Open Shading Language


Open Shading Language is a shading language developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks, a Canadian visual effects and computer animation studio headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia and Montreal, Quebec, with an additional office on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California, a unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Motion Picture Group, which through an intermediate holding company called Sony Film Holding Inc., it is operated as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., which is itself a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, for use in its Arnold Renderer. It is also supported by Illumination Research's 3Delight renderer, Otoy's Octane Render, V-Ray 3, Redshift, and the Cycles render engine in Blender. OSL's surface and volume shaders define how surfaces or volumes scatter light in a way that allows for importance sampling; thus, it is well suited for physically based renderers that support ray tracing and global illumination.
RenderMan has limited OSL support that is used only for patterns; i.e. without any material closure functionality. It is modified there for better AVX2 and AVX-512 instruction set support with doubled performance.
Release 1.12 supports C++14 as default, but also newer C++17 and C++20. OpenImageIO support will be dropped for 2.0 with support of 2.2. Minimum OpenEXR Version changes up to 2.3. SIMD Batch shader Mode and OptiX support are in development and experimental. CUDA 11 and OptiX 7.1 are here supported levels. 1.12.6 is supported in Blender 3.4. 1.12.6.2 is the first new release of the 1.12 series with a stable API. 1.12.13 is the current version.

Origin

Larry Gritz explain origin of Open Shading Language:

Movies

Many movies made in 2012 or later have used OSL, including:Men in Black 3 The Amazing Spider-Man Hotel Transylvania Edge of Tomorrow Ant-Man

2017

The Lego Batman MovieThe Great WallA Cure for WellnessLoganPower RangersLifeSmurfs: The Lost VillageThe Fate of the FuriousAlien CovenantGuardians of the Galaxy 2The MummyWonder WomanCars 3Baby DriverSpider-Man: HomecomingDunkirkThe Emoji MovieDetroitKingsman: The Golden CircleThe Lego Ninjago MovieBlade Runner 2049GeostormCocoJustice League

2018

Peter RabbitBlack PantherAnnihilationRed SparrowPacific Rim UprisingAvengers Infinity WarDeadpool 2Incredibles 2Jurassic World: Fallen KingdomHotel Transylvania 3: Summer VacationAnt Man and the WaspSkyscraperMission Impossible: FalloutThe MegKinSmallfootAlphaVenomFirst ManBad Times at the El RoyaleFantastic Beasts: The Crimes of GrindelwaldBohemian RhapsodyHolmes and Watson
  • ''Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse''

2019

The Kid Who Would Be KingAlita: Battle AngelLego Movie 2Lucky 13 Captain MarvelTriple FrontierAvengers: EndgamePokémon Detective PikachuGodzilla: King of MonstersRim of the WorldJohn Wick 3 ParabellumMen in Black InternationalToy Story 4Spider-Man: Far From HomeHobbs & ShawAngry Birds 2The Art of Racing in the RainSecret Life of PetsThe Mandalorian The Dark Crystal: Age of ResistanceThe KingJumanji: The Next LevelRichard JewellGame of Thrones Lost in Space
  • ''Togo''

2020

UnderwaterBirds of PreyOnwardBloodshotGreyhoundThe Old GuardMulanTenetThe New MutantsArtemis FowlThe Eight HundredOver the MoonWonder Woman 1984Soul
  • ''The Mandalorian''

2021 / upcoming

Chaos WalkingPeter Rabbit 2: The RunawayThe Falcon and the Winter SoldierSecret Magic Control AgencyZack Snyder's Justice LeagueThe Mitchells vs the MachinesJupiter's LegacyLuca
  • ''F9''