Disney Releases 3D Modeling Library Under BSD License

by Joe Brockmeier - Jan. 19, 2010Comments (5)

Ptex Logo

Disney Enterprises has released Ptex, a library, API, and file format used by Disney for rendering models for movies like Bolt as open source.

Ptex (Per-Face Texture Mapping) is a texture mapping system which is used to give texture and color to 3D models. The code has been put up on GitHub under a BSD license. More information about Ptex is available on Disney's Website and the new Ptex site.

Currently, Ptex is used by Disney's RenderMan software, but the release under the BSD license could mean that Ptex will find its way into 3D rendering software like Blender and 3DCoat.

To get a sense of how Ptex works, check out the Painting 3D Models with Ptex video. It's an interesting look at how 3D models are generated for movies.

The site also includes a number of samples of projects that might be useful for developers looking to integrate Ptex into FLOSS 3D modeling apps.

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier is a longtime FLOSS advocate, and currently works for Novell as the community manager for openSUSE. Prior to joining Novell, Brockmeier worked as a technology journalist covering the open source beat for a number of publications, including Linux Magazine, Linux Weekly News, Linux.com, UnixReview.com, IBM developerWorks, and many others.

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by an anonymous user on Jan. 19, 2010

You should review the article's subject.

Ptex has absoluely nothing to do with "3d modeling". It solves filtering of per-polygon face texture data accross polygon edges and around extraordinary vertices. Specifically, Ptex deals with a 2 dimensional problem and as such only with 2d data (2d manifold topologies).

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by an anonymous user on Mar. 28, 2010

What does "disney going downhill" have to do with them releasing a library from renderman as OSS?

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by Jeff Marsh on May. 18, 2010

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by William - 88renders (Architectural Rendering) on Jul. 29, 2010

Hello Joe,

Do you know if PTEX is now being used more broadly across Disney and Pixar's other feature films? If it allows an arbitrary number of channels then it could be quite useful in improving workflow speed. Also have you heard if it has made it's way to 3dsMAX?

I do Architectural Rendering And were looking into this, especially if it comes to 3dsMAX.

Cheers,

William

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by William hund on Jul. 29, 2010

I do Architectural Rendering at http://www.88renders.com And we are looking into this, especially if it comes to 3dsMAX.

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