Loren Carpenter, an American computer graphics researcher and developer, died on December 21, 2025, at age 78.
Born in Brighton, Michigan, on February 7, 1947, he was a founding employee and chief scientist at Pixar Animation Studios. Carpenter was the co-inventor of the Reyes rendering algorithm and one of the authors of the PhotoRealistic RenderMan software, which implements Reyes and renders all of Pixar’s movies.
He was also credited with inventing the name. After Disney acquired Pixar, Carpenter became a senior research scientist at Disney Research.
Loren Clayton Carpenter (February 7, 1947 – December 21, 2025) was an American computer graphics researcher and developer.