Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 29, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Pixar (RenderMan) began publishing its own assets in its resource portal some time ago, most of which may also be used for commercial purposes. Further content was either added or updated for this at the end of last year: including new seamless textures (from original Pixar films), HDRIs, as well as a lookdev studio setup for Maya and more.
Seamless Textures
In 1993, David Di Francesco developed a technique for creating seamless textures that was used to create materials in various Pixar films. You can now download a total of 258 of these textures free of charge in two packs (128 and 130). Alongside stones, walls, floral patterns or exotic wood materials, there are several other categories available to download in TIFF format as Base Colour, Normal and 16-bit Bump Maps. Even though the resolution is not very high at 512×512 px, one or another useful application can be found for the textures, possibly with a little upscaling work.
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Lookdev Teapot & Studio
The iconic Teapot comes as a Maya scene with two different shaders for the base plate – one plain and one with a grid pattern, which can be especially useful for refractive and reflective surfaces. The Maya scene file for the studio additionally contains the setup with three rigged lights, the 3D environment and a colour checker.
Licence: The Teaput as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; the studio as Public Domain
Further Resources…
Pixar also continues to offer a series of HDRI maps in the resource portal, such as the surroundings of the Pixar campus, the Charles XII dormitory and other locations. A somewhat different version of the teapot is also hidden there: Brice Laville’s “Rolling Teapot“. You can get to the download for it HERE.
More About Pixar RenderMan: To the Official Website
