Presto (animation software)

Pixar's own animation software

Presto Animation System

Screenshot of Presto around 2014

Developer(s)| Pixar Animation Studios
License| Proprietary

Presto is the proprietary software developed and used in-house by Pixar Animation Studios in the animation of its features and short films. Presto is not available for sale and is only used by Pixar. As a result, little is known outside Pixar about the detailed workings of this software. Pixar's older proprietary animation software menv (pronounced as "men-vee") — known more commonly by the press as Marionette — was superseded by Presto at some point prior to the 2012 release of Brave, the first feature film animated in Presto. Pixar claims that Presto is designed to be intuitive and familiar to animators who have traditional cel animation experience. The logo for Presto was designed by Parakeet, a design studio based in Portland, Oregon. Presto was named after the 2008 animated short of the same name, which itself is about the titular magician character.

2020 Logo with a picture of bunny ears poking out of a top hat.

Pixar chooses to use a proprietary system instead of the commercial products available and used by other companies because it can edit the software code to meet its own specific needs. One example of this editing is shown in extra features of The Incredibles DVD; it is explained that previous versions of Marionette were not able to stretch models in the ways needed to correctly animate Elastigirl, so the in-house Marionette development team created a new version that included this feature.

In 2018, Patrick Stewart presented Academy Technical Achievement Awards to Rob Jensen for the foundational design and continued development, to Thomas Hahn for the animation toolset, and to George ElKoura, Adam Woodbury and Dirk Van Gelder for the high-performance execution engine of the Presto Animation System.[1] The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award announcement stated "Presto allows artists to work interactively in scene context with full-resolution geometric models and sophisticated rig controls, and has significantly increased the productivity of character animators at Pixar."[2]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "2018 Sci-Tech Awards: Pixar's Presto Animation System". Archived from the original on 2021-12-21.
2. ^ "10 Scientific And Technical Achievements To Be Honored With Academy Awards".

## Sources

[edit]

* Paik, Karen (2007). To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios. Based on interviews and research by Leslie Iwerks. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-5012-9. OCLC 154685487.

## External links

[edit]

* Presto demonstration at NVIDIA’s GTC conference in Vimeo

* v
* t
* e

Pixar Animation Studios

A subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company.

Feature films|

* Toy Story (1995)
* A Bug's Life (1998)
* Toy Story 2 (1999)
* Monsters, Inc. (2001)
* Finding Nemo (2003)
* The Incredibles (2004)
* Cars (2006)
* Ratatouille (2007)
* WALL-E (2008)
* Up (2009)
* Toy Story 3 (2010)
* Cars 2 (2011)
* Brave (2012)
* Monsters University (2013)
* Inside Out (2015)
* The Good Dinosaur (2015)
* Finding Dory (2016)
* Cars 3 (2017)
* Coco (2017)
* Incredibles 2 (2018)
* Toy Story 4 (2019)
* Onward (2020)
* Soul (2020)
* Luca (2021)
* Turning Red (2022)
* Lightyear (2022)
* Elemental (2023)
* Inside Out 2 (2024)
* Elio (2025)

| Direct-to-video|

* Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000)

|

Upcoming|

* Hoppers (2026)
* Toy Story 5 (2026)

Short films|

| Original|

* The Adventures of André & Wally B. (1984)
* Luxo Jr. (1986)
* Red's Dream (1987)
* Tin Toy (1988)
* Knick Knack (1989)
* Geri's Game (1997)
* For the Birds (2000)
* Boundin' (2003)
* One Man Band (2005)
* Lifted (2006)
* Presto (2008)
* Partly Cloudy (2009)
* Day & Night (2010)
* La Luna (2011)
* The Blue Umbrella (2013)
* Lava (2014)
* Sanjay's Super Team (2015)
* Piper (2016)
* Lou (2017)
* Bao (2018)

|

SparkShorts|

* Purl (2019)
* Smash and Grab (2019)
* Kitbull (2019)
* Float (2019)
* Wind (2019)
* Loop (2020)
* Out (2020)
* Burrow (2020)
* Twenty Something (2021)
* Nona (2021)
* Self (2024)

