The Challenge
Pixar’s RenderMan demonstrated how programmable shading and the REYES architecture could give technical artists precise control over production imagery. At the time, that capability was largely inaccessible outside major studios. I created Aqsis to explore those ideas and make a compatible rendering system available as open-source software.
The Engineering
Aqsis grew into a substantial production renderer, including programmable shading, true displacement and the core systems required to turn complex scene descriptions into final imagery. The project demanded long-term architectural discipline as well as deep work in graphics, compilers, numerical methods, performance and cross-platform C++.
It also became an international open-source collaboration. The project was accepted into Google Summer of Code multiple times and used both as an educational resource and as a production rendering solution.
The Outcome
Aqsis led to my contribution to “Production Rendering: Design and Implementation” and remains a useful codebase for studying rendering and software architecture, even as production graphics has moved towards newer hardware-accelerated techniques.
Visit the Aqsis project.