In the Best Visual Effects category of the Academy Awards, all five nominees--Deepwater Horizon, Doctor Strange, The Jungle Book, Kubo and the Two Strings and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story--were created with help from Autodesk Maya and in some cases, additional Autodesk offerings including: Autodesk 3ds Max, the Autodesk Flame Family, the Arnold renderer and Shotgun Software. Outstanding visuals for all five films were produced by thousands of talented artists working out of visual effects studios across four continents, with work spanning previsualization, visual effects, virtual cinematography, post-production, color grading and more.

Additionally Autodesk recently scored an Motion Picture Academy Scientific and Technical Achievement Award. The honor was presented to Marcos Fajardo, Alan King and Thiago Ize for the Arnold renderer, a modern ray tracer designed to efficiently render the complex geometry in computer-generated imagery (CGI) animation and visual effects films. The technology was awarded for its highly optimized geometry engine and novel ray-tracing algorithms, which unify the rendering of curves, surfaces, volumetrics and subsurface scattering, and marks the 10th Sci-Tech Award presented to scientists, designers and technologies from Autodesk.

“The amazing display of artistry in the Oscar-nominated work each year consistently raises the bar, and we’re proud to have lent a hand in providing the technology for artists to bring amazing stories and visuals to audiences worldwide,” said Autodesk SVP Chris Bradshaw. “Autodesk congratulates all of this year’s nominees and appreciates the many studios that used Autodesk offerings to contribute to this year’s Academy Award-nominated films. And to see Arnold, our newest addition to Autodesk Media & Entertainment, earn a Sci-Tech is icing on the cake.”