Pixar has released the free edition of RenderMan 27.2, its rendering engine for visual effects and animation. This stable, watermark-free version is aimed at personal projects and tool development. It is compatible with Blender, Houdini, Katana, and Maya, allowing artists and hobbyists to access a professional workflow at no initial cost.
RenderMan XPU, the hybrid engine ready for production 🚀
Version 27.2 consolidates RenderMan XPU, the hybrid rendering system that uses CPU and GPU simultaneously. This architecture, now considered stable for final production, seeks a balance between speed and memory management. Users can handle complex scenes and leverage available hardware, maintaining quality and compatibility with the renderer’s main features.
Your smoking PC has a date with path tracing 🔥
It’s time to dust off those personal projects you had on standby due to lack of a proper renderer. Now you can explain to your family that the sound of fans at full speed is art in progress. That said, with the power of RenderMan XPU, you might have time to make a coffee before the frame finishes... or two.