AMD Epyc

AMD and Pixar announce RenderMan Challenge

AMD and Pixar Animation Studios announced the RenderMan Challenge, where graphic designers and artists around the world create their cinematic visions with Pixar’s RenderMan.

This year, challengers will receive access to “The AMD Creator Cloud,” a render farm powered by Azure HBv3 instances that are composed of high-performance AMD Epyc processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology.

“Together with technology collaborators like Pixar, we are empowering the next generation of creators to bring their vision to reality,” said James Knight, director of media, entertainment, and visual effects at AMD, in a statement. “Providing artists access to the ‘AMD Creator Cloud’ running Pixar’s RenderMan makes this competition accessible to many more people, allowing them to design and create incredibly fast, from anywhere inspiration strikes.”

For the first time, challengers will be able to use the high-performance capabilities of AMD Epyc processors, part of “The AMD Creator Cloud,” to render their designs using record-setting processors. The RenderMan Challenge is and the “AMD Creator Cloud” are currently open for submissions.

“With every RenderMan Challenge, it’s amazing to see how the entries become more sophisticated and complex every time,” said Dylan Sisson, RenderMan digital artist at Pixar, in a statement. “With the advancements we are seeing in hardware and software, this now allows individual artists to create images of ever-increasing sophistication and complexity. It is a great opportunity for challengers to unleash their creative vision with these state-of-the-art technologies.”

AMD and Pixar Studios also debuted a new film for the AMD “together we advance_” campaign, showcasing how Pixar, AMD and NASA are coming together to make the Exploration-themed RenderMan Challenge more accessible and inspiring.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.