Bill Ballew, CTO of DreamWorks Animation, to Keynote
Every summer, we host Open Source Days to bring together technical leaders, software engineers, developers, pipeline supervisors, technical directors and anyone else who touches open source software, for two days of presentations, collaboration and networking. This year’s Open Source Days takes place July 19-20, 2026 at the J.W. Marriott L.A. Live hotel, and we are excited to share the lineup!
Open Source Days consists of two main components:
- July 19: Open Source Days Main Program in-person in Los Angeles
- July 20: A full day of open source Birds of a Feature sessions within SIGGRAPH
Open Source Days Main Program: Sunday, July 19, 2026
In this year’s Open Source Days keynote, Bill Ballew will discuss the evolution of MoonRay as it transitioned from a proprietary DreamWorks tool to a cornerstone of open-source rendering. The talk will cover the technical challenges of “breaking out” of the studio, the strategy and lessons learned on building a sustainable community, and why ASWF is the vital next chapter for the project.
Additional presentations include:
- Adopting Open Standards: Blender’s Journey on Supporting OpenPBR – Sebastian Herholz and Francesco Siddi, Blender
- ASC StEM3-VP – Virtual Production Evaluation Assets Joining DPEL – Jim Geduldick, Spaceboy Labs and Jay Holben, Independent Director and Producer
- On Color Fidelity: Applying 2D Scene-Referred Color Reproduction Standards to 3D Artwork Reproduction – Scott Geffert, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Building Studio-safe AI Open Source Workflows – Collin Dutter, Griptape by Foundry
- Bringing Arbitrary MaterialX BSDF Networks To RenderMan XPU – Francisco Gonzalez, Pixar Animation Studios and Jonathan Stone, Lucasfilm
- OpenUSD Proposals Across Domains: Challenges and Methodology – Aaron Luk, NVIDIA and Nick Porcino, Pixar
View the full schedule here.
Registration is only $50 for the main program on July 19 and includes: keynotes and presentations, coffee breaks + snacks, lunch, event t-shirt, and our popular Beers of a Feather social mixer at Prank Bar from 5:30-8:30 PM.
Employees of ASWF member companies and their subsidiaries are eligible to receive complimentary registration before July 1, 2026 as part of your company’s membership. Please reach out to your Board or TAC rep for the registration code or email events@aswf.io.
Interested in becoming an ASWF member? Click here.
SIGGRAPH Open Source Birds of a Feather Sessions: Monday, July 20, 2026
As part of the SIGGRAPH conference, ASWF will host a full day of in-person Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions on Monday, July 20, at the J.W. Marriott. Attendees must be registered for SIGGRAPH at the “Full Conference” or “Experience” levels in order to attend the BoF sessions. The full schedule of BoFs will be posted soon on the SIGGRAPH website and at this link: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-days/program/schedule/
