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Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

pixarinabox.org

1–10 of 69 posts

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#2
Hey HN! My name is Brit Cruise and I'm the lead content developer on the Khan Academy side of this equation (working alongside Tony DeRose from Pixar...plus a village of others), if you have any specific questions about this project I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#3

Hey HN! My name is Brit Cruise and I'm the lead content developer on the Khan Academy side of this equation (working alongside Tony DeRose from Pixar...plus a village of others), if you have any specific questions about this project I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Looks pretty interesting. Was the domain for the content a Khan Academy decision, or was that just personal prerogative?

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#4
Love this. So important to show kids that there really are applications for the stuff they are learning in math classes, and computer graphics are such a direct way to see that connection. As a kid, I think the main reasons I cared about things like equations of motion or trigonometric functions were because I was using them to do stuff like animate bouncing balls.

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#5
post #3

Hey HN! My name is Brit Cruise and I'm the lead content developer on the Khan Academy side of this equation (working alongside Tony DeRose from Pixar...plus a village of others), if you have any specific questions about this project I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Looks pretty interesting. Was the domain for the content a Khan Academy decision, or was that just personal prerogative?

The initial idea for this content came from Pixar (Tony DeRose had given talks in the past showing connections between math and the movies - see here a video he did with numberphile a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzTAaYgk4Q). The goal was to turn that sort of thing into a series of interactive lessons.

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#6

Hey HN! My name is Brit Cruise and I'm the lead content developer on the Khan Academy side of this equation (working alongside Tony DeRose from Pixar...plus a village of others), if you have any specific questions about this project I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Not a comment about this specifically, but I'm a big fan of your other courses on Khan Academy. They changed the way I think about the world. I can't overstate how grateful I am that you created them.

Everyone should check out these lessons:

Journey into cryptography: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/crypt...

Journey into information theory: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/infor...

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#7

Hey HN! My name is Brit Cruise and I'm the lead content developer on the Khan Academy side of this equation (working alongside Tony DeRose from Pixar...plus a village of others), if you have any specific questions about this project I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Not a comment about this specifically, but I'm a big fan of your other courses on Khan Academy. They changed the way I think about the world. I can't overstate how grateful I am that you created them. Everyone should check out these lessons: Journey into cryptography: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/crypt... Journey into information theory: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science…

[deleted]

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#8
It's interesting that the Rendering chapter only covers ray tracing, while most classic Pixar movies were actually mainly rendered using the Reyes algorithm, which is a form of rasterization.

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#9
I think the name "Pixar in a Box" sounds like a neat play on words on the term "Particle in a Box" from quantum mechanics. Sometimes, it's called an "infinite potential well".

So the title appears to come from the suggestion that there'a a well of infinite potential in terms of creative usages of math in computer animation. Or at least that's what I read into it.

Re: Pixar in a Box – Khan Academy

#10
post #8

It's interesting that the Rendering chapter only covers ray tracing, while most classic Pixar movies were actually mainly rendered using the Reyes algorithm, which is a form of rasterization.

Isn't Reyes essentially a speed hack [1]? As so, is it particularly relevant to learn about today in introductory material?

[1] by which i mean, inferior estimation of BSDF on/in model, but much much faster.

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