MoonRay, DreamWorks Animation's Open Source Production Renderer, Joins the Academy Software Foundation

© DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

MoonRay is an open source path-tracing renderer that has been used on every DreamWorks Animation feature film since 2019 including most recently The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2

At-a-Glance:

• The Academy Software Foundation welcomes MoonRay, developed by DreamWorks Animation, as its newest hosted project.
• MoonRay is an open source path-tracing renderer used for visual effects and animation — released under the Apache 2.0 license and developed in C++ with a USD Hydra render delegate.
• MoonRay joins 20+ existing ASWF projects, including OpenColorIO, OpenEXR, OpenVDB, OpenTimelineIO, and Open Shading Language.
• Bill Ballew, CTO of DreamWorks Animation, will keynote ASWF Open Source Days, July 19-20 in Los Angeles.
• The Call for Proposals to speak at ASWF Open Source Days is currently open until May 24, 2026. Submit a talk at events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-days.

Los Angeles, CA – May 22, 2026 – The Academy Software Foundation, the leading open source foundation for advancing open source software in motion pictures, visual effects, and animation, today announced that MoonRay, the open source production path-tracing renderer developed by DreamWorks Animation, has joined the Foundation as a hosted project. MoonRay has rendered every DreamWorks Animation 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.

“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. It can deliver a broad 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. 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,” said Bill Ballew, Chief Technology Officer at DreamWorks Animation.

© DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Key MoonRay Features

Additional high-performance features in MoonRay include an Apache 2.0 license, 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.

"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,” said Jeff Budsberg, Visual Effects Supervisor on The Wild Robot at DreamWorks Animation.

Moving forward, 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 via the ASWF Slack workspace at slack.aswf.io.

ASWF Open Source Days 2026 Keynote

On the heels of MoonRay joining the Academy Software Foundation, DreamWorks Animation’s CTO Bill Ballew will deliver the keynote address at the Foundation’s upcoming Open Source Days event on July 19-20, 2026 in Los Angeles, CA.

Hosted annually by the Academy Software Foundation, Open Source Days is the leading event dedicated to open source software for visual effects, animation, and digital content creation. This year’s event will take place in Los Angeles, coinciding with the SIGGRAPH 2026 Conference.

Ballew’s talk, “How to Train Your Renderer: MoonRay’s Journey from DreamWorks’ Dragons to the ASWF,” will explore the evolution of MoonRay from a proprietary DreamWorks tool to a cornerstone of open source rendering. Ballew will cover the technical challenges of "breaking out" of the studio, the strategy and lessons learned on building a sustainable community, and why the Academy Software Foundation is vital for the project and its path forward.

ASWF Open Source Days 2026 Call for Proposals - Open Through May 24, 2026

The Academy Software Foundation’s Call for Proposals for ASWF Open Source Days 2026 is open through Friday, 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.

About the Academy Software Foundation

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 Academy Software Foundation is home to 21 projects and four working groups. For more information about the Academy Software Foundation, visit https://www.aswf.io/.

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Media Contact:
Emily Olin, pr@aswf.io