We ported the Sony Pictures Imageworks version of the Arnold Renderer to the GPU using NVIDIA's OptiX ray tracing toolkit. This required modifying algorithms to run efficiently on the GPU, the use of new software methodologies to better share source code between the host and device renderers, and a reevaluation of what contributes to poor performance on the device. We share here the key decisions we made to overcome these challenges and the valuable lessons we learned during our journey in implementing the Sony Pictures Evolved Arnold Renderer (Spear) on the GPU.

We ported the Sony Pictures Imageworks version of the Arnold Renderer to the GPU using NVIDIA’s OptiX ray tracing toolkit. This required modifying algorithms to run efficiently on the GPU, the use of new software methodologies to better share source code between the host and device renderers, and a reevaluation of what contributes to poor performance on the device. We share here the key decisions we made to overcome these challenges and the valuable lessons we learned during our journey in implementing the Sony Pictures Evolved Arnold Renderer (Spear) on the GPU.

In this talk we present SpLit, a lighting manipulation tool created at Sony Pictures Imageworks designed to encourage experimentation and creativity when creating and manipulating CG lighting via a novel and artist friendly visual interface. We discovered that artists are often discouraged from experimenting and making sweeping lighting changes due to the complexity of the currently available user interfaces for CG lighting. Manipulating, rendering and evaluating the decisions is a cyclical process that requires multiple clicks through various UI elements, and the rendering takes time to resolve to a point where the results of the changes can be evaluated. With SpLit we focused on tightening the manipulation and decision-making loop and bringing it into the realm of realtime to encourage experimentation and creative freedom.

Sony Imageworks’ implementation of the Arnold renderer is a fork of the commercial product of the same name, which has evolved independently since around 2009. This article focuses on the design choices that are unique to this version and have tailored the renderer to the specific requirements of film rendering at our studio. We detail our approach to subdivision surface tessellation, hair rendering, sampling, and variance reduction techniques, as well as a description of our open source texturing and shading language components. We also discuss some ideas we once implemented but have since discarded to highlight the evolution of the software over the years.

Since 1931, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has honored the inventors and developers of the technology behind the movies. Earlier this year, 18 different technologies were awarded, honoring 34 individuals. These technologies have had a significant impact on how movies are made and have stood the test of time.

Open Shading Language (OSL) was developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks for use in its in-house renderer used for feature film animation and visual effects. OSL's specification and full implementation have been released as open source software. [Sony Pictures Imageworks 2010]

This chapter is not about realtime rendering. It’s about a world in which rendering takes sec-onds, minutes, or hours. It’s about users who require features that are extremely difficult toimplement on modern graphics hardware. But we’d still like to take advantage of the tremen-dous horsepower that GPUs afford us.First, we’ll discuss the arcane world of production rendering for film (and other non-gamehigh-end uses) — what people need from a film renderer, and how this is different from a gameengine.Next, we’ll dive into the gory details about how GPUs were used for certain features inNVIDIA’s Gelato

High-quality off-line rendering requires many features not natively supported by current commodity graphics hardware: wide smooth filters, high sampling rates, order-independent transparency, spectral opacity, motion blur, depth of field. We present a GPU-based hidden-surface algorithm that implements all these features. The algorithm is Reyes-like but uses regular sampling and multiple passes. Transparency is implemented by depth peeling, made more efficient by opacity thresholding and a new method called z batches. We discuss performance and some design trade-offs. At high spatial sampling rates, our implementation is substantially faster than a CPU-only renderer for typical scenes.

Numerical models play a key role in data assimilation for the Earth System, since they are the means by which information from observations is organised and summarised. To do the best possible job, data assimilation systems are built on state-of-the-art models that embody our understanding of how the Earth System evolves, i.e., the physical laws governing its behaviour.