The open source path-tracing renderer has powered every DWA feature since 2019, including ‘The Wild Robot’ and ‘The Bad Guys 2;’ ASWF’s Open Source Days set for July 19-20 in LA.
MoonRay, the open source production path-tracing renderer developed by DreamWorks Animation, has joined the Academy Software Foundation as a hosted project. The renderer has been used on every DWA feature film since 2019, including How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, The Bad Guys, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Kung Fu Panda 4, The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2.
The project joins more than 20 existing ASWF projects, including OpenColorIO, OpenEXR, OpenVDB, OpenTimelineIO and Open Shading Language.
“Some of the most beautiful animated movies of our time have been rendered with MoonRay,” said David Morin, Executive Director of the Academy Software Foundation. “We are grateful to DreamWorks Animation for contributing MoonRay to the open source community, and honored to provide the platform for its collaborative development moving forward.”
MoonRay was designed from the ground up with a focus on efficiency and scalability, with modern features for full artistic expression. The renderer can deliver a range of looks from photorealistic to strongly stylized, and enables users to take advantage of an extensive library of production-tested, physically based materials. It is built on a leading-edge, highly scalable architecture with no prior legacy code, allowing for quick, feature-film quality artistic iteration using familiar tools.
“MoonRay was built on a DreamWorks Animation legacy of producing stunning visuals, and moving the project to the ASWF is the natural next step in its evolution,” said Bill Ballew, Chief Technology Officer at DreamWorks Animation. “We are incredibly proud of the technical foundation we’ve established and are excited to welcome the global community as a partner in driving MoonRay forward. We look forward to seeing how the industry’s collective innovation will build upon this technology to push the boundaries of what’s possible in rendering.”
Additional high-performance features in MoonRay include support for distributed rendering, a pixel matching XPU mode that offers improved performance by processing bundles of rays on the GPU as well as the CPU, and bundled path tracing. MoonRay also includes a USD Hydra Render Delegate for integration into content creation tools that support the OpenUSD standard. A full feature list is available here.
According to Jeff Budsberg, Visual Effects Supervisor on The Wild Robot, “MoonRay has been integral to helping us achieve the full scope of our creative ambitions at DreamWorks. By facilitating stylization directly out of the renderer, it provides filmmakers with the freedom to achieve diverse art styles – from graphic novel and ornate fantasy to a loose painterly aesthetic or digital futurism – without being limited to existing looks. We are excited to get MoonRay into the hands of the rest of the industry and hope our work inspires future filmmakers.”
MoonRay will be maintained and developed under the Academy Software Foundation, with DreamWorks Animation continuing to provide ongoing support and dedicated engineering resources. Developers interested in learning more or contributing to MoonRay can visit openmoonray.org and join the project’s Slack channel through the ASWF Slack workspace.
In addition, Ballew will deliver the keynote address at ASWF Open Source Days, taking place July 19-20, 2026, in Los Angeles. Hosted annually by the Academy Software Foundation, Open Source Days is dedicated to open source software for visual effects, animation and digital content creation, and this year’s event will coincide with the SIGGRAPH 2026 Conference.
Ballew’s talk, “How to Train Your Renderer: MoonRay’s Journey from DreamWorks’ Dragons to the ASWF,” will explore MoonRay’s evolution from a proprietary DreamWorks tool to an open source rendering project. The talk will cover the technical challenges of “breaking out” of the studio, the strategy and lessons learned in building a sustainable community, and the role of the Academy Software Foundation in the project’s path forward.
The Academy Software Foundation’s Call for Proposals for ASWF Open Source Days 2026 is open through May 24, 2026. Engineers, technical directors, artists and others working with open source software for visual effects, animation or digital content creation are encouraged to submit.
Developed in partnership by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation was created to provide a home for open source software developers in the motion picture and broader media industries to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation and sound. The foundation is home to 21 projects and four working groups.
Source: The Academy Software Foundation
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
