIMATIONWorld, Headline News, VFXWorld | Geographic Region: All [1057422-10] GLENDALE -- DreamWorks Animation has just announced their intent to release their proprietary production renderer, MoonRay, as open source software later this year. MoonRay is DreamWorks' state-of-the-art MCRT renderer, which has been used on feature films such as How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Croods: A New Age , The Bad Guys, as well as the upcoming Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, which hits theaters December 21. MoonRay was developed by DreamWorks' world-class engineers, and includes an extensive library of production-tested, physically based materials, a USD Hydra render delegate, multi-machine and cloud rendering via Arras. "We are thrilled to share with the industry over 10 years of innovation and development on MoonRay's vectorized, threaded, parallel, and distributed code base," said Andrew Pearce, Vice President of Global Technology at DreamWorks. "The appetite for rendering at scale grows each year, and MoonRay is set to meet that need. We expect to see the code base grow stronger with community involvement as DreamWorks continues to demonstrate our commitment to open source". DreamWorks' in-house Monte Carlo Ray Tracer, MoonRay, was designed from the start with a focus on efficiency and scalability, with the mantra to "...keep all the vector lanes of all the cores of all the machines busy all the time with meaningful work", as well as provide modern features for full artistic expression. It can deliver a broad range of images from photorealistic to strongly stylized. MoonRay is built on a leading-edge, highly scalable architecture with no prior legacy code, allowing quick, feature-film quality artistic iteration using familiar tools. Additional high-performance features include support for distributed rendering, a pixel matching XPU mode that offers improved performance by processing bundles of rays on the GPU as well as the CPU, ray processing via Intel(r) Embree, shader vectorization utilizing Intel(r) ISPC compilation, and bundled path tracing. MoonRay includes a USD Hydra render delegate for integration into content creation tools that support the standard. [1057754-dw] "We are proud of our close collaboration with DreamWorks on MoonRay with its impressive photoreal ray tracing rendering performance supported by open source Intel Embree and Intel Implicit SPMD Program Compiler (Intel ISPC), both distributed in the Intel oneAPI Rendering Toolkit," said Jim Jeffers, Sr. Director, Sr. Principal Engineer, Intel Advanced Ray Tracing. "MoonRay's features like hair and fur rendering were developed in collaboration with Intel. The resulting improvements are included in Intel(r) Embree's ray tracing kernel library and exemplify how using open software benefits the entire ecosystem. By adopting Intel ISPC, MoonRay embraces vector instruction parallelism for dramatic performance improvements. Intel looks forward to new opportunities to apply oneAPI cross-architecture, cross-vendor support to this open source project for all creators." MoonRay utilizes DreamWorks' distributed computation framework, Arras, also to be included in the open source code base, to provide innovative multi-machine and multi-context support. Multi-machine rendering speeds up the interactive display for the artist, decouples rendering from the interactive tool which increases interactive robustness. Using MoonRay and Arras in a multi-context mode, the artist can simultaneously visualize multiple lighting conditions, varying material properties, multiple times in a shot or sequence, or even multiple locations in an environment. According to Simon Crownshaw, Microsoft's Director of Business Strategy for Media & Communications, "We see using MoonRay with Arras on Microsoft Azure as a game-changer in the hands of artists, providing faster iterations on lighting, and also enabling multi-context rendering. As visual effects and animation content grows in complexity, so does the compute requirements to create and render. Microsoft Azure allows studios and artists to access MoonRay with Arras for the first time and power the