MoPA students shine at the RenderMan Challenge

The RenderMan Challenge, open to both professionals and students, provides a unique opportunity to apply skills in shading, lighting, rendering, and compositing using the RenderMan rendering engine. This year, fourth-year students from the Image specialization took part for the very first time!

A rendering engine is a software that transforms a 3D scene into a realistic or stylized 2D image. It simulates physical phenomena such as lighting, shadows, reflections, and transparency to produce a final visual that accurately reflects the artist’s vision.

The RenderMan "SciTech" Art Challenge is the 11th edition of this competition, organized in collaboration with the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). The 2024 edition revolved around the theme "Compute", challenging participants to illustrate future human innovations or alternative realities, where, for example, electricity was never invented.

The goal: to create an image with physically plausible lighting and shading, whether photorealistic or stylized.

To complete their projects, students worked for five weeks, guided by their instructors Romain Montigny, RenderMan specialist and Matthieu Grospiron, instructor in composition and staging.

During the production phase, participants had the opportunity to post their work on a dedicated blog and receive feedback from Pixar RenderMan teams, providing a unique chance to engage with industry professionals.

Although our students did not win any awards this year, their work was recognized and celebrated. Impressively, eight of them were selected among the 36 finalists. Discover their work: 

This first-time participation was an enriching experience for our students, allowing them to apply their technical skills, engage with industry experts, and compete against internationally recognized artists. A remarkable performance that sets the stage for even more promising future participations! A huge thank you to our instructors Romain Montigny and Matthieu Grospiron for their invaluable support and expertise, which greatly contributed to our students’ success in this challenge.