Pixar building out its war-chest with new native Mac 3D tools, may signal hardware changes at Pixar and in 3D industry

Pixar Animation Studios is apparently building more native Mac OS X applications and is seeking programmers with advanced skills in Object-C and Cocoa, according to a post on Highend3D online.

The job summary states these software engineers would work inside the Studio Tools Department and will be:

responsible for developing Pixar's in-house proprietary animation software. The Engineering Team is looking for Mac software engineers to help create and maintain new software for the studio. The position requires a deep understanding of software application engineering, an ability to collaborate in a cross-functional team of world-class developers, and skill in designing and implementing robust, easy to maintain code.

Deep Skill Set

The job requirements are fairly steep asking for more than a half decade experience in software engineering in the more rare Objective-C/Cocoa programming language that Apple utilizes with its Mac OS X development tools and system. These programmers would, undoubtedly, be class-A Mac OS X developers able to innovate on Apple's latest API's and development standards.

In addition to experience with multimedia architectures and API's such as QuickTime, Core Audio, and Core Video, Pixar is looking for a person with, hopefully, experience developing similar multimedia applications.

New Pixar Software

The job post specifically states that this person would be creating "new" software for the studio. Whether this software is meant to replace other tools on other OS platforms is not mentioned in the post. It may indeed be focused on providing equivalent tools which already exist inside of Pixar on UNIX, Linux or Windows platforms.

3D industry users have stated to Architosh over the years that, reportedly, Jobs would like Pixar to utilize more Macintosh computers in its production pipeline. Macs are an essential feature at Pixar, but no more so than other computer platforms. What is not clear from the job post is whether or not this "signals" a sea-change coming at Pixar for the greater adoption of Intel-based Macintosh machines or not. Nor does it help clarify any new software directions the company may be taking in order to maintain its cutting edge lead over other studios and 3d software companies.

With Disney's deep pockets now behind Pixar, the company is in a great position to advance its software expertise; and with Steve Jobs now on the board of directors, Disney is in a great position itself as a studio to secretly leverage Apple to develop unique hardware (Apple-Intel powered hardware) to enable it and its Pixar division to leap-frog the studio competition.

To read the full job post click here.

Architosh Analysis: Some insiders in the Hollywood 3D industry tell us that one of Steve Jobs' personal frustrations with Pixar has been its inability to fully produce its Oscar-winning movies entirely on Mac OS X. The source of that problem -- whether or not it is indeed a true frustration point of Jobs is besides the point -- is Apple's hardware performance under PowerPC. It has only been very recently that Apple's Power Mac workstations could come with a world-class "workstation" graphics card. But all this is changing very quickly now with Apple's adoption of Intel chips. Upcoming quad-core Intel chips could be ideal for new Apple workstations and renderfarm rack servers. Hmm?

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