platform with a broad portfolio of compute capacity in the cloud and scale on demand across the globe." "MoonRay has been a game-changer for our productions," said Bill Ballew, Chief Technology Officer at DreamWorks. "We have over a billion hours of use at DreamWorks. As the open source community continues to embrace and enhance it we'll see significant benefits to the animation and visual effects industry as well as academia." DreamWorks intends to make MoonRay available under the Apache 2.0 license. Further information and updates will be available at OpenMoonRay.org. Source: DreamWorks Animation Dan Sarto's picture Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network. Tags Technology Dreamworks Dreamworks Animation DWA Moonray Open Source renderer rendering software MCRT renderer Monte Carlo Ray Tracer Intel Microsoft Arras Microsoft Azure Andrew Pearce Jim Jeffers Simon Crownshaw Bill Ballew 3D CGI CG cg animation cloud Computing * * * * * * * More From News: Next Post Exclusive: Apple TV+ Drops New 'Land of Luck' Poster Art Previous Post Podcast EP 173: Brent Forrest on How He Created 'Samurai Frog Golf' with Marza Animation Related Content How MoonRay Became the Hidden Superpower Behind 'How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World' Pixar Releases Next Generation RenderMan 24 with XPU Animal Logic Releases Open Source USD ALab Complete Production Scene DNEG Announces xStudio Free Open Source Review Application Animal Logic Releases Open Source USD ALab Complete Production Scene Chaos Releases V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max View the discussion thread. Top Headline News Streamland Media Nabs Ingenuity Studios Gravitas Drops Animated Horror Film 'Canvas' Trailer How Blur Used Light to Create Darkness in David Fincher's 'Bad Travelling' 'Claydream' Documentary Explores Will Vinton's Claymation Heyday Exclusive: Apple TV+ Drops New 'Land of Luck' Poster Art DreamWorks Animation to Release MoonRay as Open Source AWS Showcases Content Production in the Cloud at SIGGRAPH 2022 Podcast EP 173: Brent Forrest on How He Created 'Samurai Frog Golf' with Marza Animation See More >> Career Connections * HTML5 Animator Ally Financial * Non-Tenure Track Faculty Rochester Institute of Technology * Senior 3D Artist Kohler Co. * UI Engineer Oxide Games * Tools Programmer Oxide Games * Senior Graphics Engineer Oxide Games * Art Director 102 ICF Incorporated, LLC * XR Senior Character Artist (New 6/27) Accenture See More >> Recent Comments Most Popular Elsewhere on AWN * Disney+ Reveals Upcoming Marvel Animation Line-Up at Comic-Con 2022 Disney+ Reveals Upcoming Marvel Animation Line-Up at Comic-Con 2022 * Dan Harmon Shares 'Krapopolis' Preview at Comic-Con 2022 Dan Harmon Shares 'Krapopolis' Preview at Comic-Con 2022 * Neil Gaiman Drops 'The Sandman' Official Trailer at Comic-Con 2022 Neil Gaiman Drops 'The Sandman' Official Trailer at Comic-Con 2022 * Recap: Marvel Studios' Cavalcade of Comic-Con 2022 Reveals Recap: Marvel Studios' Cavalcade of Comic-Con 2022 Reveals * Crunchyroll Drops 'Dragon Ball: SUPER HERO' Trailer at Comic-Con 2022 Crunchyroll Drops 'Dragon Ball: SUPER HERO' Trailer at Comic-Con 2022 * HBO Max and Cartoon Network Unveil Slew of First Looks at Comic-Con 2022 HBO Max and Cartoon Network Unveil Slew of First Looks at Comic-Con 2022 * Paramount+ Shares 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' S3 Trailer and Crossover Episode Tease Paramount+ Shares 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' S3 Trailer and Crossover Episode Tease * Prime Video Drops 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Trailer and Art Prime Video Drops 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Trailer and Art Animation World Network Contact Us | About Us | Terms Of Service | Privacy Policy | Media Kit More Animation World Network Sites AWNtv.com: AWN Television | Videos | Channels | Categories | Playlists | Submit Your Films AIDB.com: Animation Industry Database | Production Companies | VFX Houses | Schools (c) 2017 AWN, Inc. AWN.com - Part of the Animation World Network - 13300 Victory Blvd. Suite 365 Van Nuys, CA 91401 Animation World Network