Feature-related|

* Mike's New Car (2002)
* Jack-Jack Attack (2005)
* Mr. Incredible and Pals (2005)
* Mater and the Ghostlight (2006)
* Your Friend the Rat (2007)
* BURN-E (2008)
* Dug's Special Mission (2009)
* George and A.J. (2009)
* The Legend of Mor'du (2012)
* Party Central (2013)
* Riley's First Date? (2015)
* 22 vs. Earth (2021)
* Ciao Alberto (2021)
* Carl's Date (2023)

Series|

* Cars Toons (2008–14)
* Toy Story Toons (2011–12)
* Forky Asks a Question (2019–20)
* Dug Days (2021–23)
* Cars on the Road (2022)

Compilations|

* Tiny Toy Stories (1996)
* Pixar Short Films Collection
* Volume 1 (2007)
* Volume 2 (2012)
* Volume 3 (2018)

Other works|

* Beach Chair (1986)
* Flags and Waves (1986)

Television series|

* Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000–01)

Television specials|

* Toy Story of Terror! (2013)
* Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014)

Limited streaming series|

* Dream Productions (2024)
* Win or Lose (2025)

|

Franchises|

* Toy Story (1995–present)
* Monsters, Inc. (2001–present)
* Finding Nemo (2003–present)
* The Incredibles (2004–present)
* Cars (2006–present)
* Inside Out (2015–present)

Associated
productions

* Exploring the Reef (2003; short film)
* Planes (2013)
* The Dam Keeper (2014; short film)
* Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)
* Borrowed Time (2016; short film)
* Weekends (2017; short film)
* Monsters at Work (2021–2024; television series)
* Starling (2023; short film)

Characters|

* Luxo Jr.
* Toy Story
* Woody
* Buzz Lightyear
* Jessie
* Bo Peep
* Monsters, Inc.
* Mike Wazowski
* Dory
* The Incredibles
* Bob Parr
* Helen Parr
* Dash Parr
* Violet Parr
* Edna Mode
* Cars
* Lightning McQueen
* Tow Mater
* Sally Carrera
* WALL-E
* Carl Fredricksen
* Merida
* Joy
* Anxiety

Documentaries|

* The Pixar Story (2007)
* A Spark Story (2021)

Disney attractions
and experiences|

* It's Tough to Be a Bug! (1998)
* Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (1998)
* A Bug's Land (2002)
* Turtle Talk with Crush (2004)
* The Seas with Nemo & Friends (2007)
* Cars Quatre Roues Rallye (2007)
* Crush's Coaster (2007)
* Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (2007)
* Toy Story Mania! (2008)
* Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek (2009)
* Toy Story Land (2010)
* RC Racer (2010)
* Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin (2010)
* Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop (2010)
* Alien Swirling Saucers (2018)
* Slinky Dog Dash (2018)
* Cars Land (2012)
* Luigi's Flying Tires (2012)
* Radiator Springs Racers (2012)
* Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters (2016)
* Remy's Ratatouille Adventure (2014)
* Nemo & Friends SeaRider (2017)
* Pixar Pier (2018)
* Games of Pixar Pier (2018)
* Incredicoaster (2018)
* Pixar Pal-A-Round (2018)
* Jessie's Critter Carousel (2019)
* Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy (2019)
* Cars: Road Trip (2021)
* Worlds of Pixar (2021)

Products|

* Pixar Image Computer

Software|

* Pixar RenderMan
* Presto Animation System

People|

* John Lasseter
* Edwin Catmull
* Steve Jobs
* Alvy Ray Smith
* Jim Morris
* Pete Docter

See also|

* Awards and nominations
* feature films
* short films
* Film references
* Computer Graphics Lab
* Industrial Light & Magic
* Lucasfilm Animation
* Circle Seven Animation
* Pixar Canada
* Pixar Photoscience Team
* Computer Animation Production System
* A Computer Animated Hand
* The Works
* The Shadow King
* Rush: A Disney–Pixar Adventure
* Disney Infinity
* Fortnite
* Kingdom Hearts III
* Walt Disney Animation Studios
* Disneytoon Studios
* 20th Century Animation

* Category
* Work group

This graphics software–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

|

* v
* t
* e

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template