033 · APPLESEED
— Pomum domesticum · open-source production renderer —
Project Lavos · The Stack
Plate XXXIII · Specimen of the Family Pomaceae

Festina lente.

— MAKE HASTE, SLOWLY —

le pommier.

François Beaune  ·  et al.  ·  Paris

FIRST RELEASE 2009 · MIT LICENSE · THE LEGO MOVIE · 2014

A renderer named after an orchardman who walked America planting apple trees, written by a small French open-source community over a decade, shipped its first feature credit on The Lego Movie. Festina lente — slowly, deliberately, frame by frame — is how production renders. The orchard ripens at its own rate.

— Plate XXXIII · Malus domestica · the apple in six stages — after Linnaeus
I. gemma SPP 1 II. flos SPP 8 III. fructus immaturus SPP 32 IV. fructus viridis SPP 128 V. fructus rubescens SPP 512 VI. fructus maturus SPP 4096 2 cm FIG. I — i ⟶ vi — Malus domestica — PATH-TRACED · SAMPLES PER PIXEL · CONVERGENCE
I. gemma the bud spp 1 · ε ≈ 1.000
II. flos the blossom spp 8 · ε ≈ 0.354
III. immaturus the fruitlet spp 32 · ε ≈ 0.177
IV. viridis green fruit spp 128 · ε ≈ 0.088
V. rubescens ripening spp 512 · ε ≈ 0.044
VI. maturus mature fruit spp 4096 · ε ≈ 0.016

The renderer's name is a tribute. Its claim to fame is a movie about plastic bricks.

What the orchardman knew is what production rendering knows: the fruit ripens at its own rate. One hundred million Monte Carlo samples per shot. The integral converges when it converges. There is no rushing the apple.

Specimen Label Herbarium · authorship · provenance
Specimen XXXIII
Auctor
François Beaune — Paris
Familia
Open-source production renderer · MIT License
Distributio
github.com/appleseedhq/appleseed
Habitatio
Maya · Blender · 3ds Max · standalone
Architectura
CPU · BVH · BDPT · MIS · OSL shaders · OpenColorIO
Notabile
The Lego Movie (2014) · The Lego Batman Movie (2017) · Peter Rabbit (2018)
Lectum
~2009 — ~2019 · 600+ contributors · vol. 2.x dormant

— Frames Ripened (selected) —

The Lego Movie  ·  Animal Logic / Warner2014 — first widely-known feature credit for an open-source renderer
The Lego Batman Movie  ·  Animal Logic / Warner2017
The Lego Ninjago Movie  ·  Animal Logic / Warner2017
Peter Rabbit  ·  Animal Logic / Sony2018
Storks  ·  Warner Animation Group2016 — partial pipeline use
Smallfoot  ·  Warner Animation Group2018
Hundreds of student short filmsSIGGRAPH festival circuit, 2012 — 2020
Independent CGI artiststhe open-source production option

— Lineage —

2009François Beaune begins appleseed as a personal open-source path tracer in Paris.
2010First public release. Maya plugin shipped early. 1.0 announced.
2012Animal Logic (Sydney) adopts appleseed for prototype rendering on The Lego Movie.
2014The Lego Movie ships. First widely-known feature credit for an open-source renderer.
20162.0 release. OSL shaders, Cryptomatte, dispersion. Blender plugin matures.
2018Last major animated feature uses (Peter Rabbit, Smallfoot). Project peaks.
2020Active development pauses. Beaune moves to other roles. Code remains BSD-licensed and intact.
∞The orchard is still planted. Anyone may pick.

frame by frame.

The integral converges when it converges. There is no rushing the apple.

— § I · Authoring · Renderers / Production —
Plate XXXIII · MMXXVI
projectlavos-bauhaus · 033